A Century of English Essays
An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time (2024)

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A very small number of printer's errors have been corrected by reference to other editions.

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Everyman's Library

Edited by Ernest Rhys

ESSAYS

A Century of English Essays Chosen by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan

* * * * *

This is No. 653 of Everyman's Library. The publishers will bepleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published andprojected volumes arranged under the following sections:

TRAVEL * SCIENCE * FICTION

THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY

HISTORY * CLASSICAL

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

ESSAYS * ORATORY

POETRY & DRAMA

BIOGRAPHY

REFERENCE

ROMANCE

In four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather,round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin.

LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Most current … For that they come home to men'sbusiness & bosoms.—Lord Bacon]

[Illustration: A CENTURY of ENGLISH ESSAYS: an ANTHOLOGY RANGING FROM
CAXTON TO R. L. STEVENSON & THE WRITERS OF OUR OWN TIME.

LONDON TORONTO & PARIS: J.M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON AND
CO.]

First Issue of this Edition 1913
Reprinted 1915, 1916

INTRODUCTION

This is a book of short essays which have been chosen with the fullliberty the form allows, but with the special idea of illustratinglife, manners and customs, and at intervals filling in the Englishcountry background. The longer essays, especially those devoted tocriticism and to literature, are put aside for another volume, astheir different mode seems to require. But the development of the artin all its congenial variety has been kept in mind from the beginning;and any page in which the egoist has revealed a mood, or the gossipstruck on a vein of real experience, or the wise vagabond sketched abit of road or countryside, has been thought good enough, so long asit helped to complete the round. And any writer has been admitted whocould add some more vivid touch or idiom to that personal halfmeditative, half colloquial style which gives this kind of writing itscharm.

We have generally been content to date the beginning of the Essay inEnglish from Florio's translation of Montaigne. That work appearedtowards the end of Queen Elizabeth's time, in 1603, and no doubt ithad the effect of setting up the form as a recognized genre inprose. But as we go back behind Florio and Montaigne, and behindFrancis Bacon who has been called our "first essayist," we come uponvarious experiments as we might call them—essays towards the essay,attempts to work that vein, discursively pertinent and richlyreminiscent, out of which the essay was developed. Accordingly for abeginning the line has been carried back to the earliest point whereany English prose occurs that is marked with the gossip's seal. A leafor two of Chaucer's prose, a garrulous piece of the craftsman'sdelight in his work from Caxton, and one or two other detachablefragments of the same kind, may help us to realize that there was apredisposition to the essay, long before there was any conscious andrepeated use of the form itself. By continuing the record in this waywe have the advantage of being able to watch its relation to the wholegrowth in the freer art of English prose. That is a connection indeedin which all of us are interested, because however little we write,whether for our friends only, or for the newspapers, we have toattempt sooner or later something which is virtually an essay ineveryday English. There is no form of writing in which the fluid idiomof the language can be seen to better effect in its changes and in itsmovement. There is none in which the play of individuality, and thepersonal way of looking at things, and the grace and whimsicality ofman or woman, can be so well fitted with an agreeable and responsiveinstrument. When Sir Thomas Elyot in his "Castle of Health" deprecates"cruel and yrous[1] schoolmasters by whom the wits of children bedulled," and when Caxton tells us "that age creepeth on me daily andfeebleth all the body," and that is why he has hastened to ordain inprint the Recule of the Historeys of Troyes, and when Roger Aschamdescribes the blowing of the wind and how it took the loose snow withit and made it so slide upon the hard and crusted snow in the fieldthat he could see the whole nature of the wind in that act, we aregradually made aware of a particular fashion, a talking mode (shall wesay?) of writing, as natural, almost as easy as speech itself; onethat was bound to settle itself at length, and take on a propitiousfashion of its own.

[Footnote 1: Irascible.]

But when we try to decide where it is exactly that the bounds of theessay are to be drawn, we have to admit that so long as it obeys thelaw of being explicit, casually illuminative of its theme, and germaneto the intellectual mood of its writer, then it may follow pretty muchits own devices. It may be brief as Lord Verulam sometimes made it, amere page or two; it may be long as Carlyle's stupendous essay on theNiebelungenlied, which is almost a book in itself. It may be grave andurbane in Sir William Temple's courtly style; it may be Elian as Elia,or ripe and suave like the "Spectator" and the "Tatler." The oneclause that it cannot afford to neglect is that it be entertaining,easy to read, pleasant to remember. It may preach, but it must neverbe a sermon; it may moralize, but it must never be too forbidding; itmay be witty, high-spirited, effervescent as you like, but it mustnever be flippant or betray a mean spirit or a too conscious cleverpen.

Montaigne, speaking through the mouth of Florio, touched upon a nicepoint in the economy of the essay when he said that "what a mandirectly knoweth, that will he dispose of without turning still to hisbook or looking to his pattern. A mere bookish sufficiency isunpleasant." The essayist, in fact, must not be over literary, andyet, if he have the habit, like Montaigne or Charles Lamb, ofdelighting in old authors and in their favourite expressions and greatphrases, so that that habit has become part of his life, then hisessays will gain in richness by an inspired pedantry. Indeed the essayas it has gone on has not lost by being a little self-conscious of itsfunction and its right to insist on a fine prose usage and a choiceeconomy of word and phrase.

The most perfect balance of the art on its familiar side as hererepresented, and after my Lord Verulam, is to be found, I suppose, inthe creation of "Sir Roger de Coverley." Goldsmith's "Man in Black"runs him very close in that saunterer's gallery, and Elia's people aremore real to us than our own acquaintances in flesh and blood. It isworth note, perhaps, how often the essayists had either been amongpoets like Hazlitt, or written poetry like Goldsmith, or had theadvantage of both recognizing the faculty in others and using itthemselves, like Charles Lamb; and if we were to take the lyricaltemperament, as Ferdinand Brunetière did in accounting for certainFrench writers, and relate it to some personal asseveration of theemotion of life, we might end by claiming the essayists as dilutelyrists, engaged in pursuing a rhythm too subtle for verse andlifelike as common-room gossip.

And just as we may say there is a lyric tongue, which the true poetsof that kind have contributed to form, so there is an essayist's styleor way with words—something between talking and writing. You realizeit when you hear Dame Prudence, who is the Mother of the Englishessay, discourse on Riches; Hamlet, a born essayist, speak on acting;T.T., a forgotten essayist of 1614, with an equal turn for homily,write on "Painting the Face"; or the "Tatler" make good English out ofthe first thing that comes to hand. It is partly a question of art,partly of temperament; and indeed paraphrasing Steele we may say thatthe success of an essay depends upon the make of the body and theformation of the mind, of him who writes it. It needs a certain way ofturning the pen, and a certain intellectual gesture, which cannot beacquired, and cannot really be imitated.

It remains to acknowledge the friendly aid of those living essayistswho are still maintaining the standards and have contributed to thebook. This contemporary roll includes the Right Hon. AugustineBirrell, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. G.K. Chesterton, Mr. Austin Dobson,Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. E.V. Lucas, Mrs. Meynell, Mr. Edward Thomas andMr. W.B. Yeats. In addition a formal acknowledgment is due to Messrs.Chatto and Windus for leave to include an essay by Robert LouisStevenson; to Messrs. Longmans and Co. for an essay of RichardJefferies; and Messrs. Methuen and Co. for two by Mr. Lucas, and oneby Mr. Belloc. Mr. A.H. Bullen has very kindly given his free consentin the case of "The Last of the Gleemen,"—a boon to be grateful for.Without these later pages, the book would be like the hat of TomLizard's ceremonious old gentleman, whose story, he said, would nothave been worth a farthing if the brim had been any narrower. As tothe actual omissions, they are due either to the limits of the volume,or to the need of keeping the compass in regard to both the subjectsand the writers chosen. American essayists are left for another day;as are those English writers, like Sir William Temple and Bolingbroke,Macaulay and Matthew Arnold, who have given us the essay in literaryfull dress.

E.R.

* * * * *

The following is a bibliography in brief of the chief works drawn uponfor the selection:

Caxton, Morte D'Arthur, 1485; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1532; Bacon,
Essays, 1740; Thos. Dekker, Gull's Horn Book, 1608; Jeremy Taylor,
Holy Dying, 1651; Thos. Fuller, Holy and Profane States, 1642; Cowley,
Prose Works, Several Discourses, 1668; The Guardian, 1729; The
Examiner, 1710; The Tatler, 1709; Wm. Cobbett, Rural Rides, 1830;
Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, 1762; Addison and Steele, The
Spectator, 1711; The Rambler, 1750-52; The Adventurer, 1753; Lamb,
Essays of Elia, 1823, 1833; Hazlitt, Comic Writers, 1819; Table Talk,
1821-22; The New Monthly Magazine, 1826-27; Coleridge, Literaria
Biographia, 1817; Wordsworth, Prose Works, 1876; John Brown, Rab and
his Friends, 1858; Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, 1863; Carlyle,
Edinburgh Review, 1831; Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, 1857;
Shelley, Essays, 1840; Leigh Hunt, The Indicator, 1820; Mary Russell
Mitford, Our Village, 1827-32; De Quincey, Collected Works, 1853-60;
R.L. Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, 1887; Edmund Gosse (The
Realm), 1895; Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1892; Alice
Meynell, Colour of Life, 1896; G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant, 1901;
E.V. Lucas, Fireside and Sunshine, 1906, Character and Comedy, 1907;
Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta (second series), 1887; W.B. Yeats,
Celtic Twilight, 1893; Edward Thomas, The South Country, 1909; Hilaire
Belloc, First and Last, 1911.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction vii

1. A Printer's Prologue
Wm. Caxton, Morte D'Arthur 1

2. Dame Prudence on Riches
Geoffrey Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus 4

3. Of Painting the Face
T.T., New Essays, 1614 8

4. Hamlet's Advice to the Players
Shakespeare, Hamlet 10

5. Of Adversity
Francis Bacon, Essays 11

6. Of Travel
" " " 12

7. Of Wisdom for a Man's Self
" " " 14

8. Of Ambition
" " " 15

9. Of Gardens
" " " 17

10. Of Studies
" " " 22

11. The Good Schoolmaster
Thomas Fuller, Holy and Profane States 24

12. On Death
Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Holy Dying 27

13. Of Winter
Thomas Dekker 30

14. How a Gallant should behave himself in a Play-house
Thomas Dekker, Gull's Horn Book 31

15. Of Myself
Abraham Cowley, Discourses 35

16. The Grand Elixir
Pope, The Guardian, No. 11 39

17. Jack Lizard
Steele, The Guardian, No. 24 43

18. A Meditation upon a Broomstick, According to the Style and
Manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's Meditations
Swift, Prose Writings 47

19. Pulpit Eloquence
Swift, The Tatler, No. 66 48

20. The Art of Political Lying
Swift, The Examiner, No. 15 51

21. A Rural Ride
Wm. Cobbett, Rural Rides 56

22. The Man in Black (1)
Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, No. 25 58

23. " " " (2)
" " " " No. 26 61

24. Old Maids and Bachelors
" " " " No. 27 66

25. The Important Trifler
" " " " No. 53 69

26. The Trifler's Household
" " " " No. 54 72

27. Westminster Hall
" " " " No. 97 75

28. The Little Beau
" " " " No. 98 78

29. The Club
Steele, The Spectator 80

30. The Meeting of the Club
Addison " " 85

31. Sir Roger de Coverley at Home (1)
" " " 88

32. " " " " (2)
" " " 91

33. " " " " (3)
Steele " " 94

34. " " " " (4)
Addison " " 97

35. Sir Roger at Church
" " " 100

36. Sir Roger on the Widow
Steele " " 103

37. Sir Roger in the Hunting Field
Addison " " 107

38. Sir Roger at the Assizes
" " " 110

39. Gipsies
" " " 114

40. Witches
" " " 117

41. Sir Roger at Westminster Abbey
" " " 120

42. Sir Roger at the Play
" " " 123

43. Sir Roger at Spring-Garden
" " " 126

44. Death of Sir Roger
" " " 129

45. A Stage Coach Journey
Steele " " 131

46. A Journey from Richmond
" " " 135

47. A Prize Fight
" " " 139

48. Good Temper
" " " 144

49. The Employments of a Housewife in the Country
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 51 147

50. The Stage Coach
" " The Adventurer, No. 84 152

51. The Scholar's Complaint of His Own Bashfulness
Johnson, The Rambler, No. 157 156

52. The Misery of a Modish Lady in Solitude
Johnson, The Rambler, No. 42 160

53. The History of an Adventurer in Lotteries
Johnson, The Rambler, No. 181 164

54. Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago
Lamb, Essays of Elia 168

55. All Fools' Day
" " 180

56. Witches, and Other Night-Fears
" " 184

57. My First Play
" " 190

58. Dream-Children; a Reverie
" " 194

59. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers
" " 198

60. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig
" " 205

61. Poor Relations
" " 211

62. The Child Angel
" " 218

63. Old China
" " 220

64. Popular Fallacies (I)
" " 226

65. " " (II)
" " 227

66. " " (III)
" " 228

67. Whitsun-Eve
Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village 230

68. On Going a Journey
Hazlitt, Essays 234

69. On Living to One's-Self
" " 244

70. Of Persons One would wish to have seen
" " 257

71. On a Sun-Dial
" " 271

72. Of the Feeling of Immortality in Youth
Hazlitt, The New Monthly Magazine 280

73. A Vision
Coleridge, A Lay Sermon, 1817 292

74. Upon Epitaphs
Wordsworth 297

75. Jeems the Doorkeeper
John Brown, Rab and His Friends 311

76. On Life
Shelley, Essays 323

77. Walking Stewart
De Quincey, Notes of an Opium Eater 327

78. On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
De Quincey, Collected Essays 340

79. The Daughter of Lebanon
" " " 345

80. Getting up on Cold Mornings
Leigh Hunt, Essays, Indicator, 1820 351

81. The Old Gentleman
" " " " 355

82. The Old Lady
" " " " 359

83. The Maid-Servant
" " " " 363

84. Characteristics
Carlyle, Miscellanies 366

85. Tunbridge Toys
Thackeray, Roundabout Papers 404

86. Night Walks
Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller 410

87. "A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured"
R. L. Stevenson, Memories and Portraits 419

88. July Grass
Richard Jefferies, Field and Hedgerow 425

89. Worn-out Types
Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta 428

90. Book-buying
" " " " 433

91. The Whole Duty of Woman
Edmund Gosse, The Realm, 1895 436

92. Steele's Letters
Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Vignettes 441

93. A Defence of Nonsense
G. K. Chesterton, The Defendant 446

94. The Colour of Life
Alice Meynell, The Colour of Life 450

95. A Funeral
E. V. Lucas, Character and Comedy 453

96. Fires
" " Fireside and Sunshine 456

97. The Last Gleeman
W. B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight 462

98. A Brother of St. Francis
Grace Rhys, The Vineyard 467

99. The Pilgrim's Way
Edward Thomas, The South Country 469

100. On a Great Wind
H. Belloc, First and Last 471

A CENTURY OF ESSAYS

A PRINTER'S PROLOGUE

After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as wellof contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of greatconquerors and princes, and also of certain books of ensamples anddoctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England,came and demanded me, many and ofttimes, why that I did not cause tobe imprinted the noble history of the Sancgreal, and of the mostrenowned Christian king, first and chief of the three best Christianand worthy, King Arthur, which ought most to be remembered among usEnglishmen, before all other Christian kings; for it is notoriouslyknown, through the universal world, that there be nine worthy and thebest that ever were, that is, to wit, three Paynims, three Jews, andthree Christian men. As for the Paynims, they were before theIncarnation of Christ, which were named, the first, Hector of Troy, ofwhom the history is common, both in ballad and in prose; the second,Alexander the Great; and the third, Julius Cæsar, Emperor of Rome, ofwhich the histories be well known and had. And as for the three Jews,which also were before the Incarnation of our Lord, of whom the firstwas Duke Joshua, which brought the children of Israel into the land ofbehest; the second was David, King of Jerusalem; and the third JudasMaccabeus. Of these three, the Bible rehearseth all their noblehistories and acts. And, since the said Incarnation, have been threenoble Christian men, stalled and admitted through the universal world,into the number of the nine best and worthy: of whom was first, thenoble Arthur, whose noble acts I purpose to write in this present bookhere following; the second was Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, ofwhom the history is had in many places, both in French and in English;and the third, and last, was Godfrey of Boulogne, of whose acts andlife I made a book unto the excellent prince and king, of noblememory, King Edward the Fourth.

The said noble gentlemen instantly required me for to imprint thehistory of the said noble king and conqueror, King Arthur, and of hisknights, with the history of the Sancgreal, and of the death andending of the said Arthur, affirming that I ought rather to imprinthis acts and noble feats, than of Godfrey of Boulogne, or any of theother eight, considering that he was a man born within this realm, andking and emperor of the same; and that there be in French divers andmany noble volumes of his acts, and also of his knights. To whom Ihave answered, that divers men hold opinion that there was no suchArthur, and that all such books as be made of him be but feigned andfables, because that some chronicles make of him no mention, norremember him nothing, nor of his knights. Whereto they answered, andone in especial said, that in him that should say or think that therewas never such a king called Arthur, might well be aretted great follyand blindness; for he said there were many evidences to the contrary.First ye may see his sepulchre in the monastery of Glastonbury. Andalso in Policronicon, in the fifth book, the sixth chapter, and in theseventh book, the twenty-third chapter, where his body was buried, andafter found, and translated into the said monastery. Ye shall see alsoin the History of Bochas, in his book De Casu Principum, part of hisnoble acts, and also of his fall. Also Galfridus, in his British book,recounteth his life. And in divers places of England, manyremembrances be yet of him, and shall remain perpetually of him, andalso of his knights. First, in the Abbey of Westminster, at St.Edward's shrine, remaineth the print of his seal in red wax closed inberyl, in which is written—"Patricius Arthurus Britanniæ, Galliæ,Germaniæ, Daciæ Imperator." Item in the castle of Dover ye may see SirGawaine's skull, and Cradok's mantle: at Winchester, the Round Table:in other places Sir Launcelot's sword, and many other things. Then allthese things considered, there can no man reasonably gainsay but thatthere was a king of this land named Arthur: for in all the places,Christian and heathen, he is reputed and taken for one of the nineworthies, and the first of the three Christian men. And also he ismore spoken beyond the sea, and more books made of his noble acts,than there be in England, as well in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, andGreek, as in French. And yet of record, remaineth in witness of him inWales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones, and the marvellousworks of iron lying under the ground, and royal vaults, which diversnow living have seen. Wherefore it is a great marvel why that he is nomore renowned in his own country, save only it accordeth to the wordof God, which saith, that no man is accepted for a prophet in his owncountry. Then all things aforesaid alleged, I could not well deny butthat there was such a noble king named Arthur, and reputed for one ofthe nine worthies, and first and chief of the Christian men. And manynoble volumes be made of him and of his noble knights in French, whichI have seen and read beyond the sea, which be not had in our maternaltongue. But in Welsh be many, and also in French, and some in English,but nowhere nigh all. Wherefore, such as have late been drawn outbriefly into English, I have, after the simple cunning that God hathsent me, under the favour and correction of all noble lords andgentlemen enprised to imprint a book of the noble histories of thesaid King Arthur, and of certain of his knights after a copy unto medelivered; which copy Sir Thomas Malory did take out of certain booksof French, and reduced it into English. And I, according to my copy,have down set it in print, to the intent that noble men may see andlearn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous deeds thatsome knights used in those days, by which they came to honour, and howthey that were vicious were punished, and oft put to shame and rebuke;humbly beseeching all noble lords and ladies, with all other estatesof what state or degree they be of, that shall see and read in thispresent book and work, that they take the good and honest acts intheir remembrance, and follow the same. Wherein they shall find manyjoyous and pleasant histories, and the noble and renowned acts ofhumanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For, herein may be seen noblechivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love,friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after thegood, and leave the evil, and it shall bring you unto good fame andrenown. And, for to pass the time, this book shall be pleasant to readin, but for to give faith and belief that all is true that iscontained herein, ye be at your own liberty. But all is written forour doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, butto exercise and follow virtue, by the which we may come and attain togood fame and renown in this life, and after this short and transitorylife to come unto everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant usthat reigneth in heaven, the blessed Trinity. Amen.

William Caxton.

DAME PRUDENCE ON RICHES

When Prudence had heard her husband avaunt himself of his riches andof his money, dispreising the power of his adversaries, she spake andsaid in this wise: Certes, dear sir, I grant you that ye ben rich andmighty, and that riches ben good to 'em that han well ygetten 'em, andthat well can usen 'em; for, right as the body of a man may not livenwithouten soul, no more may it liven withouten temporal goods, and byriches may a man get him great friends; and therefore saith Pamphilus:If a neatherd's daughter be rich, she may chese of a thousand menwhich she wol take to her husband; for of a thousand men one wol notforsaken her ne refusen her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou beright happy, that is to sayn, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find agreat number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, thatthou wax poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt beall alone withouten any company, but if[2] it be the company of poorfolk. And yet saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that ben bondand thrall of linage shuln be made worthy and noble by riches. Andright so as by riches there comen many goods, right so by poverty comethere many harms and evils; and therefore clepeth Cassiodore, povertythe mother of ruin, that is to sayn, the mother of overthrowing orfalling down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse: One of the greatestadversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, isconstrained by poverty to eaten the alms of his enemy. And the samesaith Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful andmishappy is the condition of a poor beggar, for if he ax not his meathe dieth of hunger, and if he ax he dieth for shame; and algatesnecessity constraineth him to ax; and therefore saith Solomon: Thatbetter it is to die than for to have such poverty; and, as the sameSolomon saith: Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to livenin such wise. By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by manyother reasons that I could say, I grant you that riches ben good to'em that well geten 'em and to him that well usen tho' riches; andtherefore wol I shew you how ye shulen behave you in gathering of yourriches, and in what manner ye shulen usen 'em.

[Footnote 2: Except.]

First, ye shuln geten 'em withouten great desire, by good leisure,sokingly, and not over hastily, for a man that is too desiring to getriches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other evils; andtherefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to wax rich,he shall be non innocent: he saith also, that the riches that hastilycometh to a man, soon and lightly goeth and passeth from a man, butthat riches that cometh little and little, waxeth alway andmultiplieth. And, sir, ye shuln get riches by your wit and by yourtravail, unto your profit, and that withouten wrong or harm doing toany other person; for the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich,if he do harm to another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendethand forbiddeth by right, that no man make himself rich unto the harmof another person. And Tullius saith: That no sorrow, ne no dread ofdeath, ne nothing that may fall unto a man, is so muckle agains natureas a man to increase his own profit to harm of another man. And thoughthe great men and the mighty men geten riches more lightly than thou,yet shalt thou not ben idle ne slow to do thy profit, for thou shaltin all wise flee idleness; for Solomon saith: That idleness teacheth aman to do many evils; and the same Solomon saith: That he thattravaileth and busieth himself to tillen his lond, shall eat bread,but he that is idle, and casteth him to no business ne occupation,shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And he that is idle andslow can never find convenable time for to do his profit; for there isa versifier saith, that the idle man excuseth him in winter because ofthe great cold, and in summer then by encheson of the heat. For thesecauses, saith Caton, waketh and inclineth you not over muckle tosleep, for over muckle rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; andtherefore saith St. Jerome: Doeth some good deeds, that the devil,which is our enemy, ne find you not unoccupied, for the devil hetaketh not lightly unto his werking such as he findeth occupied ingood werks.

Then thus in getting riches ye musten flee idleness; and afterward yeshuln usen the riches which ye ban geten by your wit and by yourtravail, in such manner, than men hold you not too scarce, ne toosparing, ne fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; forright as men blamen an avaricious man because of his scarcity andchinchery, in the same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely;and therefore saith Caton: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hastygeten in such manner, that men have no matter ne cause to call theenother wretch ne chinch, for it is a great shame to a man to have apoor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: The goods that thou hastygeten, use 'em by measure, that is to sayn, spend measureably, forthey that folily wasten and despenden the goods that they han, whenthey han no more proper of 'eir own, that they shapen 'em to take thegoods of another man. I say, then, that ye shuln flee avarice, usingyour riches in such manner, that men sayen not that your riches benyburied, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding; fora wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two verse:Whereto and why burieth a man his goods by his great avarice, andknoweth well that needs must he die, for death is the end of every manas in this present life? And for what cause or encheson joineth hehim, or knitteth he him so fast unto his goods, that all his witsmowen not disseveren him or departen him fro his goods, and knowethwell, or ought to know, that when he is dead he shall nothing bearwith him out of this world? and therefore saith St. Augustine, thatthe avaricious man is likened unto hell, that the more it swalloweththe more desire it hath to swallow and devour. And as well as ye woldeschew to be called an avaricious man or an chinch, as well should yekeep you and govern you in such wise, that men call you notfool-large; therefore, saith Tullius: The goods of thine house neshould not ben hid ne kept so close, but that they might ben opened bypity and debonnairety, that is to sayen, to give 'em part that hangreat need; ne they goods shoulden not ben so open to be every man'sgoods.

Afterward, in getting of your riches, and in using of 'em, ye shulnalway have three things in your heart, that is to say, our Lord God,conscience, and good name. First ye shuln have God in your heart, andfor no riches ye shuln do nothing which may in any manner displeaseGod that is your creator and maker; for, after the word of Solomon, itis better to have a little good, with love of God, than to have mucklegood and lese the love of his Lord God; and the prophet saith, thatbetter it is to ben a good man and have little good and treasure, thanto be holden a shrew and have great riches. And yet I say furthermore,that ye shulden always do your business to get your riches, so that yeget 'em with a good conscience. And the apostle saith, that there nisthing in this world, of which we shulden have so great joy, as whenour conscience beareth us good witness; and the wise man saith: Thesubstance of a man is full good when sin is not in a man's conscience.Afterward, in getting of your riches and in using of 'em, ye must havegreat business and great diligence that your good name be alway keptand conserved; for Solomon saith, that better it is and more itavaileth a man to have a good name than for to have great riches; andtherefore he saith in another place: Do great diligence (saith he) inkeeping of thy friends and of thy good name, for it shall longer abidewith thee than any treasure, be it never so precious; and certainly heshould not be called a gentleman that, after God and good conscienceall things left, ne doth his diligence and business to keepen his goodname; and Cassiodore saith, that it is a sign of a gentle heart, whena man loveth and desireth to have a good name. And therfore saithSeint Augustyn, that ther ben two thinges that ben necessarie andneedful; and that is good conscience and good loos; that is to sayn,good conscience in thin oughne persone in-ward, and good loos of thinneghebor out-ward. And he that trusteth him so muckle in his goodconscience, that he despiseth or setteth at nought his good name orlos, and recketh not though he kept not his good name, n'is but acruel churl.

Chaucer.

OF PAINTING THE FACE

If that which is most ancient be best, then the face that one is bornewith, is better than it that is borrowed: Nature is more ancient thanArt, and Art is allowed to help Nature, but not to hurt it; to mendit, but not to mar it; for perfection, but not for perdition: but thisartificiall facing doth corrupt the naturall colour of it. Indeed Godhath given a man oil for his countenance, as He hath done wine for hisheart, to refresh and cheere it; but this is by reflection and not byplaister-worke; by comforting, and not by dawbing and covering; bymending and helping the naturall colour, and not by marring or hidingit with an artificiall lit. What a miserable vanity is it a man orwoman beholding in a glasse their borrowed face, their boughtcomplexion, to please themselves with a face that is not their owne?And what is the cause they paint? Without doubt nothing but pride ofheart, disdaining to bee behind their neighbour, discontentment withthe worke of God, and vaine glory, or a foolish affectation of thepraise of men. This kind of people are very hypocrites, seeming onething and being another, desiring to bee that in show which theycannot be in substance, and coveting to be judged that, they are not:They are very grosse Deceivers; for they study to delude men withshewes, seeking hereby to bee counted more lovely creatures than theyare, affecting that men should account that naturall, which is butartificiall. I may truly say they are deceivers of themselves; for ifthey thinke they doe well to paint, they are deceived; if they thinkit honest and just to beguile men, and to make them account them moredelicate and amiable, then they are in truth, they are deceived; ifthey thinke it meete that that should bee counted God's worke, whichis their owne, they are deceived: If they thinke that shall not oneday give account unto Christ of idle deeds, such as this, as well asof idle words, they are deceived; if they thinke that God regards notsuch trifles, but leaves them to their free election herein; they aredeceived. Now they that deceive themselves, who shall they be trustedwith? A man, that is taken of himselfe, is in a worse taking than hethat is caught of another. This self-deceiver, is a double sinner: hesinnes in that he is deceived, hee sinnes again in that he dothdeceive himself. To bee murdered of another is not a sin in him thatis murdered; but for a man to be deceived in what he is forbidden, isa sinne; it were better to bee murdered, than so to be deceived: Forthere the body is but killed, but here the soule herself isendangered. Now, how unhappy is the danger, how grievous is the sin,when a man is merely of himself indangered? It is a misery of miseriesfor a man to bee slaine with his owne sword, with his owne hand, andlong of his owne will: Besides, this painting is very scandalous, andof ill report; for any man therefore to use it, is to thwart theprecept of the Holy Ghost in Saint Paul, who saith unto thePhillippians in this wise, Whatsoever things are true (but a paintedface is a false face) whatsoever things are venerable (but who esteemsa painted face venerable?) whatsoever things are just (but will anyman of judgement say, that to paint the face is a point of justice?Who dare say it is according to the will of God which is the rule ofjustice?

Doth the law of God command it? Doth true reason teach it? Doth lawesof men enjoyne it?) whatsoever things are (chaste and) pure: (but ispainting of the face a point of chastity? Is that pure that proceedsout of the impurity of the soule, and which is of deceipt, and tendsunto deceipt? Is that chaste, which is used to wooe mens eyes untoit?) whatsoever things are lovely (but will any man out of a wellinformed judgement say, that this kinde of painting is worthy love, orthat a painted face is worthy to be fancied?) whatsoever things areof good report: If there bee any vertue, if there bee any praise,think on these things. But I hope to paint the face, to weare anartificiall colour, or complexion, is no vertue; neither is it of goodreport amongst the vertuous. I read that Iezabel did practise it, butI find not that any holy Matrone or religious Virgine ever used it:And it may perhaps of some be praised, but doubtlesse not of such asare judicious, but of them rather hated and discommended. A paintedface is the devils Looking-glasse: there hee stands peering andtoying (as an Ape in a looking-glasse) joying to behold himselfetherein; for in it he may reade pride, vanity, and vaine-glory.Painting is an enemy to blushing, which is vertues colour. And indeedhow unworthy are they to bee credited in things of moment, that are sofalse in their haire, or colour, over which age, and sicknesse, andmany accidents doe tyrannize; yea and where their deceipt is easilydiscerned? And whereas the passions and conditions of a man, and hisage, is something discovered by the face, this painting hindereth amans judgement herein, so that if they were as well able to colour theeyes, as they are their haire and faces, a man could discerne littleor nothing in such kind of people. In briefe, these painters aresometimes injurious to those, that are naturally faire and lovely, andno painters; partly, in that these are thought sometimes to beepainted, because of the common use of painting; and partly, in thatthese artificial creatures steal away the praise from the naturallbeauty by reason of their Art, when it is not espyed, whereas were itnot for their cunning, they would not bee deemed equall to the other.It is great pitty that this outlandish vanity is in so much requestand practise with us, as it is.

T. T.

HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly onthe tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had aslief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too muchwith your hand, thus; but use all gently, for in the very torrent,tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you mustacquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, itoffends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow teara passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of thegroundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing butinexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whippedfor o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. Benot too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suitthe action to the word, the word to the action; with this specialobservance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anythingso overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at thefirst and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up tonature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and thevery age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdoneor come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but makethe judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in yourallowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be playersthat I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, notto speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christiansnor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted andbellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had mademen, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. O,reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak nomore than is set down for them: for there be of them that willthemselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators tolaugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the playbe then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitifulambition in the fool that uses it.

Shakespeare.

OF ADVERSITY

It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics):That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; butthe good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Bona rerumsecundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia. Certainly, if miracles bethe command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet ahigher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen): Itis true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and thesecurity of a god. Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis,securitatem dei. This would have done better in poesy, wheretranscendences are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busywith it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in thatstrange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be withoutmystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian:that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom humannature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in anearthen pot or pitcher: lively describing Christian resolution, thatsaileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world.But to speak in a mean. The virtue of prosperity is temperance; thevirtue of adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroicalvirtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity isthe blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, andthe clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament,if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airsas carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more indescribing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Salomon.Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity isnot without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks andembroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad andsolemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon alightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by thepleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, mostfragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth bestdiscover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Francis Bacon.

OF TRAVEL

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, apart of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hathsome entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allowwell; so that he be such a one that hath the language and hath been inthe country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what thingsare worthy to be seen in the country where they go; what acquaintancesthey are to seek; what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth. Forelse young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is astrange thing that in sea-voyages, where there is nothing to be seenbut sky and sea, men should make diaries, but in land-travel, whereinso much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as ifchance were fitter to be registered than observation. Let diaries,therefore, be brought in use. The things to be seen and observed are:the courts of princes, specially when they give audience toambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes,and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries,with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls andfortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours;antiquities and ruins; libraries; colleges, disputations, andlectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens ofstate and pleasure, near great cities; armories; arsenals; magazines;exchanges; burses; warehouses; exercises of horsemanship, fencing,training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto thebetter sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes;cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable inthe places where they go. After all which the tutors or servants oughtto make diligent enquiry. As for triumphs, masques, feasts, weddings,funerals, capital executions, and such shews, men need not to be putin mind of them; yet are they not to be neglected. If you will have ayoung man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time togather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he must have someentrance into the language, before he goeth. Then he must have such aservant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Lethim carry with him also some card or book describing the country wherehe travelleth; which will be a good key to his enquiry. Let him keepalso a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or lessas the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one cityor town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the townto another; which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let himsequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in suchplaces where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth.Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procurerecommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whitherhe removeth; that he may use his favour in those things he desireth tosee or know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As forthe acquaintance which is to be sought in travel; that which is mostof all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employedmen of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he shall suckthe experience of many. Let him also see and visit eminent persons inall kinds, which are of great name abroad; that he may be able to tellhow the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with careand discretion to be avoided: they are commonly for mistresses,healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth companywith choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him intotheir own quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leavethe countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, butmaintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintancewhich are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in hisdiscourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, lethim be rather advised in his answers than forwards to tell stories;and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners forthose of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hathlearned abroad into the customs of his own country.

Francis Bacon.

OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF

An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in anorchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers ofthemselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love andsociety; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others,specially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man'sactions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast uponhis own centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavensmove upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring ofall to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; becausethemselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at theperil of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servantto a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs passsuch a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needsbe often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore letprinces, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; exceptthey mean their service should be made but the accessory. That whichmaketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. Itwere disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferredbefore the master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a littlegood of the servant shall carry things against a great good of themaster's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers,ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which seta bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to theoverthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for themost part, the good such servants receive is after the model of theirown fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the modelof their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extremeself-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but toroast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with theirmasters, because their study is but to please them and profitthemselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of theiraffairs.

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depravedthing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a housesomewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts outthe badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom ofcrocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which isspecially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey)are sui amantes sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereasthey have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in theend themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wingsthey thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned.

Francis Bacon.

OF AMBITION

Ambition is like choler; which is an humour that maketh men active,earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped. But ifit be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and therebymalign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open fortheir rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy thandangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they becomesecretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye,and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worstproperty in a servant of a prince or state. Therefore it is good forprinces, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so as they be stillprogressive and not retrograde: which because it cannot be withoutinconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if theyrise not with their service, they will take order to make theirservice fall with them. But since we have said it were good not to usem*n of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit wespeak in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the warsmust be taken, be they never so ambitious: for the use of theirservice dispenseth with the rest; and to take a soldier withoutambition is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use ofambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger andenvy: for no man will take that part, except he be like a seeled dove,that mounts and mounts because he cannot see about him. There is usealso of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness of any subjectthat overtops: as Tiberius used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus.Since therefore they must be used in such cases, there resteth tospeak how they must be bridled, that they may be less dangerous. Thereis less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they benoble; and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious andpopular; and if they be rather new raised, than grown cunning andfortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weakness inprinces to have favourites; but it is of all others the best remedyagainst ambitious great-ones. For when the way of pleasuring anddispleasuring lieth by the favourite, it is impossible any othershould be over-great. Another means to curb them, is to balance themby others as proud as they. But then there must be some middlecounsellors, to keep things steady; for without that ballast the shipwill roll too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure somemeaner persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As forthe having of them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures,it may do well; but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitatetheir designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down,if the affairs require it, and that it may be done with safetysuddenly, the only way is the interchange continually of favours anddisgraces; whereby they may not know what to expect, and be, as itwere, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful, the ambition toprevail in great things, than that other, to appear in every thing;for that breeds confusion, and mars business. But yet it is lessdanger to have an ambitious man stirring in business, than great independences. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath agreat task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots tobe the only figure amongst cyphers is the decay of an whole age.Honour hath three things in it: the vantage ground to do good; theapproach to kings and principal persons; and the raising of a man'sown fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when heaspireth, is an honest man; and that prince that can discern of theseintentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, letprinces and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of dutythan of rising; and such as love business rather upon conscience thanupon bravery: and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind.

Francis Bacon.

OF GARDENS

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest ofhuman pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man;without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks: and aman shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, mencome to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardeningwere the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering ofgardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; inwhich, severally, things of beauty may then be in season. For Decemberand January and the latter part of November, you must take such thingsas are green all winter: holly; ivy; bays; juniper; cypress-trees;yew; pine-apple-trees; fir-trees; rosemary; lavender; periwinkle, thewhite, the purple, and the blue; germander; flags; orange-trees,lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warmset. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, themezereon-tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow andthe gray; primroses; anemones; the early tulippa; hyacinthusorientalis; chamaïris; fritillaria. For March, there come violets,specially the single blue, which are the earliest; the yellowdaffodil; the daisy; the almond-tree in blossom; the peach-tree inblossom; the cornelian-tree in blossom; sweet briar. In April follow,the double white violet; the wall-flower; the stock-gillyflower; thecowslip; flower-delices, and lilies of all natures; rosemary flowers;the tulippa; the double piony; the pale daffadil; the Frenchhoneysuckle; the cherry-tree in blossom; the dammasin and plum-treesin blossom; the white-thorn in leaf; the lilac-tree. In May and Junecome pinks of all sorts, specially the blush pink; roses of all kinds,except the musk, which comes later; honeysuckles; strawberries;bugloss; columbine; the French marygold; flos Africanus; cherry-treein fruit; ribes; figs in fruit; rasps; vine flowers; lavender inflower; the sweet satyrian, with the white flower; herba muscaria;lilium convallium; the apple-tree in blossom. In July comegillyflowers of all varieties; musk-roses; the lime-tree in blossom;early pears and plums in fruit; ginitings; quadlins. In August comeplums of all sorts in fruit; pears; aprico*cks; berberries; filberds;musk-melons; monkshoods, of all colours. In September come grapes;apples; poppies of all colours; peaches; melocotones; nectarines;cornelians; wardens; quinces. In October and the beginning of Novembercome services; medlars, bullises; roses cut or removed to come late;hollyokes; and such like. These particulars are for the climate ofLondon; but my meaning is perceived, that you may have verperpetuum, as the place affords.

And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where itcomes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand,therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what bethe flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask andred, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a wholerow of them, and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though it be ina morning's dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow. Rosemarylittle; nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields thesweetest smell in the air, is the violet; specially the white doubleviolet, which comes twice a year; about the middle of April, and aboutBartholomewtide. Next to that is the musk-rose. Then thestrawberry-leaves dying, which [yield] a most excellent cordial smell.Then the flower of the vines; it is a little dust, like the dust of abent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Thensweet-briar. Then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be setunder a parlour or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gillyflowers,specially the matted pink and clove gillyflower. Then the flowers ofthe lime-tree. Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Ofbean flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers. But thosewhich perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest,but being trodden upon and crushed, are three: that is, burnet, wildthyme, and water-mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them,to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.

For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like, as wehave done of buildings), the contents ought not to be well underthirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts: a green inthe entrance; a heath or desert in the going forth; and the maingarden in the midst; besides alleys on both sides. And I like wellthat four acres of ground be assigned to the green; six to the heath;four and four to either side; and twelve to the main garden. The greenhath two pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to theeye than green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it willgive you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upona stately hedge, which is to enclose the garden. But because the alleywill be long, and, in great heat of the year or day, you ought not tobuy the shade in the garden by going in the sun thorough the green,therefore you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley,upon carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by which you maygo in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots or figureswith divers-coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows ofthe house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys: youmay see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to besquare; encompassed, on all the four sides, with a stately archedhedge. The arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work, of some tenfoot high and six foot broad; and the spaces between of the samedimension with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there bean entire hedge, of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter'swork; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, witha belly, enough to receive a cage of birds; and over every spacebetween the arches some other little figure, with broad plates ofround coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge Iintend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of somesix foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand that this square ofthe garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but toleave, on either side, ground enough for diversity of side alleys;unto which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you. Butthere must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this greatenclosure: not at the hither end, for letting your prospect upon thisfair hedge from the green; nor at the further end, for letting yourprospect from the hedge, through the arches, upon the heath.

For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it tovariety of device; advising; nevertheless, that whatsoever form youcast it into, first, it be not too busy or full of work. Wherein I,for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other gardenstuff: they be for children. Little low hedges, round, like welts,with some pretty pyramides, I like well; and in some places, faircolumns upon frames of carpenter's work. I would also have the alleysspacious and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds,but none in the main garden. I wish also, in the very middle, a fairmount, with three ascents, and alleys, enough for four to walkabreast; which I would have to be perfect circles, without anybulwarks or embossments; and the whole mount to be thirty foot high;and some fine banqueting-house, with some chimneys neatly cast, andwithout too much glass.

For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment; but pools marall, and make the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs.Fountains I intend to be of two natures: the one, that sprinkleth orspouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water, of some thirty orforty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the first,the ornaments of images gilt, or of marble, which are in use, do well:but the main matter is, so to convey the water, as it never stay,either in the bowls or in the cistern; that the water be never by restdiscoloured, green or red or the like, or gather any mossiness orputrefaction. Besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by thehand. Also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it, dothwell. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathingpool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will nottrouble ourselves: as, that the bottom be finely paved, and withimages; the sides likewise; and withal embellished with colouredglass, and such things of lustre; encompassed also with fine rails oflow statuas. But the main point is the same which we mentioned in theformer kind of fountain; which is, that the water be in perpetualmotion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it byfair spouts, and then discharged away under ground, by some equalityof bores, that it stay little. And for fine devices, of arching waterwithout spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers,drinking glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things tolook on, but nothing to health and sweetness.

For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to beframed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would havenone in it; but some thickets, made only of sweet-briar andhoneysuckle, and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set withviolets, strawberries, and primroses. For these are sweet, and prosperin the shade. And these to be in the heath, here and there, not in anyorder. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such asare in wild heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme; some with pinks;some with germander, that gives a good flower to the eye; some withperiwinkle; some with violets; some with strawberries; some withcowslips; some with daisies; some with red roses; some with liliumconvallium; some with sweet-williams red; some with bear's-foot; andthe like low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of whichheaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top,and part without. The standards to be roses; juniper; holly;berberries (but here and there, because of the smell of theirblossom); red currants; gooseberries; rosemary; sweet-briar; and suchlike. But these standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow notout of course.

For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys,private, to give a full shade, some of them, wheresoever the sun be.You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the windblows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery. And those alleys must belikewise hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind; and these closeralleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of goingwet. In many of these alleys likewise, you are to set fruit-trees ofall sorts; as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this would begenerally observed, that the borders, wherein you plant yourfruit-trees, be fair and large, and low, and not steep; and set withfine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. Atthe end of both the side grounds, I would have a mount of some prettyheight, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroadinto the fields.

For the main garden, I do not deny but there should be some fairalleys, ranged on both sides with fruit-trees; and some pretty tuftsof fruit-trees, and arbours with seats, set in some decent order; butthese to be by no means set too thick; but to leave the main garden soas it be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, Iwould have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there towalk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to makeaccount that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of theyear; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, orover-cast days.

For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness asthey may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them;that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that nofoulness appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a platformof a princely garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing, not amodel, but some general lines of it; and in this I have spared nocost. But it is nothing for great princes, that, for the most part,taking advice with workmen, with no less cost set their thingstogether; and sometimes add statuas, and such things, for state andmagnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden.

Francis Bacon.

OF STUDIES

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chiefuse for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is indiscourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition ofbusiness. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge ofparticulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots andmarshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. Tospend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much forornament is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules isthe humour of the scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected byexperience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that needproyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions toomuch at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty mencontemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: forthey teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them andabove them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute;nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse;but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to beswallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some booksare to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously;and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Somebooks also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others;but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meanersort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters,flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; andwriting an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he hadneed have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have apresent wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, toseem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty;the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logicand rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there isno stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fitstudies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises.Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs andbreast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and thelike. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics;for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, hemust begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or finddifferences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cyminisectores: if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call onething to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers'cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

Francis Bacon.

THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER

There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary,which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to bethese: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea,perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university,commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else wererequired to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula.Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to betterpreferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they canprovide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling.Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with themiserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters totheir children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grownrich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by theproxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself.

His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men hadas well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, asCooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desktherein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, arebunglers in this. But God, of His goodness, hath fitted several menfor several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in allconditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabricthereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie inthis very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it dothmost excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life,undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it withdexterity and happy success.

He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books;and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it mayseem difficult for him in a great school to descend to allparticulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammarof boys' natures, and reduce them all—saving some few exceptions—tothese general rules:

1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of twosuch planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad afrown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where theirmaster whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Suchnatures he useth with all gentleness.

2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in thefable, that running with snails—so they count the rest of theirschoolfellows—they shall come soon enough to the post, thoughsleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod wouldfinely take them napping.

3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, themore lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed tillthey be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best.Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature,and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are roughand rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth, acquitthemselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore theirdulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. Thatschoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boyfor a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world canmake their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute beforethe hour nature hath appointed.

4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction mayreform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the worldcan never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Suchboys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights andboat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which othercarpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanicswhich will not serve for scholars.

He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading themrather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for childrento swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that hisscholars may go along with him.

He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. Ifco*ckering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons' exemptionfrom his rod—to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of theirmaster's jurisdiction—with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns thelate custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, andransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubbornyouth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contestingwith him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacyhath infected others.

He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmasterbetter answereth the name paidotribes than paidagogos, rathertearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them goodeducation. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presentedunto them in the shape of fiends and furies.

Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes. Their tyranny hathcaused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whosestuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on theirspeech at their master's presence; and whose mauling them about theirheads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master.

He makes his school free to him who sues to him in formâ pauperis.And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he isa beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, paysthe scholar in his whipping; rather are diligent lads to be encouragedwith all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heardconcerning Mr. Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who wouldnever suffer any wandering begging scholar—such as justly the statutehath ranked in the fore-front of rogues—to come into his school, butwould thrust him out with earnestness—however privately charitableunto him—lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books,by seeing some scholars after their studying in the universitypreferred to beggary.

He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein toteach his scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an actionof trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties,syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they areforced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill theyhad before.

Out of his school he is no way pedantical in carriage or discourse;contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not gingle withit in every company wherein he comes.

To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasterscareful in their place—that the eminences of their scholars havecommended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who,otherwise in obscurity, had altogether been forgotten. Who had everheard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learnedAscham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly School, in the samecounty, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr. Whitaker?Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as hisscholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made theAthenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their founder,to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his schoolmaster, thatfirst instructed him.

Thomas Fuller.

ON DEATH

Nature calls us to meditate of death by those things which are theinstruments of acting it; and God by all the variety of Hisprovidence, makes us see death everywhere, in all variety ofcirc*mstances, and dressed up for all the fancies, and the expectationof every single person. Nature hath given us one harvest every year,but death hath two; and the spring and the autumn send throngs of menand women to charnel-houses; and all the summer long, men arerecovering from their evils of the spring, till the dog-days come, andthen the Sirian star makes the summer deadly; and the fruits of autumnare laid up for all the year's provision, and the man that gathersthem eats and surfeits, and dies and needs them not, and himself islaid up for eternity; and he that escapes till winter, only stays foranother opportunity, which the distempers of that quarter minister tohim with great variety. Thus death reigns in all the portions of ourtime. The autumn with its fruits provides disorders for us, and thewinter's cold turns them into sharp diseases, and the spring bringsflowers to strew our hearse, and the summer gives green turf andbrambles to bind upon our graves. Calentures and surfeit, cold andagues, are the four quarters of the year; and you can go no whither,but you tread upon a dead man's bones.

The wild fellow in Petronius, that escaped upon a broken table fromthe furies of a shipwreck, as he was sunning himself upon the rockyshore, espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves, ballastedwith sand in the folds of his garment, and carried by his civil enemy,the sea, towards the shore to find a grave. And it cast him into somesad thoughts, that peradventure this man's wife, in some part of thecontinent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return;or, it may be, his son knows nothing of the tempest; or his fatherthinks of that affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good oldman's cheek, ever since he took a kind farewell, and he weeps with joyto think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into thecircle of his father's arms. These are the thoughts of mortals; thisis the end and sum of all their designs. A dark night and an illguide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, a hard rock and a roughwind, dashed in pieces the fortune of a whole family; and they thatshall weep loudest for the accident are not yet entered into thestorm, and yet have suffered shipwreck. Then, looking upon thecarcass, he knew it, and found it to be the master of the ship, who,the day before, cast up the accounts of his patrimony and his trade,and named the day when he thought to be at home. See how the manswims, who was so angry two days since! His passions are becalmed withthe storm, his accounts cast up, his cares at an end, his voyage done,and his gains are the strange events of death, which, whether they begood or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble themselvesconcerning the interest of the dead.

It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, andit is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulnessof youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood; from thevigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, tothe hollowness and deadly paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror ofa three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be verygreat and very strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing fromthe clefts of its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, andfull with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece; but when a ruderbreath hath forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its tooyouthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and todecline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed thehead, and broke its stalk; and at night, having lost some of itsleaves, and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds andout-worn faces. The same is the portion of every man and every woman;the heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and cold dishonour, andour beauty so changed, that our acquaintance quickly knew us not; andthat change mingled with so much horror, or else meets so with ourfears and weak discoursings, that they who, six hours ago, tended uponus either with charitable or ambitious services, cannot, without someregret, stay in the room alone, where the body lies stripped of itslife and honour. I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who,living, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity ofhis friends' desire by giving way, that after a few days' burial, theymight send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for it, drawthe image of his death unto the life. They did so, and found his facehalf eaten, and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; and so hestands pictured among his armed ancestors. So does the fairest beautychange; and it will be as bad with you and me; and then what servantsshall we have to wait upon us in the grave? what friends to visit us?what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloudreflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, whichare the longest weepers for our funeral?

A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever manpreached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. In thesame Escurial where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power,and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, wheretheir ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more;and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred,and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown.There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatestchange, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, fromliving like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flamesof lust, to abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch ofcovetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of alustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and thepeaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and thedespised princes mingle their dust, and pay down their symbol ofmortality, and tell all the world that, when we die, our ashes shallbe equal to kings', and our accounts easier, and our pains for ourcrowns shall be less.

Jeremy Taylor.

OF WINTER

Winter, the sworne enemie to summer, the friend to none but colliersand woodmongers: the frostbitten churl that hangs his nose still overthe fire: the dog that bites fruits, and the devil that cuts downtrees, the unconscionable binder up of vintners' fa*ggots, and the onlyconsumer of burnt sack and sugar: This cousin to Death, father tosickness, and brother to old age, shall not show his hoary bald-patein this climate of ours (according to our usual computation) upon thetwelfth day of December, at the first entering of the sun into thefirst minute of the sign Capricorn, when the said Sun shall be at hisgreatest south declination from the equinoctial line, and so forth,with much more such stuff than any mere Englishman can understand—no,my countrymen, never beat the bush so long to find out Winter, wherehe lies, like a beggar shivering with cold, but take these from me ascertain and most infallible rules, know when Winter plums are ripe andready to be gathered.

When Charity blows her nails and is ready to starve, yet not so muchas a watchman will lend her a flap of his frieze gown to keep herwarm: when tradesmen shut up shops, by reason their frozen-heartedcreditors go about to nip them with beggary: when the price ofsea-coal riseth, and the price of men's labour falleth: when everychimney casts out smoke, but scarce any door opens to cast so much asa maribone to a dog to gnaw; when beasts die for want of fodder in thefield, and men are ready to famish for want of food in the city; whenthe first word that a wench speaks at your coming into the room in amorning is, "Prithee send for some fa*ggots," and the best comfort asawyer beats you withal is to say, "What will you give me?"; whengluttons blow their pottage to cool them; and Prentices blow theirnails to heat them; and lastly when the Thames is covered over withice and men's hearts caked over and crusted with cruelty: Then mayestthou or any man be bold to swear it is winter.

Thomas Dekker.

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN A PLAY-HOUSE

The theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, upon which their Muses, (ytare now turnd to Merchants,) meeting, barter away that light commodityof words for a lighter ware then words, Plaudites, and the breathof the great Beast; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards)vanish all into air. Plaiers and their Factors, who put away thestuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis theirparts so to doe) your Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten had wontto be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surestchapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, dealeupon this comical freight by the grosse: when your Groundling, andgallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler,is glad to utter it againe by retailing.

Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stooleas well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkardhas the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, whichyour sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime asstrong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on theplaies life and death, as well as the prowdest Momus among thetribe[s] of Critick: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bilsdo make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll)casd up in a corner.

Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-housestand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paidit) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meanenot into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No,those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-womenand Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnesof Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much newSatten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But onthe very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under thestate of Cambises himselfe must our fethered Estridge, like apiece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beatingdowne the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.

For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up bysitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous Eminence is gotten; bywhich meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (goodcloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and atollerable beard) are perfectly revealed.

By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the wholecommodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and standat the helme to steere the passage of scænes; yet / no man shallonce offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent,overweening Coxcombe.

By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at thevery next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that Quest ofInquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you knownot ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behaveyour selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you.

By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you aMistress: if a mere Fleet-street Gentleman, a wife: but assureyourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principallman in election to begin the number of We three.

By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice inexamining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such truescænical authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present hisMuse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at ataverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for boththeir suppers.

By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deereacquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any timeknow what particular part any of the infants present: get your matchlighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers uponlaying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or aJustice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawco*cke, aknave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, orcounterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect lightand lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though theScarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea,throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience toendure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if theRabble, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you wereworse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the fooleshould never sit on the Stage together.

Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather,like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / notyour selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quakingprologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready togive the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for thenit is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that youdropt out of ye Hangings, to creepe from behind the Arras, with yourTripos or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mountedbetweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you shouldbestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is buthalfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and theproportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it wereserved up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you wouldthe Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laughalowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of theterriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost sohigh, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords use it; yourKnights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man isZany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limpingafter it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, tillyou have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-manin a Morris) you heap Pelion upon Ossa, glory upon glory: Asfirst, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after thePlayers, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatchesup your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fallinto his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken foryou: heele cry Hees such a gallant, and you passe. Secondly, youpublish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resortthither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely asa Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doenothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, anddisgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worsthand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet totake pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bringyou into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.

If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging bythe water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shunShoulder-clapping, and to ship away your co*ckatrice betimes in themorning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thenceto the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that)worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oaresare your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twicetogether with one paire: often shifting is a great credit toGentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poorewatersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: Nomatter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim intwentie of their boates over the river upon Ticket: marry, whensilver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will makeyour Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doenot draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owneanother daie.

Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (asFencers doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yetshare the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul theRaggamuffins that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards(having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, justupon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if thefoure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres nonesuch fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play gooff, better knaves than they will fall into the company.

Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, orhath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather,or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shalldisgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving himthe bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee itPastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd anddiscontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether theScenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distastthem: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, butsalute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on therushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from thestage after you: the Mimicks are beholden to you, for allowing themelbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but carenot for that, theres no musick without frets.

Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde youto sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up arush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to makeother fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare atmerrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action,whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereasthe same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Feltand Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, withintwo houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage,when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but thatmorning.

To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon whichyour leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, whenthe Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tonguessharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttleco*cke)is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and isbut in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, afterthe Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into aTaverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead mustbe beaten out to make up another.

Thomas Dekker.

OF MYSELF

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grateshis own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's earsto hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me ofoffending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor myfortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, formy own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous,or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall herespeak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedentdiscourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt,than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory canreturn back into my past life, before I knew or was capable ofguessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, thenatural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion fromthem, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by anantipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man'sunderstanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead ofrunning about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont tosteal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book,or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. Iwas then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters couldnever prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn,without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensedwith me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usualexercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of thesame mind as I am now—which, I confess, I wonder at myself—mayappear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I was butthirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many otherverses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I hereset down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be muchashamed.

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill-known.
Rumour can ope the grave;
Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage, more
Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.
My garden painted o'er
With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, that happy state,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day.

You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets, for theconclusion is taken out of Horace; and perhaps it was the immature andimmoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, thecharacters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a youngtree, which, with the tree, still grow proportionably. But how thislove came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I believeI can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first withsuch chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for Iremember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there waswont to lie in my mother's parlour—I know not by what accident, forshe herself never in her life read any book but of devotion—but therewas wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and wasinfinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, andmonsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there—though myunderstanding had little to do with all this—and by degrees, with thetinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I hadread him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affectionsof mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to theuniversity; but was soon torn from thence by that public violentstorm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted upevery plant, even from the princely cedars, to me, the hyssop. Yet Ihad as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for Iwas cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and intothe court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though Iwas here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of mylife; that is, into much company, and no small business, and into adaily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant—for that wasthe state then of the English and the French courts—yet all this wasso far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmationof reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I sawplainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it;and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught Iknew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw itwas adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked verywell, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was tobe liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be ina storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. Astorm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage;though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere,though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eatat the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for presentsubsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, inbanishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain fromrenewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the sameeffect:

Well, then, I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c.

And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from hismajesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderatelyconvenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case Imight easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with nogreater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinaryfortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself,and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in theelegance of it—

Thou neither great at court, nor in the war,
Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar;
Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c.

However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did notquit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it acorpus perditum, without making capitulations, or taking counsel offortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: Imet presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments,but with so much sickness—a new misfortune to me—as would havespoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neitherrepent nor alter my course; Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum.[3]Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long,and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a richportion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.

[Footnote 3: I have not falsely sworn.]

Nec vos dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos musæ, libertas, otia, libri,
Hortique, sylvæque, animâ remanente relinquam.

Nor by me e'er shall you,
You of all names the sweetest and the best,
You muses, books, and liberty, and rest;
You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be,
As long as life itself forsakes not me.

Cowley.

THE GRAND ELIXIR

There is an oblique way of Reproof, which takes off from the Sharpnessof it; and an Address in Flattery, which makes it agreeable thoughnever so gross: But of all Flatterers, the most skilful is he who cando what you like, without saying any thing which argues you do it forhis Sake; the most winning Circ*mstance in the World being theConformity of Manners. I speak of this as a Practice necessary ingaining People of Sense, who are not yet given up to Self-Conceit;those who are far gone in admiration of themselves need not be treatedwith so much Delicacy. The following Letter puts this Matter in apleasant and uncommon Light: The Author of it attacks this Vice withan Air of Compliance, and alarms us against it by exhorting us to it.

To the GUARDIAN.

"Sir,

"As you profess to encourage all those who any way contribute to thePublick Good, I flatter my self I may claim your Countenance andProtection. I am by profession a Mad Doctor, but of a peculiar Kind,not of those whose Aim it is to remove Phrenzies, but one who makes itmy Business to confer an agreeable Madness on my Fellow-Creatures, fortheir mutual Delight and Benefit. Since it is agreed by thePhilosophers, that Happiness and Misery consist chiefly in theImagination, nothing is more necessary to Mankind in general than thispleasing Delirium, which renders every one satisfied with himself, andpersuades him that all others are equally so.

"I have for several Years, both at home and abroad, made this Sciencemy particular Study, which I may venture to say I have improved inalmost all the Courts of Europe; and have reduced it into so safeand easie a Method, as to practise it on both Sexes, of whatDisposition, Age or Quality soever, with Success. What enables me toperform this great Work, is the Use of my Obsequium Catholicon, orthe Grand Elixir, to support the Spirits of human Nature. ThisRemedy is of the most grateful Flavour in the World, and agrees withall Tastes whatever. 'Tis delicate to the Senses, delightful in theOperation, may be taken at all Hours without Confinement, and is asproperly given at a Ball or Play-house as in a private Chamber. Itrestores and vivifies the most dejected Minds, corrects and extractsall that is painful in the Knowledge of a Man's self. One Dose of itwill instantly disperse itself through the whole Animal System,dissipate the first Motions of Distrust so as never to return, and soexhilerate the Brain and rarifie the Gloom of Reflection, as to givethe Patients a new flow of Spirits, a Vivacity of Behaviour, and apleasing Dependence upon their own Capacities.

"Let a Person be never so far gone, I advise him not to despair; eventhough he has been troubled many Years with restless Reflections,which by long Neglect have hardened into settled Consideration. Thosethat have been stung with Satyr may here find a certain Antidote,which infallibly disperses all the Remains of Poison that has beenleft in the Understanding by bad Cures. It fortifies the Heart againstthe Rancour of Pamphlets, the Inveteracy of Epigrams, and theMortification of Lampoons; as has been often experienced by severalPersons of both Sexes, during the Seasons of Tunbridge and theBath.

"I could, as farther Instances of my Success, produce Certificates andTestimonials from the Favourites and Ghostly Fathers of the mosteminent Princes of Europe; but shall content myself with the Mentionof a few Cures, which I have performed by this my Grand UniversalRestorative, during the Practice of one Month only since I came tothis City."

Cures in the Month of February, 1713.

"GEORGE SPONDEE, Esq; Poet, and Inmate of the Parish of St. Paul'sCovent-Garden, fell into violent Fits of the Spleen upon a thin ThirdNight. He had been frighted into a Vertigo by the Sound of Cat-callson the First Day; and the frequent Hissings on the Second made himunable to endure the bare Pronunciation of the Letter S. I searchedinto the Causes of his Distemper; and by the Prescription of a Dose ofmy Obsequium, prepared Secundum Artem, recovered him to hisNatural State of Madness. I cast in at proper Intervals the Words,Ill Taste of the Town, Envy of Criticks, bad Performance of theActors, and the like. He is so perfectly cured that he has promisedto bring another Play upon the Stage next Winter.

"A Lady of professed Virtue, of the Parish of St. James'sWestminster, who hath desired her Name may be concealed, having takenOffence at a Phrase of double Meaning in Conversation, undiscovered byany other in the Company, suddenly fell into a cold Fit of Modesty.Upon a right Application of Praise of her Virtue, I threw the Ladyinto an agreeable waking Dream, settled the Fermentation of her Bloodinto a warm Charity, so as to make her look with Patience on the veryGentleman that offended.

"HILARIA, of the Parish of St. Giles's in the Fields, a Coquet oflong Practice, was by the Reprimand of an old Maiden reduced to lookgrave in Company, and deny her self the Play of the Fan. In short, shewas brought to such Melancholy Circ*mstances, that she would sometimesunawares fall into Devotion at Church. I advis'd her to take a fewinnocent Freedoms with occasional Kisses, prescribed her theExercise of the Eyes, and immediately raised her to her former Stateof Life. She on a sudden recovered her Dimples, furled her Fan, threwround her Glances, and for these two Sundays last past has not oncebeen seen in an attentive Posture. This the Church-Wardens are readyto attest upon Oath.

"ANDREW TERROR, of the Middle-Temple, Mohock, was almost inducedby an aged Bencher of the same House to leave off bright Conversation,and pore over Cook upon Littleton. He was so ill that his Hat beganto flap, and he was seen one Day in the last Term at Westminster-Hall.This Patient had quite lost his Spirit of Contradiction; I, by theDistillation of a few of my vivifying Drops in his Ear, drew him fromhis Lethargy, and restored him to his usual vivacious Misunderstanding.He is at present very easie in his Condition.

"I will not dwell upon the Recital of the innumerable Cures I haveperformed within Twenty Days last past; but rather proceed to exhortall Persons, of whatever Age, Complexion or Quality, to take as soonas possible of this my intellectual Oyl; which applied at the Earseizes all the Senses with a most agreeable Transport, and discoversits Effects, not only to the Satisfaction of the Patient, but all whoconverse with, attend upon, or any way relate to him or her thatreceives the kindly Infection. It is often administered byChamber-Maids, Valets, or any the most ignorant Domestick; it beingone peculiar Excellence of this my Oyl, that 'tis most prevalent, themore unskilful the Person is or appears who applies it. It isabsolutely necessary for Ladies to take a Dose of it just before theytake Coach to go a visiting.

"But I offend the Publick, as Horace said, when I trespass on any ofyour Time. Give me leave then, Mr. Ironside, to make you a Presentof a Drachm or two of my Oyl; though I have Cause to fear myPrescriptions will not have the Effect upon you I could wish:Therefore I do not endeavour to bribe you in my Favour by the Presentof my Oyl, but wholly depend upon your Publick Spirit and Generosity;which, I hope, will recommend to the World the useful Endeavours of,

"Sir,

"Your most Obedient, most Faithful, most Devoted, most Humble Servant and Admirer,

"GNATHO.

"***Beware of Counterfeits, for such are abroad.

"N.B. I teach the Arcana of my Art at reasonable Rates toGentlemen of the Universities, who desire to be qualified for writingDedications; and to young Lovers and Fortune-hunters, to be paid atthe Day of Marriage. I instruct Persons of bright Capacities toflatter others, and those of the meanest to flatter themselves.

"I was the first Inventor of Pocket Looking-Glasses."

Pope.

JACK LIZARD

Jack Lizard was about Fifteen when he was first entered in theUniversity, and being a Youth of a great deal of Fire, and a more thanordinary Application to his Studies, it gave his Conversation a veryparticular Turn. He had too much Spirit to hold his Tongue in Company;but at the same time so little Acquaintance with the World, that hedid not know how to talk like other People.

After a Year and half's stay at the University, he came down among usto pass away a Month or two in the Country. The first Night after hisArrival, as we were at Supper, we were all of us very much improved byJack's Table-Talk. He told us, upon the Appearance of a Dish ofWild-Fowl, that according to the Opinion of some natural Philosophersthey might be lately come from the Moon. Upon which the Sparklerbursting out into a Laugh, he insulted her with several Questionsrelating to the Bigness and Distance of the Moon and Stars; and afterevery Interrogatory would be winking upon me, and smiling at hisSister's Ignorance. Jack gained his Point; for the Mother waspleased, and all the Servants stared at the Learning of their youngMaster. Jack was so encouraged at this Success, that for the firstWeek he dealt wholly in Paradoxes. It was a common Jest with him topinch one of his Sister's Lap-Dogs, and afterwards prove he could notfeel it. When the Girls were sorting a Set of Knots, he woulddemonstrate to them that all the Ribbands were of the same Colour; orrather, says Jack, of no Colour at all. My Lady Lizard her self,though she was not a little pleas'd with her Son's Improvements, wasone Day almost angry with him; for having accidentally burnt herFingers as she was lighting the Lamp for her Tea-pot; in the midst ofher Anguish, Jack laid hold of the Opportunity to instruct her thatthere was no such thing as Heat in Fire. In short, no Day pass'd overour Heads, in which Jack did not imagine he made the whole Familywiser than they were before.

That part of his Conversation which gave me the most Pain, was whatpass'd among those Country Gentlemen that came to visit us. On suchOccasions Jack usually took upon him to be the Mouth of the Company;and thinking himself obliged to be very merry, would entertain us witha great many odd Sayings and Absurdities of their College-Cook. Ifound this Fellow had made a very strong Impression upon Jack'sImagination; which he never considered was not the Case of the rest ofthe Company, 'till after many repeated Tryals he found that hisStories seldom made any Body laugh but himself.

I all this while looked upon Jack as a young Tree shooting out intoBlossoms before its Time; the Redundancy of which, though it was alittle unseasonable, seemed to foretel an uncommon Fruitfulness.

In order to wear out the vein of Pedantry which ran through hisConversation, I took him out with me one Evening, and first of allinsinuated to him this Rule, which I had my self learned from a verygreat Author, To think with the Wise, but talk with the Vulgar.Jack's good Sense soon made him reflect that he had often exposedhimself to the Laughter of the Ignorant by a contrary Behaviour; uponwhich he told me, that he would take Care for the future to keep hisNotions to himself, and converse in the common received Sentiments ofMankind. He at the same time desired me to give him any other Rules ofConversation which I thought might be for his Improvement. I told himI would think of it; and accordingly, as I have a particular Affectionfor the young Man, I gave him next Morning the following Rules inWriting, which may perhaps have contributed to make him the agreeableMan he now is.

The Faculty of interchanging our Thoughts with one another, or what weexpress by the Word Conversation, has always been represented byMoral Writers as one of the noblest Privileges of Reason, and whichmore particularly sets Mankind above the Brute Part of the Creation.

Though nothing so much gains upon the Affections as this ExtemporeEloquence, which we have constantly Occasion for, and are obliged topractice every Day, we very rarely meet with any who excel in it.

The Conversation of most Men is disagreeable, not so much for Want of
Wit and Learning, as of Good-Breeding and Discretion.

If you resolve to please, never speak to gratifie any particularVanity or Passion of your own, but always with a Design either todivert or inform the Company. A Man who only aims at one of these, isalways easie in his Discourse. He is never out of Humour at beinginterrupted, because he considers that those who hear him are the bestJudges whether what he was saying could either divert or inform them.

A modest Person seldom fails to gain the Good-Will of those heconverses with, because no body envies a Man, who does not appear tobe pleased with himself.

We should talk extreamly little of our selves. Indeed what can we say?It would be as imprudent to discover our Faults, as ridiculous tocount over our fancied Virtues. Our private and domestick Affairs areno less improper to be introduced in Conversation. What does itconcern the Company how many Horses you keep in your Stables? Orwhether your Servant is most Knave, or Fool?

A man may equally affront the Company he is in, by engrossing all the
Talk, or observing a contemptuous Silence.

Before you tell a Story it may be generally not amiss to draw a shortCharacter, and give the Company a true Idea of the principal Personsconcerned in it. The Beauty of most things consisting not so much intheir being said or done, as in their being said or done by such aparticular Person, or on such a particular Occasion.

Notwithstanding all the Advantages of Youth, few young People pleasein Conversation; the Reason is, that want of Experience makes thempositive, and what they say is rather with a Design to pleasethemselves than any one else.

It is certain that Age it self shall make many things pass wellenough, which would have been laughed at in the Mouth of one muchyounger.

Nothing, however, is more insupportable to Men of Sense, than an emptyformal Man who speaks in Proverbs, and decides all Controversies witha short Sentence. This piece of Stupidity is the more insufferable, asit puts on the Air of Wisdom.

A prudent Man will avoid talking much of any particular Science, forwhich he is remarkably famous. There is not methinks an handsomerthing said of Mr. Cowley in his whole Life, than that none but hisintimate Friends ever discovered he was a great Poet by his Discourse:Besides the Decency of this Rule, it is certainly founded in goodPolicy. A Man who talks of any thing he is already famous for, haslittle to get, but a great deal to lose. I might add, that he who issometimes silent on a Subject where every one is satisfied he couldspeak well, will often be thought no less knowing in other Matters,where perhaps he is wholly ignorant.

Women are frightened at the Name of Argument, and are sooner convincedby an happy Turn, or Witty Expression, than by Demonstration.

Whenever you commend, add your Reasons for doing so; it is this whichdistinguishes the Approbation of a Man of Sense from the Flattery ofSycophants, and Admiration of Fools.

Raillery is no longer agreeable than while the whole Company ispleased with it. I would least of all be understood to except thePerson rallied.

Though Good-humour, Sense and Discretion can seldom fail to make a Managreeable, it may be no ill Policy sometimes to prepare your self in aparticular manner for Conversation, by looking a little farther thanyour Neighbours into whatever is become a reigning Subject. If ourArmies are besieging a Place of Importance abroad, or our House ofCommons debating a Bill of Consequence at home, you can hardly fail ofbeing heard with Pleasure, if you have nicely informed your self ofthe Strength, Situation, and History of the first, or of the Reasonsfor and against the latter. It will have the same Effect if when anysingle Person begins to make a Noise in the World, you can learn someof the smallest Accidents in his Life or Conversation, which thoughthey are too fine for the Observation of the Vulgar, give moreSatisfaction to Men of Sense, (as they are the best Openings to a realCharacter) than the Recital of his most glaring Actions. I know butone ill Consequence to be feared from this Method, namely, that comingfull charged into Company, you should resolve to unload whether anhandsome Opportunity offers it self or no.

Though the asking of Questions may plead for it self the speciousNames of Modesty, and a Desire of Information, it affords littlePleasure to the rest of the Company who are not troubled with the sameDoubts; besides which, he who asks a Question would do well toconsider that he lies wholly at the Mercy of another before hereceives an Answer.

Nothing is more silly than the Pleasure some People take in what theycall speaking their Minds. A Man of this Make will say a rude thingfor the meer Pleasure of saying it, when an opposite Behaviour, fullas Innocent, might have preserved his Friend, or made his Fortune.

It is not impossible for a Man to form to himself as exquisite a
Pleasure in complying with the Humour and Sentiments of others, as of
bringing others over to his own; since 'tis the certain Sign of a
Superior Genius, that can take and become whatever Dress it pleases.

I shall only add, that besides what I have here said, there issomething which can never be learnt but in the Company of the Polite.The Virtues of Men are catching as well as their Vices, and your ownObservations added to these, will soon discover what it is thatcommands Attention in one Man and makes you tired and displeased withthe Discourse of another.

Steele.

A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK, ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OFTHE HON. ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS

This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in thatneglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; itwas full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vaindoes the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying thatwithered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best butthe reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches onthe earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirtywench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind offate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; atlength, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it iseither thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling afire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surelymortal man is a broomstick! nature sent him into the world strong andlusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, theproper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe ofintemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a witheredtrunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himselfupon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that nevergrew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enterthe scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and allcovered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber,we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judgesthat we are of our own excellences, and other men's defaults!

But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a treestanding on its head: and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvycreature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational,his head where his heels should be—grovelling on the earth! and yet,with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer andcorrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slu*t'scorner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raisesa mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all thewhile in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His lastdays are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving;till, worn to the stumps, like his brother-besom, he is either kickedout of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warmthemselves by.

Swift.

PULPIT ELOQUENCE

The subject of the discourse this evening was eloquence and gracefulaction. Lysander, who is something particular in his way of thinkingand speaking, told us, "a man could not be eloquent without action;for the deportment of the body, the turn of the eye, and an apt soundto every word that is uttered, must all conspire to make anaccomplished speaker. Action in one that speaks in public is the samething as a good mien in ordinary life. Thus, as a certaininsensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour andjest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace togreat sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore yourundesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; but when youare to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, themore you will move others.

"There is," said he, "a remarkable example of that kind. Æschines, afamous orator of antiquity, had pleaded at Athens in a great causeagainst Demosthenes; but having lost it, retired to Rhodes. Eloquencewas then the quality most admired among men, and the magistrates ofthat place, having heard he had a copy of the speech of Demosthenes,desired him to repeat both their pleadings. After his own he recitedalso the oration of his antagonist. The people expressed theiradmiration of both, but more of that of Demosthenes. 'If you are,'said he, 'thus touched with hearing only what that great orator said,how much would you have been affected had you seen him speak? for hewho hears Demosthenes only, loses much the better part of theoration.' Certain it is that they who speak gracefully are very lamelyrepresented in having their speeches read or repeated by unskilfulpeople; for there is something native to each man, so inherent to histhoughts and sentiments, which it is hardly possible for another togive a true idea of. You may observe in common talk, when a sentenceof any man's is repeated, an acquaintance of his shall immediatelyobserve, 'That is so like him, methinks I see how he looked when hesaid it.'

"But of all the people on the earth, there are none who puzzle me somuch as the clergy of Great Britain, who are, I believe, the mostlearned body of men now in the world: and yet this art of speaking,with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, is wholly neglectedamong them; and I will engage, were a deaf man to behold the greaterpart of them preach, he would rather think they were reading thecontents only of some discourse they intended to make, than actuallyin the body of an oration, even when they were upon matters of such anature as one would believe it were impossible to think of withoutemotion.

"I own there are exceptions to this general observation, and that thedean we heard the other day together is an orator[4]. He has so muchregard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he isto say to them; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, that it mustattract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no smallrecommendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing thatadvantage; and adding to the propriety of speech, which might pass thecriticism of Longinus, an action which would have been approved byDemosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has charmed manyof his audience, who could not be intelligent hearers of his discoursewere there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art ofhis is useful with the most exact and honest skill: he never attemptsyour passions until he has convinced your reason. All the objectionswhich he can form are laid open and dispersed before he uses the leastvehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he has your head, he verysoon wins your heart; and never pretends to show the beauty ofholiness until he has convinced you of the truth of it.

[Footnote 4: Steele says that this amiable character of the dean wasdrawn for Dr. Atterbury, and mentions it as an argument of hisimpartiality in his Preface to the "Tatler," vol. iv.]

"Would every one of our clergymen be thus careful to recommend truthand virtue in their proper figures, and show so much concern for themas to give them all the additional force they were able, it is notpossible that nonsense should have so many hearers as you find it hasin dissenting congregations, for no reason in the world but because itis spoken extempore; for ordinary minds are wholly governed by theireyes and ears; and there is no way to come at their hearts but bypower over their imaginations.

"There is my friend and merry companion Daniel;[5] he knows a greatdeal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well asany orthodox neighbour. But he knows very well that to bawl out, 'Mybeloved!' and the words 'grace! regeneration! sanctification! a newlight! the day! the day! ay, my beloved, the day! or rather the night!the night is coming!' and 'judgment will come when we least think ofit!' and so forth. He knows, to be vehement is the only way to come athis audience. Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, cangive a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! theregenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all theincoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan,and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parishgoes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, it is not theshepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows.

[Footnote 5: The celebrated Daniel Burgess, whose meeting-house near
Lincoln's Inn was destroyed by the high-church mob upon occasion of
Sacheverell's trial.]

"Another thing, very wonderful this learned body should omit, islearning to read; which is a most necessary part of eloquence in onewho is to serve at the altar; for there is no man but must be sensiblethat the lazy tone and inarticulate sound of our common readersdepreciates the most proper form of words that were ever extant in anynation or language, to speak their own wants, or his power from whomwe ask relief.

"There cannot be a greater instance of the power of action than inlittle parson Dapper, who is the common relief to all the lazy pulpitsin town. This smart youth has a very good memory, a quick eye, and aclean handkerchief. Thus equipped, he opens his text, shuts his bookfairly, shows he has no notes in his Bible, opens both palms, andshows all is fair there too. Thus, with a decisive air, my young mangoes on without hesitation; and though from the beginning to the endof his pretty discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet, atthe conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his hands;'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of actionis such, that it is more prevalent, even when improper, than all thereason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concludedhis discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers wouldlearn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time weshould not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in GreatBritain."

"The Tatler," No. 66.

THE ART OF POLITICAL LYING

We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from thebeginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and,which is more, his first Essay of it was purely political, employed inundermining the authority of his prince, and seducing a third part ofthe subjects from their obedience: for which he was driven down fromheaven, where (as Milton expresses it) he had been viceroy of a greatwestern province; and forced to exercise his talent in inferiorregions among other fallen spirits, poor or deluded men, whom he stilldaily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so, till he be chainedin the bottomless pit.

But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like othergreat inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continualimprovements that have been made upon him.

Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, isnot so clear from history, although I have made some diligentinquiries. I shall therefore consider it only according to the modernsystem, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in thesouthern part of our own island.

The poets tell us that, after the giants were overthrown by the gods,the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame. Andthe fable is thus interpreted: that when tumults and seditions arequieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through anation. So that, by this account, lying is the last relief of arouted, earth-born, rebellious party in a state. But here the modernshave made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of powerand preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they havelost it; as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feedthemselves when they are hungry, and to bite those that tread uponthem.

But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying;I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding somecirc*mstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is sometimesborn out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to benursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster,and licked into shape: at other times it comes into the worldcompletely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born aninfant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and oftenit sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees.Sometimes it is of noble birth, and sometimes the spawn of astock-jobber. Here it screams aloud at the opening of the womb, andthere it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbshalf the kingdom with its noise, [of] which, although too proud andgreat at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood.To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the worldwithout a sting it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting itdies.

No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be destinedfor great adventures; and accordingly we see it has been the guardianspirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquerkingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle. Itgives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, andraise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years atcommittees of elections; can wash a blackmoor white; make a saint ofan atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreignministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of thenation. This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, todazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, theirruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In thisglass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered withfleurs de lis and triple crowns; their girdles hung round withchains, and beads, and wooden shoes; and your worst enemies adornedwith the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, moderation, and acornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of aflying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she thereforedips them in mud, and, soaring aloft, scatters it in the eyes of themultitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced tostoop in dirty ways for new supplies.

I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the secondsight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits,how admirably he might entertain himself in this town, by observingthe different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies whichbuzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's earsin summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon inExchange-alley, enough to darken the air; or over a club ofdiscontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scatteredat elections.

There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs fromothers of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, whichis necessary according to the various occasions he meets with everyhour of differing from himself and swearing to both sides of acontradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has todeal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it isconvenient, upon every article, to have some eminent person in oureye, from whom we copy our description. I have strictly observed thisrule, and my imagination this minute represents before me a certaingreat man famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which heowes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in Englandfor the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his geniusconsists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies,which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by anunparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, thenext half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition weretrue or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minuteor company to affirm or deny it; so that, if you think fit to refineupon him by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by thecontrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equallydeceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to supposethat you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning atall; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt toconceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of everyproposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with anyjustice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, becausehe has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believesin neither.

Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of nogreat use to the owner, or his party, after it has been oftenpractised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Fewlies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truthmay spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, asthe vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has hisbelievers; and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for anhour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it.Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when mencome to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the talehas had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee whenthe discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physicianwho has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.

Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and inmultitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with thatmaxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at lastprevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twentyyears, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whoseprinciple and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind ourunderstanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitutionboth in church and state, and we at last were brought to the verybrink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, havenever been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. Wehave seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands ofthose who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend nohigher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit,quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success tothe Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, butloaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, andpensioners to France; while truth, who is said to lie in a well,seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I rememberit was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of the landedmen was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on asan ill omen; and we saw it was with the utmost difficulty that theycould preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on theirside, till they had learned those admirable expedients for decidingelections and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives fromthe city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheldby most dexterous artifice and management, until the people began toapprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself indanger; when we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion tointerpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the peopleI shall discourse more at large in some following paper: wherein Ishall endeavour to undeceive or discover those deluded or deludingpersons who hope or pretend it is only a short madness in the vulgar,from which they may soon recover; whereas, I believe it will appear tobe very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences;and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned,that truth (however sometimes late) will at last prevail.

Swift.

A RURAL RIDE

Brighton, Thursday, 10 Jan. 1822.

Lewes is in a valley of the South Downs, this town is at eight milesdistance, to the south-south-west or thereabouts. There is a greatextent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is amodel of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to thevery outskirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice andclean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girlsremarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; roundfaces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and brighteyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr.Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a farmer's account book,which is a very complete thing of the kind. The inns are good atLewes, the people civil and not servile, and the charges really(considering the taxes) far below what one could reasonablyexpect.—From Lewes to Brighton the road winds along between the hillsof the South Downs, which, in this mild weather, are mostlybeautifully green even at this season, with flocks of sheep feeding onthem.—Brighton itself lies in a valley cut across at one end by thesea, and its extension, or Wen, has swelled up the sides of thehills and has run some distance up the valley.—The first thing yousee in approaching Brighton from Lewes, is a splendid horse-barrackon one side of the road, and a heap of low, shabby, nasty houses,irregularly built, on the other side. This is always the case wherethere is a barrack. How soon a reformed parliament would make bothdisappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a wen remarkablyso. The Kremlin, the very name of which has so long been a subjectof laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of the valley, andamongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which cannot, Ithink, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a wallneither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad insorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" asthe Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all uponthe ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, youthink you see a parcel of cradle-spits, of various dimensions,sticking up out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters.Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, andthe height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off thegreen of the leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these roundwith a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on themiddle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size,treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box.Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, thenarcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let theleaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less accordingto the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, butpretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at yourarchitecture. There! That's "a Kremlin!" Only you must cut somechurch-looking windows in the sides of the box. As to what you oughtto put into the box, that is a subject far above my cut.—Brightonis naturally a place of resort for expectants, and a shifty,ugly-looking swarm is, of course, assembled here. Some of the fellows,who had endeavoured to disturb our harmony at the dinner at Lewes,were parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may always knowthem by their lank jaws, the stiffeners round their necks, theirhidden or no shirts, their stays, their false shoulders, hips andhaunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins, colour of vealkidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with dirtydust.—These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very finefigure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. Thehouses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; andbow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe thisto be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and theopen sea on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, noswamps.—I have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company ofreformers, who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quitesatisfied more about the questions that agitate the country than anyequal number of lords.

William Cobbett.

THE MAN IN BLACK

1.

Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with afew. The man in black whom I have often mentioned is one whosefriendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem.His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strangeinconsistencies; and he may be justly termed an humourist in a nationof humourists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects tobe thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though hisconversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, hisheart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known himprofess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing withcompassion; and while his looks were softened into pity, I have heardhim use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affecthumanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions fromnature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of hisnatural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, asany hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on everyunguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the mostsuperficial observer.

In one of our late excursions into the country, happening to discourseupon the provision that was made for the poor in England, he seemedamazed how any of his countrymen could be so foolishly weak as torelieve occasional objects of charity, when the laws had made suchample provision for their support. "In every parish house," says he,"the poor are supplied with food, clothes, fire, and a bed to lie on;they want no more, I desire no more myself; yet still they seemdiscontented. I am surprised at the inactivity of our magistrates, innot taking up such vagrants, who are only a weight upon theindustrious; I am surprised that the people are found to relieve them,when they must be at the same time sensible that it, in some measure,encourages idleness, extravagance, and imposture. Were I to advise anyman for whom I had the least regard, I would caution him by all meansnot to be imposed upon by their false pretences: let me assure you,sir, they are impostors, every one of them, and rather merit a prisonthan relief."

He was proceeding in this strain earnestly, to dissuade me from animprudence of which I am seldom guilty, when an old man, who still hadabout him the remnants of tattered finery, implored our compassion. Heassured us, that he was no common beggar, but forced into the shamefulprofession, to support a dying wife and five hungry children. Beingprepossessed against such falsehoods, his story had not the leastinfluence upon me; but it was quite otherwise with the man in black; Icould see it visibly operate upon his countenance, and effectuallyinterrupt his harangue. I could easily perceive, that his heart burnedto relieve the five starving children, but he seemed ashamed todiscover his weakness to me. While he thus hesitated betweencompassion and pride, I pretended to look another way, and he seizedthis opportunity of giving the poor petitioner a piece of silver,bidding him at the same time, in order that I should not hear, go workfor his bread, and not tease passengers with such impertinentfalsehoods for the future.

As he had fancied himself quite unperceived, he continued, as weproceeded, to rail against beggars with as much animosity as before;he threw in some episodes on his own amazing prudence and economy,with his profound skill in discovering impostors; he explained themanner in which he would deal with beggars were he a magistrate,hinted at enlarging some of the prisons for their reception, and toldtwo stories of ladies that were robbed by beggarmen. He was beginninga third to the same purpose, when a sailor with a wooden leg once morecrossed our walks, desiring our pity, and blessing our limbs. I wasfor going on without taking any notice, but my friend lookingwistfully upon the poor petitioner, bid me stop, and he would show mewith how much ease he could at any time detect an impostor.

He now, therefore, assumed a look of importance, and in an angry tonebegan to examine the sailor, demanding in what engagement he was thusdisabled and rendered unfit for service. The sailor replied, in a toneas angrily as he, that he had been an officer on board a private shipof war, and that he had lost his leg abroad in defence of those whodid nothing at home. At this reply, all my friend's importancevanished in a moment; he had not a single question more to ask; he nowonly studied what method he should take to relieve him unobserved. Hehad, however, no easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve theappearance of ill-nature before me, and yet relieve himself byrelieving the sailor. Casting, therefore, a furious look upon somebundles of chips which the fellow carried in a string at his back, myfriend demanded how he sold his matches; but not waiting for a reply,desired, in a surly tone, to have a shilling's worth. The sailorseemed at first surprised at his demand, but soon recollected himself,and presenting his whole bundle, "Here, master," says he, "take all mycargo, and a blessing into the bargain."

It is impossible to describe, with what an air of triumph my friendmarched off with his new purchase; he assured me, that he was firmlyof opinion that those fellows must have stolen their goods, who couldthus afford to sell them for half value. He informed me of severaldifferent uses to which those chips might be applied; he expatiatedlargely upon the savings that would result from lighting candles witha match instead of thrusting them into the fire. He averred, that hewould as soon have parted with a tooth as his money to thosevagabonds, unless for some valuable consideration. I cannot tell howlong this panegyric upon frugality and matches might have continued,had not his attention been called off by another object moredistressful than either of the former. A woman in rags, with one childin her arms and another on her back, was attempting to sing ballads,but with such a mournful voice, that it was difficult to determinewhether she was singing or crying. A wretch who, in the deepestdistress, still aimed at good humour, was an object my friend was byno means capable of withstanding; his vivacity and his discourse wereinstantly interrupted; upon this occasion his very dissimulation hadforsaken him. Even in my presence he immediately applied his hands tohis pockets, in order to relieve her; but guess his confusion when hefound he had already given away all the money he carried about him toformer objects. The misery painted in the woman's visage was not halfso strongly expressed as the agony in his. He continued to search forsome time, but to no purpose, till, at length recollecting himself,with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had no money, he put intoher hands his shilling's worth of matches.

2.

As there appeared something reluctantly good in the character of mycompanion, I must own it surprised me what could be his motives forthus concealing virtues which others take such pains to display. I wasunable to repress my desire of knowing the history of a man who thusseemed to act under continual restraint, and whose benevolence wasrather the effect of appetite than reason.

It was not, however, till after repeated solicitations he thoughtproper to gratify my curiosity. "If you are fond," says he, "ofhearing hair-breadth escapes, my history must certainly please; forI have been for twenty years upon the very verge of starving, withoutever being starved.

"My father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a smallliving in the church. His education was above his fortune, and hisgenerosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had hisflatterers still poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them,they returned an equivalent in praise; and this was all he wanted. Thesame ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of an army,influenced my father at the head of his table; he told the story ofthe ivy-tree, and that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the twoscholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that;but the story of Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table ina roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure hegave; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved him.

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it;he had no intentions of leaving his children money, for that wasdross; he was resolved they should have learning; for learning, heused to observe, was better than silver or gold. For this purpose heundertook to instruct us himself; and took as much pains to form ourmorals, as to improve our understanding. We were told that universalbenevolence was what first cemented society; we were taught toconsider all the wants of mankind as our own; to regard the humanface divine with affection and esteem; he wound us up to be meremachines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding theslightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress: in aword, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thousandsbefore we were taught the more necessary qualifications of getting afarthing.

"I cannot avoid imagining, that thus refined by his lessons out of allmy suspicion, and divested of even all the little cunning which naturehad given me, I resembled, upon my first entrance into the busy andinsidious world, one of those gladiators who were exposed with armourin the amphitheatre at Rome. My father, however, who had only seen theworld on one side, seemed to triumph in my superior discernment;though my whole stock of wisdom consisted in being able to talk likehimself upon subjects that once were useful, because they were thentopics of the busy world; but that now were utterly useless, becauseconnected with the busy world no longer.

"The first opportunity he had of finding his expectationsdisappointed, was at the very middling figure I made in theuniversity: he had flattered himself that he should soon see me risinginto the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was mortified tofind me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His disappointment might havebeen partly ascribed to his having over-rated my talents, and partlyto my dislike of mathematical reasonings, at a time when myimagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager after newobjects, than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This did not,however, please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a littledull, but at the same time allowed, that I seemed to be verygood-natured, and had no harm in me.

"After I had resided at college seven years, my father died, and leftme—his blessing. Thus shoved from shore without ill-nature toprotect, or cunning to guide, or proper stores to subsist me in sodangerous a voyage, I was obliged to embark in the wide world attwenty-two. But, in order to settle in life, my friends, advised (forthey always advise when they begin to despise us) they advised me, Isay, to go into orders.

"To be obliged to wear a long wig, when I liked a short one, or ablack coat, when I generally dressed in brown, I thought was such arestraint upon my liberty, that I absolutely rejected the proposal. Apriest in England is not the same mortified creature with a bonze inChina; with us, not he that fasts best, but eats best, is reckoned thebest liver; yet I rejected a life of luxury, indolence, and ease, fromno other consideration but that boyish one of dress. So that myfriends were now perfectly satisfied I was undone; and yet theythought it a pity for one who had not the least harm in him, and wasso very good-natured.

"Poverty naturally begets dependance, and I was admitted as flattererto a great man. At first I was surprised, that the situation of aflatterer at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable; therewas no great trouble in listening attentively when his lordship spoke,and laughing when he looked round for applause. This even good mannersmight have obliged me to perform. I found, however, too soon, that hislordship was a greater dunce than myself; and from that very momentflattery was at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, thanat receiving his absurdities with submission: to flatter those we donot know is an easy task; but to flatter our intimate acquaintances,all whose foibles are strongly in our eye, is drudgery insupportable.Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to myconscience; his lordship soon perceived me to be very unfit forservice: I was, therefore, discharged: my patron at the same timebeing graciously pleased to observe, that he believed I was tolerablygood-natured, and had not the least harm in me.

"Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse to love. A young lady, wholived with her aunt, and was possessed of a pretty fortune in her owndisposal, had given me, as I fancied, some reason to expect success.The symptoms by which I was guided were striking. She had alwayslaughed with me at her awkward acquaintance, and at her aunt among thenumber; she always observed, that a man of sense would make a betterhusband than a fool; and I as constantly applied the observation in myown favour, she continually talked, in my company, of friendship andthe beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. Shrimp, my rival'shigh-heeled shoes, with detestation. These were circ*mstances which Ithought strongly in my favour; so, after resolving and re-resolving, Ihad courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal withserenity, seeming at the same time to study the figures of her fan.Out at last it came. There was but one small objection to complete ourhappiness: which was no more, than——that she was married threemonths before to Mr. Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes! By way ofconsolation, however, she observed, that, though I was disappointed inher, my addresses to her aunt would probably kindle her intosensibility; as the old lady always allowed me to be verygood-natured, and not to have the least share of harm in me.

"Yet still I had friends, numerous friends, and to them I was resolvedto apply. O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to theewe fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succour; onthee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kindassistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be ever sureof—disappointment! My first application was to a city-scrivener, whohad frequently offered to lend me money when he knew I did not wantit. I informed him, that now was the time to put his friendship to thetest; that I wanted to borrow a couple of hundreds for a certainoccasion, and was resolved to take it up from him. 'And pray, sir,'cried my friend, 'do you want all this money?'—'Indeed, I neverwanted it more,' returned I. 'I am sorry for that,' cries thescrivener, 'with all my heart; for they who want money, when they cometo borrow, will always want money when they should come to pay.'

"From him I flew with indignation to one of the best friends I had inthe world, and made the same request. 'Indeed, Mr. Dry-bone,' cries myfriend, 'I always thought it would come to this. You know, sir, Iwould not advise you but for your own good; but your conduct hash*therto been ridiculous in the highest degree, and some of youracquaintance always thought you a very silly fellow. Let me see, youwant two hundred pounds. Do you only want two hundred, sir, exactly?''To confess a truth,' returned I, 'I shall want three hundred; butthen I have another friend, from whom I can borrow the rest.'—'Whythen,' replied my friend, 'if you would take my advice, (and you knowI should not presume to advise you but for your own good) I wouldrecommend it to you to borrow the whole sum from that other friend,and then one note will serve for all, you know.'

"Poverty now began to come fast upon me; yet instead of growing moreprovident or cautious as I grew poor, I became every day more indolentand simple. A friend was arrested for fifty pounds; I was unable toextricate him except by becoming his bail. When at liberty he fledfrom his creditors, and left me to take his place: in prison Iexpected greater satisfactions than I had enjoyed at large. I hoped toconverse with men in this new world simple and believing like myself;but I found them as cunning and as cautious as those in the world Ihad left behind. They spunged up my money while it lasted, borrowed mycoals and never paid for them, and cheated me when I played atcribbage. All this was done because they believed me to be verygood-natured, and knew that I had no harm in me.

"Upon my first entrance into this mansion, which is to some the abodeof despair, I felt no sensations different from those I experiencedabroad. I was now on one side of the door, and those who wereunconfined were on the other; this was all the difference between us.At first, indeed, I felt some uneasiness, in considering how I shouldbe able to provide this week for the wants of the week ensuing; butafter some time, if I found myself sure of eating one day, I nevertroubled my head how I was to be supplied another. I seized everyprecarious meal with the utmost good-humour; indulged no rants ofspleen at my situation; never called down Heaven and all the stars tobehold my dining upon an halfpenny-worth of radishes; my verycompanions were taught to believe that I liked salad better thanmutton. I contented myself with thinking, that all my life I shouldeither eat white bread or brown; considered that all that happened wasbest; laughed when I was not in pain, took the world as it went, andread Tacitus often, for want of more books and company.

"How long I might have continued in this torpid state of simplicity Icannot tell, had I not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, whomI knew to be a prudent blockhead, preferred to a place in thegovernment. I now found that I had pursued a wrong track, and that thetrue way of being able to relieve others, was first to aim atindependence myself; my immediate care, therefore, was to leave mypresent habitation, and make an entire reformation in my conduct andbehaviour. For a free, open, undesigning deportment, I put on that ofcloseness, prudence, and economy. One of the most heroic actions Iever performed, and for which I shall praise myself as long as I live,was the refusing half a crown to an old acquaintance, at the time whenhe wanted it, and I had it to spare; for this alone I deserve to bedecreed an ovation.

"I now, therefore, pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldomwanted a dinner, and was, consequently, invited to twenty. I soonbegan to get the character of a saving hunks that had money, andinsensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my advice in thedisposal of their daughters; and I have always taken care not to giveany. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman, only byobserving, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds, it willbe a thousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker'stable, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now actually upon treaty ofmarriage with a rich widow, for only having observed that the breadwas rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I know it or not,instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a charity isproposed, I go about with the hat, but put nothing in myself. If awretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is filled withimpostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived, by neverrelieving. In short, I now find the truest way of finding esteem evenfrom the indigent, is to give away nothing, and thus have much in ourpower to give."

Goldsmith.

OLD MAIDS AND BACHELORS

Lately in company with my friend in black, whose conversation is nowboth my amusem*nt and instruction, I could not avoid observing thegreat numbers of old bachelors and maiden ladies with which this cityseems to be over-run. "Sure marriage," said I, "is not sufficientlyencouraged, or we should never behold such crowds of battered beauxand decayed coquettes still attempting to drive a trade they have beenso long unfit for, and swarming upon the gaiety of the age. I beholdan old bachelor in the most contemptible light, as an animal thatlives upon the common stock, without contributing his share: he is abeast of prey, and the laws should make use of as many stratagems, andas much force to drive the reluctant savage into the toils, as theIndians when they hunt the rhinoceros. The mob should be permitted tohalloo after him, boys might play tricks on him with impunity, everywell-bred company should laugh at him, and if, when turned of sixty,he offered to make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or, whatwould be perhaps a greater punishment, should fairly grant the favour.

"As for old maids," continued I, "they should not be treated with somuch severity, because I suppose none would be so if they could. Nolady in her senses would choose to make a subordinate figure atchristenings and lyings-in, when she might be the principal herself;nor curry favour with a sister-in-law, when she might command anhusband; nor toil in preparing custards, when she might lie a-bed andgive directions how they ought to be made; nor stifle all hersensations in demure formality, when she might with matrimonialfreedom shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink at a doubleentendre. No lady could be so very silly as to live single, if shecould help it. I consider an unmarried lady declining into the vale ofyears, as one of those charming countries bordering on China that lieswaste for want of proper inhabitants. We are not to accuse thecountry, but the ignorance of its neighbours, who are insensible ofits beauties, though at liberty to enter and cultivate the soil."

"Indeed, sir," replied my companion, "you are very little acquaintedwith the English ladies, to think they are old maids against theirwill. I dare venture to affirm, that you can hardly select one of themall but has had frequent offers of marriage, which either pride oravarice has not made her reject. Instead of thinking it a disgrace,they take every occasion to boast of their former cruelty; a soldierdoes not exult more when he counts over the wounds he has received,than a female veteran when she relates the wounds she has formerlygiven: exhaustless when she begins a narrative of the formerdeath-dealing power of her eyes. She tells of the knight in gold lace,who died with a single frown, and never rose again till—he wasmarried to his maid; of the squire, who being cruelly denied, in arage flew to the window, and lifting up the sash, threw himself in anagony—into his arm chair; of the parson who, crossed in love,resolutely swallowed opium, which banished the stings of despised loveby—making him sleep. In short, she talks over her former losses withpleasure, and, like some tradesmen, finds some consolation in the manybankruptcies she has suffered.

"For this reason, whenever I see a superannuated beauty stillunmarried, I tacitly accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, oraffectation. There's Miss Jenny Tinderbox, I once remember her to havehad some beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder sister happened tomarry a man of quality, and this seemed as a statute of virginityagainst poor Jane. Because there was one lucky hit in the family, shewas resolved not to disgrace it by introducing a tradesman. By thusrejecting her equals, and neglected or despised by her superiors, shenow acts in the capacity of tutoress to her sister's children, andundergoes the drudgery of three servants, without receiving the wagesof one.

"Miss Squeeze was a pawnbroker's daughter; her father had early taughther that money was a very good thing, and left her a moderate fortuneat his death. She was so perfectly sensible of the value of what shehad got, that she was resolved never to part with a farthing withoutan equality on the part of her suitor: she thus refused several offersmade her by people who wanted to better themselves, as the saying is;and grew old and ill-natured, without ever considering that she shouldhave made an abatement in her pretensions, from her face being pale,and marked with the small-pox.

"Lady Betty Tempest, on the contrary, had beauty, with fortune andfamily. But fond of conquest, she passed from triumph to triumph; shehad read plays and romances, and there had learned that a plain man ofcommon sense was no better than a fool: such she refused, and sighedonly for the gay, giddy, inconstant, and thoughtless; after she hadthus rejected hundreds who liked her, and sighed for hundreds whodespised her, she found herself insensibly deserted: at present she iscompany only for her aunts and cousins, and sometimes makes one in acountry-dance, with only one of the chairs for a partner, casts offround a joint-stool, and sets to a corner-cupboard. In a word, she istreated with civil contempt from every quarter, and placed, like apiece of old-fashioned lumber, merely to fill up a corner.

"But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia, how shall I mention her? Shewas taught to love Greek, and hate the men from her very infancy: shehas rejected fine gentlemen because they were not pedants, and pedantsbecause they were not fine gentlemen; her exquisite sensibility hastaught her to discover every fault in every lover, and her inflexiblejustice has prevented her pardoning them: thus she rejected severaloffers, till the wrinkles of age had overtaken her; and now, withoutone good feature in her face, she talks incessantly of the beauties ofthe mind."

Goldsmith.

THE IMPORTANT TRIFLER

Though naturally pensive, yet I am fond of gay company, and take everyopportunity of thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this motive Iam often found in the centre of a crowd; and wherever pleasure is tobe sold, am always a purchaser. In those places, without beingremarked by any, I join in whatever goes forward, work my passionsinto a similitude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, andcondemn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for a whilebelow its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, asthose first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour.

Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately wentto gaze upon the company in one of the public walks near the city.Here we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beautyof such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing elseto recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for sometime, when stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, andled me out of the public walk; I could perceive by the quickness ofhis pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attemptingto avoid somebody who followed; we now turned to the right, then tothe left; as we went forward he still went faster, but in vain; theperson whom he attempted to escape, hunted us through every doubling,and gained upon us each moment; so that at last we fairly stood still,resolving to face what we could not avoid.

Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of anold acquaintance. "My dear Drybone," cries he, shaking my friend'shand, "where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively Ihad fancied you were gone down to cultivate matrimony and your estatein the country." During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveyingthe appearance of our new companion; his hat was pinched up withpeculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round hisneck he wore a broad black ribbon, and in his bosom a buckle studdedwith glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by hisside a sword with a black hilt, and his stockings of silk, thoughnewly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engagedwith the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latterpart of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on thetaste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance: "Psha, psha,Will," cried the figure, "no more of that if you love me, you know Ihate flattery, on my soul I do; and yet to be sure an intimacy withthe great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison willfatten; and yet faith I despise the great as much as you do; but thereare a great many damn'd honest fellows among them; and we must notquarrel with one half, because the other wants weeding. If they wereall such as my Lord Muddler, one of the most good-natured creaturesthat ever squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number oftheir admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the duch*ess ofPiccadilly's, my lord was there. Ned, says he to me, Ned, says he,I'll hold gold to silver I can tell where you were poaching lastnight. Poaching, my lord, says I; faith you have missed already; for Istaid at home, and let the girls poach for me. That's my way; I take afine woman as some animals do their prey; stand still, and swoop, theyfall into my mouth."

"Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow," cried my companion, with looksof infinite pity, "I hope your fortune is as much improved as yourunderstanding in such company?"—"Improved," replied the other; "Youshall know,—but let it go no further,—a great secret—five hundred ayear to begin with.—My lord's word of honour for it—his lordshiptook me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tete-a-tetedinner in the country; where we talked of nothing else."—"I fancy youforget, sir," cried I, "you told us but this moment of your diningyesterday in town!"—"Did I say so," replied he coolly, "to be sure ifI said so it was so—dined in town; egad now I do remember, I did dinein town; but I dined in the country too; for you must know, my boys, Ieat two dinners. By the by, I am grown as nice as the devil in myeating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that: We were a selectparty of us to dine at Lady Grogram's, an affected piece, but let itgo no further; a secret: well, there happened to be no assafoetida inthe sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I, I'll hold a thousandguineas, and say done first, that—but, dear Drybone, you are anhonest creature, lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, justtill—but hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may betwenty to one but I forget to pay you."

When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon soextraordinary a character. His very dress, cries my friend, is notless extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him this day you findhim in rags, if the next in embroidery. With those persons ofdistinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, he has scarcely acoffee-house acquaintance. However, both for the interests of society,and perhaps for his own, heaven has made him poor, and while all theworld perceive his wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. Anagreeable companion because he understands flattery, and all must bepleased with the first part of his conversation, though all are sureof its ending with a demand on their purse. While his youthcountenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarioussubsistence, but when age comes on, the gravity of which isincompatible with buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken byall. Condemned in the decline of life to hang upon some rich familywhom he once despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of studiedcontempt, to be employed only as a spy upon the servants, or abug-bear to frighten the children into obedience.

Goldsmith.

THE TRIFLER'S HOUSEHOLD

I am apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance whom it will beno easy matter to shake off. My little beau yesterday overtook meagain in one of the public walks, and slapping me on the shoulder,saluted me with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress wasthe same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore adirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm.

As I knew him to be an harmless amusing little thing, I could notreturn his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward onterms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all theusual topics preliminary to particular conversation.

The oddities that marked his character, however, soon began to appear;he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who, by their manner ofreturning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals hedrew out a pocket-book, seeming to take memorandums before all thecompany, with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led methrough the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, andfancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator.

When we were got to the end of our procession, "Blast me," cries he,with an air of vivacity, "I never saw the park so thin in my lifebefore; there's no company at all to-day. Not a single face to beseen."—"No company," interrupted I peevishly; "no company where thereis such a crowd; why man, there's too much. What are the thousandsthat have been laughing at us but company!"—"Lard my dear," returnedhe, with the utmost good-humour, "you seem immensely chagrined; butblast me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, andso we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I,sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do athousand things for the joke. But I see you are grave, and if you arefor a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and mywife to-day, I must insist on't; I'll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, alady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred, butthat's between ourselves, under the inspection of the Countess ofAll-night. A charming body of voice, but no more of that, she willgive us a song. You shall see my little girl too, Carolina WilhelmaAmelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature: I design her for my LordDrumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go nofurther; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, andplays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be asperfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'llmake her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn thatlanguage purposely to instruct her; but let that be a secret."

Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, andhauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways;for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particularaversion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to thedoor of a dismal looking house in the outlets of the town, where heinformed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air.

We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitablyopen; and I began to ascend an old and creaking stair-case, when, ashe mounted to show me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted inprospects, to which answering in the affirmative, "Then," says he, "Ishall show you one of the most charming in the world out of mywindows; we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country fortwenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give tenthousand guineas for such a one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tellhim, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends maysee me the oftener."

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us toascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call thefirst floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice fromwithin demanded, who's there? My conductor answered, that it was him.But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated thedemand: to which he answered louder than before; and now the door wasopened by an old woman with cautious reluctance.

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony,and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady? "Good troth,"replied she, in a peculiar dialect, "she's washing your two shirts atthe next door, because they have taken an oath against lending out thetub any longer."—"My two shirts," cries he in a tone that faulteredwith confusion, "what does the idiot mean!"—"I ken what I mean wellenough," replied the other, "she's washing your two shirts at the nextdoor, because——"—"Fire and fury, no more of thy stupidexplanations," cried he,—"Go and inform her we have got company. Werethat Scotch hag to be for ever in the family, she would never learnpoliteness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, ortestify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it isvery surprising too, as I had her from a parliament-man, a friend ofmine, from the highlands, one of the politest men in the world; butthat's a secret."

We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval Ihad a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture;which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that heassured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had beenonce japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in theother; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head were stuckover the chimney; and round the walls several paltry, unframedpictures, which he observed, were all his own drawing: "What do youthink, sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grisoni?there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though therehappens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for itsfellow; I refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, youknow."

The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquet;much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She madetwenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hopedto be excused, as she had staid out all night at the gardens with thecountess, who was excessively fond of the horns. "And, indeed, mydear," added she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank yourhealth in a bumper."—"Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-naturedcreature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have givenorders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, thereare but three of us, something elegant, and little will do; a turbot,an ortolan, or a——" "Or what do you think, my dear," interrupts thewife, "of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed witha little of my own sauce."—"The very thing," replies he, "it will eatbest with some smart bottled beer; but be sure to let's have the saucehis grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat, that iscountry all over; extreme disgusting to those who are in the leastacquainted with high life."

By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase;the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last neverfails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect aprior engagement, and after having shown my respect to the house,according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old servant apiece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs assuring methat dinner, if I staid, would be ready at least in less than twohours.

Goldsmith.

WESTMINSTER HALL

I had some intentions lately of going to visit Bedlam, the place wherethose who go mad are confined. I went to wait upon the man in black tobe my conductor; but I found him preparing to go to Westminster Hall,where the English hold their courts of justice. It gave me somesurprise to find my friend engaged in a law-suit, but more so, when heinformed me that it had been depending for several years. "How is itpossible," cried I, "for a man who knows the world to go to law? I amwell acquainted with the courts of justice in China; they resemblerat-traps every one of them; nothing more easy than to get in, but toget out again is attended with some difficulty, and more cunning thanrats are generally found to possess!"

"Faith," replied my friend, "I should not have gone to law, but that Iwas assured of success before I began; things were presented to me inso alluring a light, that I thought by barely declaring myself acandidate for the prize, I had nothing more to do than to enjoy thefruits of the victory. Thus have I been upon the eve of an imaginarytriumph every term these ten years; have travelled forward withvictory ever in my view, but ever out of reach; however, at present Ifancy we have hampered our antagonist in such a manner, that withoutsome unforeseen demur, we shall this day lay him fairly on his back."

"If things be so situated," said I, "I do not care if I attend you tothe courts, and partake in the pleasure of your success. But prithee,"continued I, as we set forward, "what reasons have you to think anaffair at last concluded, which has given so many formerdisappointments?"—"My lawyer tells me," returned he, "that I haveSalkeld and Ventris strong in my favour, and that there are no lessthan fifteen cases in point."—"I understand," said I, "those are twoof your judges who have already declared their opinions."—"Pardonme," replied my friend, "Salkeld and Ventris are lawyers who somehundred years ago gave their opinions on cases similar to mine; theseopinions which make for me my lawyer is to cite, and those opinionswhich look another way are cited by the lawyer employed by myantagonist; as I observed, I have Salkeld and Ventris for me, he hasco*ke and Hale for him, and he that has most opinions is most likely tocarry his cause."—"But where is the necessity," cried I, "ofprolonging a suit by citing the opinions and reports of others, sincethe same good sense which determined lawyers in former ages may serveto guide your judges at this day? They at that time gave theiropinions only from the light of reason; your judges have the samelight at present to direct them, let me even add a greater, as informer ages there were many prejudices from which the present ishappily free. If arguing from authorities be exploded from every otherbranch of learning, why should it be particularly adhered to in this?I plainly foresee how such a method of investigation must embarrassevery suit, and even perplex the student; ceremonies will bemultiplied, formalities must increase, and more time will thus bespent in learning the arts of litigation than in the discovery ofright."

"I see," cries my friend, "that you are for a speedy administration ofjustice; but all the world will grant that the more time that is takenup in considering any subject the better it will be understood.Besides, it is the boast of an Englishman, that his property issecure, and all the world will grant that a deliberate administrationof justice is the best way to secure his property. Why have we somany lawyers, but to secure our property? why so many formalities,but to secure our property? Not less than one hundred thousandfamilies live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by securing ourproperty."

"To embarrass justice," returned I, "by a multiplicity of laws, or tohazard it by a confidence in our judges, are, I grant, the oppositerocks on which legislative wisdom has ever split; in one case theclient resembles that emperor, who is said to have been suffocated bythe bed-clothes, which were only designed to keep him warm: in theother, to that town which let the enemy take possession of its walls,in order to show the world how little they depended upon aught butcourage for safety:——But, bless me, what numbers do I see here—allin black—how is it possible that half this multitude findemployment?"—"Nothing so easily conceived," returned my companion,"they live by watching each other. For instance, the catchpole watchesthe man in debt; the attorney watches the catchpole; the counsellorwatches the attorney; the solicitor the counsellor; and all findsufficient employment." "I conceive you," interrupted I, "they watcheach other; but it is the client that pays them all for watching: itputs me in mind of a Chinese fable, which is intituled, 'Five animalsat a meal.'

"A grasshopper, filled with dew, was merrily singing under a shade; awhangam, that eats grasshoppers, had marked it for its prey, and wasjust stretching forth to devour it; a serpent, that had for a longtime fed only on whangams, was coiled up to fasten on the whangam; ayellow bird was just upon the wing to dart upon the serpent; a hawkhad just stooped from above to seize the yellow bird; all were intenton their prey, and unmindful of their danger: so the whangam eat thegrasshopper, the serpent eat the whangam, the yellow bird the serpent,and the hawk the yellow bird; when sousing from on high, a vulturegobbled up the hawk, grasshopper, whangam, and all in a moment."

I had scarcely finished my fable, when the lawyer came to inform myfriend that his cause was put off till another term, that money waswanted to retain, and that all the world was of opinion that the verynext hearing would bring him off victorious. "If so, then," cries myfriend, "I believe it will be my wisest way to continue the cause foranother term, and, in the mean time, my friend here and I will go andsee Bedlam."

Goldsmith.

THE LITTLE BEAU

I lately received a visit from the little beau, who I found hadassumed a new flow of spirits with a new suit of clothes. Ourdiscourse happened to turn upon the different treatment of the fairsex here and in Asia, with the influence of beauty in refining ourmanners and improving our conversation.

I soon perceived he was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Asiaticmethod of treating the sex, and that it was impossible to persuadehim, but that a man was happier who had four wives at his command,than he who had only one. "It is true," cries he, "your men of fashionin the East are slaves, and under some terrors of having their throatssqueezed by a bow-string; but what then? they can find ampleconsolation in a seraglio; they make indeed an indifferent figure inconversation abroad, but then they have a seraglio to console them athome. I am told they have no balls, drums, nor operas, but then theyhave got a seraglio; they may be deprived of wine and French cookery,but they have a seraglio; a seraglio, a seraglio, my dear creature,wipes off every inconvenience in the world.

"Besides, I am told, your Asiatic beauties are the most convenientwomen alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing inNature I should like so much as ladies without souls; soul here is theutter ruin of half the sex. A girl of eighteen shall have soul enoughto spend an hundred pounds in the turning of a trump. Her mother shallhave soul enough to ride a sweepstake match at a horse-race; hermaiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the furniture of awhole toyshop, and others shall have soul enough to behave as if theyhad no souls at all."

"With respect to the soul," interrupted I, "the Asiatics are muchkinder to the fair sex than you imagine; instead of one soul, Fohi theidol of China gives every woman three, the Bramins give them fifteen;and even Mahomet himself no where excludes the sex from Paradise.Abul-feda reports, that an old woman one day importuning him to knowwhat she ought to do in order to gain Paradise? 'My good lady,'answered the prophet, 'old women never get there.'—'What, never getto Paradise!' returned the matron, in a fury. 'Never,' says he, 'forthey always grow young by the way.'

"No, sir," continued I, "the men of Asia behave with more deference tothe sex than you seem to imagine. As you of Europe say grace, uponsitting down to dinner, so it is the custom in China to say grace,when a man goes to bed to his wife." "And may I die," returned mycompanion, "but a very pretty ceremony; for seriously, sir, I see noreason why a man should not be as grateful in one situation as in theother. Upon honour, I always find myself much more disposed togratitude, on the couch of a fine woman, than upon sitting down to asurloin of beef."

"Another ceremony," said I, resuming the conversation, "in favour ofthe sex amongst us, is the bride's being allowed, after marriage, herthree days of freedom. During this interval a thousand extravaganciesare practised by either sex. The lady is placed upon the nuptial bed,and numberless monkey tricks are played round to divert her. Onegentleman smells her perfumed handkerchief, another attempts to untieher garters, a third pulls off her shoe to play hunt the slipper,another pretends to be an idiot, and endeavours to raise a laugh bygrimacing; in the mean time, the glass goes briskly about, tillladies, gentlemen, wife, husband, and all are mixed together in oneinundation of arrack punch."

"Strike me dumb, deaf, and blind," cried my companion, "but verypretty; there is some sense in your Chinese ladies' condescension; butamong us, you shall scarcely find one of the whole sex that shall holdher good humour for three days together. No later than yesterday Ihappened to say some civil things to a citizen's wife of myacquaintance, not because I loved, but because I had charity; and whatdo you think was the tender creature's reply? Only that she detestedmy pigtail wig, high-heeled shoes, and sallow complexion. That is all.Nothing more! Yes, by the heavens, though she was more ugly than anunpainted actress, I found her more insolent than a thorough-bredwoman of quality."

He was proceeding in this wild manner, when his invective wasinterrupted, by the man in black, who entered the apartment,introducing his niece, a young lady of exquisite beauty. Her veryappearance was sufficient to silence the severest satyrist of the sex;easy without pride, and free without impudence, she seemed capable ofsupplying every sense with pleasure; her looks, her conversation werenatural and unconstrained; she had neither been taught to languish norogle, to laugh without a jest, or sigh without sorrow. I found thatshe had just returned from abroad, and had been conversant in themanners of the world. Curiosity prompted me to ask several questions,but she declined them all. I own I never found myself so stronglyprejudiced in favour of apparent merit before; and could willinglyhave prolonged our conversation, but the company after some timewithdrew. Just, however, before the little beau took his leave, hecalled me aside, and requested I would change him a twenty pound bill,which as I was incapable of doing, he was contented with borrowinghalf a crown.

Goldsmith.

THE CLUB

The first of our Society is a Gentleman of Worcestershire, ofantient Descent, a Baronet, his Name Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY. His greatGrandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'dafter him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with theParts and Merits of Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singularin his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense,and are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinksthe World is in the wrong. However, this Humour creates him noEnemies, for he does nothing with Sourness or Obstinacy; and his beingunconfined to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and morecapable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town helives in Soho-Square: It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelor byreason he was crossed in Love, by a perverse beautiful Widow of thenext County to him. Before this Disappointment, Sir Roger was what youcall a fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester andSir George Etherege, fought a Duel upon his first coming to Town,and kick'd Bully Dawson in a publick Coffee-house for calling himYoungster. But being ill used by the above-mentioned Widow, he wasvery serious for a Year and a half; and though, his Temper beingnaturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself,and never dressed afterwards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doubletof the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse,which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelveTimes since he first wore it. He is now in his Fifty sixth Year,cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House both in Town andCountry; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful Castin his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed: His Tenantsgrow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women professLove to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he comesinto a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all theway up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a Justiceof the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session withgreat Abilities, and three Months ago gain'd universal Applause byexplaining a Passage in the Game-Act.

The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is anotherBatchelor, who is a Member of the Inner Temple; a man of greatProbity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place ofResidence rather to obey the Direction of an old humoursom Father,than in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was placed there to studythe Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House inthose of the Stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much betterunderstood by him than Littleton or Cooke. The Father sends upevery Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, andTenures, in the Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with anAttorney to answer and take care of in the Lump: He is studying thePassions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the Debatesamong Men which arise from them. He knows the Argument of each of theOrations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one Case in the Reportsof our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, excepthis intimate Friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This Turn makeshim at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his Thoughtsare drawn from Business, they are most of them fit for Conversation.His Taste of Books is a little too just for the Age he lives in; hehas read all, but approves of very few. His Familiarity with theCustoms, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him avery delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World. Heis an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play is his Hour ofBusiness; exactly at five he passes thro' New-Inn, crosses thro'Russel-Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; hehas his Shoes rubbed and his Perriwig powder'd at the Barber's as yougo into the Rose. It is for the Good of the Audience when he is at aPlay, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him.

The Person of next Consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a Merchant ofgreat Eminence in the City of London. A Person of indefatigableIndustry, strong Reason, and great Experience. His Notions of Tradeare noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some slyWay of Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a richMan) he calls the Sea the British Common. He is acquainted withCommerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid andbarbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be gotby Arts and Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of ourTrade were well cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and ifanother, from another. I have heard him prove, that Diligence makesmore lasting Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruined moreNations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongwhich the greatest Favourite is, "A Penny saved is a Penny got." AGeneral Trader of good Sense, is pleasanter company than a generalScholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected Eloquence, thePerspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would inanother Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that Englandmay be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himselfis richer than other Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him,that there is not a point in the Compass but blows home a Ship inwhich he is an Owner.

Next to Sir Andrew in the Club-room sits Captain SENTRY, a Gentlemanof great Courage, good Understanding, but invincible Modesty. He isone of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at puttingtheir Talents within the Observation of such as should take Notice ofthem. He was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with greatGallantry in several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having asmall Estate of his own, and being next Heir to Sir Roger, he hasquitted a Way of Life in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit,who is not something of a Courtier as well as a Soldier. I have heardhim often lament, that in a Profession where Merit is placed in soconspicuous a View, Impudence should get the better of Modesty. Whenhe has talked to this Purpose I never heard him make a sourExpression, but frankly confess that he left the World, because he wasnot fit for it. A strict Honesty and an even Regular Behaviour, are inthemselves obstacles to him that must press through Crowds, whoendeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of a Commander. Hewill however in his Way of Talk excuse Generals, for not disposingaccording to Mens Desert, or inquiring into it: For, says he, thatgreat Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break through tocome at me, as I have to come to him: Therefore he will conclude, thatthe Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military Way, mustget over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against theImportunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his ownVindication. He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward inasserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to beslow in attacking when it is your Duty. With this Candour does theGentleman speak of himself and others. The same Frankness runs throughall his Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnish'd himwith many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable tothe Company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to commandMen in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from anHabit of obeying Men highly above him.

But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquaintedwith the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us thegallant WILL. HONEYCOMB, a Gentleman who according to his Years shouldbe in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful ofhis Person, and always had a very easie Fortune, Time has made butvery little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Tracesin his Brain. His Person is well turn'd, of a good Height. He is veryready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertainWomen. He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits asothers do Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily.He knows the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which ofthe French King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this Manner ofcurling their Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; and whose Vanityto show her Foot made Petticoats so short in such a Year. In a Word,all his Conversation and Knowledge has been in the female World: Asother Men of his Age will take Notice to you what such a Minister saidupon such and such an Occasion, he will tell you when the Duke ofMonmouth danced at Court such a Woman was then smitten, another wastaken with him at the Head of his Troop in the Park. In all theseimportant Relations, he has ever about the same Time received a Glanceor a Blow of a Fan from some celebrated Beauty, Mother of the PresentLord such-a-one. This way of Talking of his very much enlivens theConversation among us of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is notone of the Company but my self, who rarely speak at all, but speaks ofhim as that Sort of Man, who is usually called a well-bred fineGentleman.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of,as one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he doesit adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is aClergyman, a very philosophick Man, of general Learning, greatSanctity of Life, and the most exact good Breeding. He has theMisfortune to be of a very weak Constitution, and consequently cannotaccept of such Cares and Business as Preferments in his Function wouldoblige him to: He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-Counselloris among Lawyers. The Probity of his Mind, and the Integrity of hisLife, create him Followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others.He seldom introduces the Subject he speaks upon; but we are so fargone in Years, that he observes, when he is among us, an Earnestnessto have him fall on some divine Topick, which he always treats withmuch Authority, as one who has no Interests in this World, as one whois hastening to the Object of all his Wishes, and conceives Hope fromhis Decays and Infirmities. These are my ordinary Companions.

Steele.

THE MEETING OF THE CLUB

The Club of which I am a Member is very luckily composed of suchPersons as are engaged in different Ways of Life, and deputed as itwere out of the most conspicuous Classes of Mankind: By this Means Iam furnished with the greatest Variety of Hints and Materials, andknow every thing that passes in the different Quarters and Divisions,not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My Readers toohave the Satisfaction to find, that there is no rank or Degree amongthem who have not their Representative in this Club, and that there isalways some Body present who will take Care of their respectiveInterests, that nothing may be written or published to the Prejudiceor Infringement of their just Rights and Privileges.

I last Night sat very late in Company with this select Body ofFriends, who entertained me with several Remarks which they and othershad made upon these my Speculations, as also with the various Successwhich they had met with among their several Ranks and Degrees ofReaders. WILL. HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest manner he could, thatthere were some Ladies (but for your Comfort, says Will., they are notthose of the most Wit) that were offended at the Liberties I had takenwith the Opera and the Puppet-Show: That some of them were likewisevery much surprised, that I should think such serious Points as theDress and Equipage of Persons of Quality, proper Subjects forRaillery.

He was going on, when Sir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up short, and toldhim, that the Papers he hinted at had done great Good in the City, andthat all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: Andfurther added, that the whole City thought themselves very muchobliged to me for declaring my generous Intentions to scourge Vice andFolly as they appear in a Multitude, without condescending to be aPublisher of particular Intreagues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says SirAndrew, if you avoid that foolish beaten Road of falling upon Aldermenand Citizens, and employ your Pen upon the Vanity and Luxury ofCourts, your Paper must needs be of general Use.

Upon this my Friend the TEMPLER told Sir Andrew, That he wondered tohear a Man of his Sense talk after that manner; that the City hadalways been the Province for Satyr; and that the Wits of KingCharles's Time jested upon nothing else during his whole Reign. Hethen shewed, by the Examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, andthe best Writers of every age, that the Follies of the Stage and Courthad never been accounted too sacred for Ridicule, how great soever thePersons might be that patroniz'd them. But after all, says he, I thinkyour Raillery has made too great an Excursion, in attacking severalPersons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me anyPrecedent for your Behaviour in that Particular.

My good friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, who had said nothing all thiswhile, began his Speech with a Pish! and told us, That he wondered tosee so many Men of Sense so very serious upon Fooleries. Let our goodFriend, says he, attack every one that deserves it: I would onlyadvise you, Mr. SPECTATOR, applying himself to me, to take care howyou meddle with Country Squires: they are the Ornaments of theEnglish Nation; Men of Good Heads and sound Bodies! and let me tellyou, some of them take it ill of you, that you mention Fox-hunterswith so little Respect.

Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this Occasion. What he said wasonly to commend my Prudence in not touching upon the Army, and advisedme to continue to act discreetly in that Point.

By this time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken awayfrom me, by one or other of the Club; and began to think my self inthe Condition of the good Man that had one Wife who took a Dislike tohis grey Hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking outwhat each of them had an Aversion to, they left his Head altogetherbald and naked.

While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy Friend the Clergyman,who, very luckily for me, was at the Club that Night, undertook myCause. He told us, that he wondered any Order of Persons should thinkthemselves too considerable to be advis'd: That it was not Quality,but Innocence, which exempted Men from Reproof: That Vice and Follyought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especiallywhen they were placed in high and conspicuous Stations of Life. Hefurther added, That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the Painsof Poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depress'd, andin some measure turned into Ridicule, by the Meanness of theirConditions and Circ*mstances. He afterwards proceeded to take Noticeof the great Use this paper might be of to the Publick, byreprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the Chastisem*nt ofthe Law, and too fantastical for the Cognizance of the Pulpit. He thenadvised me to prosecute my Undertaking with Chearfulness; and assuredme, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved byall those whose Praises do Honour to the Persons on whom they arebestowed.

The whole Club pays a particular Deference to the Discourse of this
Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid
ingenuous Manner with which he delivers himself, as by the Strength of
Argument and Force of Reason which he makes use of. Will. Honeycomb
Immediately Agreed, That What He Had Said Was right; and that for his
Part, he would not insist upon the Quarter which he had demanded for
the Ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the City with the same Frankness. The
Templer would not stand out; and was followed by Sir Roger and the
Captain: Who all agreed that I should be at Liberty to carry the War
into what Quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with
Criminals in a Body, and to assault the Vice without hurting the
Person.

This Debate, which was held for the Good of Mankind, put me in mind ofthat which the Roman Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for theirDestruction. Every Man at first stood hard for his Friend, till theyfound that by this Means they should spoil their Proscription: And atlength, making a Sacrifice of all their Acquaintance and Relations,furnished out a very decent Execution.

Having thus taken my Resolutions to march on boldly in the Cause ofVirtue and good Sense, and to annoy their Adversaries in whateverDegree or Rank of Men they may be found: I shall be deaf for thefuture to all the Remonstrances that shall be made to me on thisAccount. If Punch grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him veryfreely: If the Stage becomes a Nursery of Folly and Impertinence, Ishall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, If I meet withany thing in City, Court, or Country, that shocks Modesty or goodManners, I shall use my utmost Endeavours to make an Example of it. Imust however intreat every particular Person, who does me the Honourto be a Reader of this Paper, never to think himself, or any one ofhis Friends or Enemies, aimed at in what is said: For I promise him,never to draw a faulty Character which does not fit at least aThousand People; or to publish a single Paper, that is not written inthe Spirit of Benevolence, and with a love to Mankind.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT HOME (1)

Having often received an Invitation from my Friend Sir ROGER DECOVERLEY to pass away a Month with him in the Country, I last weekaccompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some Time at hisCountry-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuingSpeculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my Humour,lets me rise and go to Bed when I please, dine at his own Table or inmy Chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without biddingme be merry. When the Gentlemen of the County come to see him, he onlyshews me at a distance: As I have been walking in his Fields I haveobserved them stealing a Sight of me over an Hedge, and have heard theKnight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to bestared at.

I am the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists ofsober and staid Persons; for as the Knight is the best Master in theWorld, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by allabout him, his Servants never care for leaving him: By this Means hisDomesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. Youwould take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler isgrey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have everseen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You seethe Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, and in a grayPad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and tenderness out ofRegard to his past Services, tho' he has been useless for severalYears.

I could not but observe with a great deal of Pleasure the Joy thatappeared in the Countenances of these ancient Domesticks upon myFriend's Arrival at his Country-Seat. Some of them could not refrainfrom Tears at the Sight of their old Master; every one of them press'dforward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they werenot employed. At the same Time the good old Knight, with a Mixture ofthe Father and the Master of the Family, tempered the Enquiries afterhis own affairs with several kind Questions relating to themselves.This Humanity and Good nature engages every Body to him, so that whenhe is pleasant upon any of them, all his Family are in good Humour,and none so much as the Person whom He diverts himself with: On theContrary, if he coughs, or betrays any Infirmity of old Age, it iseasy for a Stander-by to observe a secret Concern in the Looks of allhis Servants.

My worthy Friend has put me under the particular Care of his Butler,who is a very prudent Man, and, as well as the rest of hisFellow-Servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because theyhave often heard their Master talk of me as of his particular Friend.

My chief Companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the Woodsor the Fields, is a very venerable Man who is ever with Sir Roger, andhas lived at his House in the Nature of a Chaplain above thirty Years.This Gentleman is a Person of good Sense and some Learning, of a veryregular Life and obliging Conversation: He heartily loves Sir Roger,and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's Esteem; so that helives in the Family rather as a Relation than a Dependant.

I have observed in several of my Papers that my Friend Sir Roger,amidst all his good Qualities, is something of an Humourist; and thathis Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by acertain Extravagance, which makes them particularly his, anddistinguishes them from those of other Men. This Cast of Mind, as itis generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his Conversationhighly agreeable, and more delightful than the same Degree of Senseand Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary Colours. As I waswalking with him last Night, he ask'd me how I liked the good Man whomI have just now mentioned? and without staying for my Answer, told me,That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his ownTable; for which Reason, he desired a particular Friend of his at theUniversity to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than muchLearning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, ifpossible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. "My friend,"says Sir Roger, "found me out this Gentleman, who, besides theEndowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar though hedoes not shew it. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; andbecause I know his Value, have settled upon him a good Annuity forLife. If he out-lives me, he shall find that he was higher in myEsteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirtyYears; and though he does not know I have taken Notice of it, hasnever in all that Time asked any thing of me for himself, tho' he isevery Day solliciting me for something in Behalf of one or other of myTenants his Parishioners. There has not been a Law-Suit in the Parishsince he has lived among them: If any Dispute arises, they applythemselves to him for the Decision; if they do not acquiesce in hisJudgment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most,they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a Presentof all the good Sermons which have been printed in English, and onlybegged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them inthe Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, thatthey follow one another naturally, and make a continued System ofpractical Divinity."

As Sir Roger was going on in his Story, the Gentleman we were talkingof came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached toMorrow (for it was Saturday Night) told us, the Bishop of St.Asaph in the Morning, and Doctor South in the Afternoon. He thenshewed us his List of Preachers for the whole Year, where I saw with agreat deal of Pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson,Doctor Barrow, Doctor Calamy, with several living Authors who havepublished Discourses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw thisvenerable Man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my Friend'sinsisting upon the Qualifications of a good Aspect and a clear Voice;for I was so charmed with the Gracefulness of his Figure and Delivery,as well as with the Discourses he pronounced, that I think I neverpassed any Time more to my Satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after thisManner, is like the Composition of a Poet in the Mouth of a gracefulActor.

I could heartily wish that more of our Country-Clergy would followthis Example; and instead of wasting their Spirits in laboriousCompositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution,and all those other Talents that are proper to enforce what has beenpenned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easy tothemselves, but more edifying to the People.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT HOME (2)

As I was Yesterday Morning walking with Sir ROGER before his House, aCountry-Fellow brought him a huge Fish, which, he told him, Mr.William Wimble had caught that very Morning; and that he presentedit, with his Service, to him, and intended to come and dine with him.At the same Time he delivered a Letter, which my Friend read to me assoon as the Messenger left him.

"Sir Roger,

I Desire you to accept of a Jack, which is the best I have caught thisSeason. I intend to come and stay with you a Week, and see how thePerch bite in the Black River. I observed, with some Concern, thelast Time I saw you upon the Bowling-Green, that your Whip wanted aLash to it: I will bring half a Dozen with me that I twisted lastWeek, which I hope will serve you all the Time you are in the Country.I have not been out of the Saddle for six Days last past, having beenat Eaton with Sir John's eldest Son. He takes to his Learninghugely.

I am,
Sir,
Your humble Servant,
Will. Wimble."

This extraordinary Letter, and Message that accompanied it, made mevery curious to know the Character and Quality of the Gentleman whosent them; which I found to be as follows: Will. Wimble is youngerBrother to a Baronet, and descended of the ancient Family of theWimbles. He is now between Forty and Fifty: but being bred to noBusiness and born to no Estate, he generally lives with his elderBrother as Superintendant of his Game. He hunts a Pack of Dogs betterthan any Man in the Country, and is very famous for finding out aHare. He is extremely well versed in all the little Handicrafts of anidle Man: He makes a May-fly to a miracle; and furnishes the wholeCountry with Angle-Rods. As he is a good-natur'd officious Fellow, andvery much esteemed upon Account of his Family, he is a welcome Guestat every House, and keeps up a good Correspondence among all theGentlemen about him. He carries a Tulip-Root in his pocket from one toanother, or exchanges a Puppy between a couple of Friends that liveperhaps in the opposite Sides of the Country. Will. is a particularFavourite of all the young Heirs, whom he frequently obliges with aNet that he has weaved, or a Setting-dog that he has made himself:He now and then presents a Pair of Garters of his own knitting totheir Mothers or Sisters; and raises a great deal of Mirth among them,by enquiring as often as he meets them how they wear? TheseGentleman-like Manufactures and obliging little Humours, make Will.the Darling of the Country.

Sir Roger was proceeding in the Character of him, when we saw him makeup to us, with two or three Hazel-twigs in his Hand that he had cut inSir Roger's Woods, as he came through them, in his Way to the House. Iwas very much pleased to observe on one Side the hearty and sincereWelcome with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other the secretJoy which his Guest discovered at Sight of the good old Knight. Afterthe first Salutes were over, Will. desired Sir ROGER to lend him oneof his Servants to carry a Set of Shuttleco*cks he had with him in alittle Box to a Lady that liv'd about a Mile off, to whom it seems hehad promised such a Present for above this half Year. Sir Roger's backwas no sooner turn'd, but honest Will. began to tell me of a largeco*ck-Pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbouring Woods,with two or three other Adventures of the same Nature. Odd anduncommon Characters are the Game that I look for, and most delight in;for which Reason I was as much pleased with the Novelty of the Personthat talked to me, as he could be for his Life with the springing of aPheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than ordinaryAttention.

In the Midst of his Discourse the Bell rung to Dinner, where theGentleman I have been speaking of had the Pleasure of seeing the hugeJack, he had caught, served up for the first Dish in a most sumptuousManner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long Account how hehad hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it outupon the Bank, with several other Particulars that lasted all thefirst Course. A Dish of Wild-fowl that came afterwards furnishedConversation for the rest of the Dinner, which concluded with a lateInvention of Will.'s for improving the Quail Pipe.

Upon withdrawing into my Room after Dinner, I was secretly touchedwith Compassion towards the honest Gentleman that had dined with us;and could not but consider with a great deal of Concern, how so goodan Heart and such busy Hands were wholly employed in Trifles; that somuch Humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so muchIndustry so little advantageous to himself. The same Temper of Mindand Application to Affairs might have recommended him to the publickEsteem, and have raised his Fortune in another Station of Life. WhatGood to his Country or himself might not a Trader or Merchant havedone with such useful tho' ordinary Qualifications?

Will. Wimble's is the Case of many a younger Brother of a greatFamily, who had rather see their Children starve like Gentlemen, thanthrive in a Trade or Profession that is beneath their Quality. ThisHumour fills several Parts of Europe with Pride and Beggary. It isthe Happiness of a trading Nation, like ours, that the younger Sons,tho' uncapable of any liberal Art or Profession, may be placed in sucha Way of Life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best oftheir Family: Accordingly we find several Citizens that were launchedinto the World with narrow Fortunes, rising by an honest Industry togreater Estates than those of their elder Brothers. It is notimprobable but Will. was formerly tried at Divinity, Law, orPhysick; and that finding his Genius did not lie that Way, his Parentsgave him up at length to his own Inventions: But certainly, howeverimproper he might have been for Studies of a higher Nature, he wasperfectly well turned for the Occupations of Trade and Commerce. As Ithink this is a Point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shalldesire my Reader to compare what I have here written with what I havesaid in my Twenty first Speculation.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT HOME (3)

I was this Morning walking in the Gallery, when Sir ROGER enter'd atthe end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said, he was glad tomeet me among his Relations the DE COVERLEYS, and hoped I liked theConversation of so much good Company, who were as silent as my self. Iknew he alluded to the Pictures, and as he is a Gentleman who does nota little value himself upon his ancient Descent, I expected he wouldgive me some Account of them. We were now arrived at the upper End ofthe Gallery, when the Knight faced towards one of the Pictures, and aswe stood before it, he entered into the Matter, after his blunt way ofsaying things, as they occur to his Imagination, without regularIntroduction, or Care to preserve the Appearance of Chain of Thought.

"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the Force of Dress; and howthe Persons of one Age differ from those of another, merely by thatonly. One may observe also that the General Fashion of one Age hasbeen follow'd by one particular Set of People in another, and by thempreserved from one Generation to another. Thus the vast Jetting Coatand small Bonnet, which was the Habit in Harry the Seventh's time,is kept on in the Yeoman of the Guard; not without a good and PolitickView, because they look a Foot taller, and a Foot and an half broader:Besides, that the Cap leaves the Pace expanded, and consequently moreTerrible, and fitter to stand at the Entrance of Palaces.

"This Predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this Manner, andhis Cheeks would be no larger than mine were he in a Hat as I am. Hewas the last Man that won a Prize in the Tilt-Yard (which is now aCommon Street before Whitehall). You see the broken Lance that lyesthere by his right Foot: he shivered that Lance of his Adversary allto pieces; and bearing himself, look you Sir, in this manner, at thesame time he came within the Target of the Gentleman who rode againhim, and taking him with incredible Force before him on the Pummel ofhis Saddle, he in that manner rid the Turnament over, with an Air thatshewed he did it rather to perform the Rule of the Lists, than Exposehis Enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a Victory,and with a gentle Trot he marched up to a Gallery where their Mistresssat (for they were Rivals) and let him down with laudable Courtesy andpardonable Insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where theCoffee-house is now.

"You are to know this my Ancestor was not only of a military Geniusbut fit also for the Arts of Peace, for he play'd on the Base-viol aswell as any Gentleman at Court; you see where his Viol hangs by hisBasket-hilt Sword. The Action at the Tilt-yard you may be sure won theFair Lady, who was a Maid of Honour, and the greatest Beauty of hertime; here she stands, the next Picture. You see, Sir, my Great GreatGreat Grandmother has on the new-fashioned Petticoat, except that theModern is gathered at the Waste; my Grandmother appears as if shestood in a large Drum, whereas the Ladies now walk as if they were ina Go-Cart. For all this Lady was bred at Court, she became anExcellent Country-Wife, she brought ten Children, and when I shew youthe Library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for theDifference of the Language) the best Receipt now in England both foran Hasty-Pudding and a Whitepot.

If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to lookat the three next Pictures at one View; these are three Sisters. Sheon the right Hand, who is so very beautiful, dyed a Maid; the next toher, still handsomer, had the same Fate, against her Will; this homelything in the middle had both their Portions added to her own, and wasStolen by a neighbouring Gentleman, a Man of Stratagem and Resolution,for he poisoned three Mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down twoDear-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all Families:The Theft of this Romp and so much Money, was no great matter to ourEstate. But the next Heir that possessed it was this soft Gentlemanwhom you see there: Observe the small buttons, the little Boots, theLaces, the Slashes about his Cloaths, and above all the Posture he isdrawn in, (which to be sure was his own chusing); you see he sits withone Hand on a Desk writing, and looking as it were another way, likean easie Writer, or a Sonneteer: He was one of those that had too muchWit to know how to live in the World; he was a man of no Justice, butgreat good Manners; he ruined every body that had any thing to do withhim, but never said a rude thing in his Life; the most indolent Personin the World, he would sign a Deed that passed away half his Estatewith his Gloves on, but would not put on his Hat before a Lady, if itwere to save his Country. He is said to be the first that made Love bysqueezing the Hand. He left the Estate with ten thousand Pounds Debtupon it, but however by all Hands I have been informed that he wasevery way the finest Gentleman in the World. That Debt lay heavy onour House for one Generation, but it was retrieved by a Gift from thatHonest Man you see there, a Citizen of our Name, but nothing at alla-kin to us. I know Sir ANDREW FREEPORT has said behind my Back, thatthis Man was descended from one of the ten Children of the Maid ofHonour I shewed you above. But it was never made out; we winked at thething indeed, because Money was wanting at that time."

Here I saw my Friend a little embarrassed, and turned my Face to thenext Portraiture.

Sir Roger went on with his Account of the Gallery in the followingmanner. "This man" (pointing to him I look'd at) "I take to be theHonour of our House. Sir HUMPHREY DE COVERLEY; he was in his Dealingsas punctual as a Tradesman, and as generous as a Gentleman. He wouldhave thought himself as much undone by breaking his Word, as if itwere to be followed by Bankruptcy. He served his Country as Knight ofthis Shire to his dying Day: He found it no easie matter to maintainan Integrity in his Words and Actions, even in things that regardedthe Offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his ownAffairs and Relations of Life, and therefore dreaded (tho' he hadgreat Talents) to go into Employments of State, where he must beexposed to the Snares of Ambition. Innocence of Life and great Abilitywere the distinguishing Parts of his Character; the latter, he hadoften observed, had led to the Destruction of the former, and usedfrequently to lament that Great and Good had not the sameSignification. He was an Excellent Husbandman, but had resolved not toexceed such a degree of Wealth; all above it he bestowed in secretBounties many Years after the Sum he aimed at for his own use wasattained. Yet he did not slacken his Industry, but to a decent old Agespent the Life and Fortune which was superfluous to himself, in theService of his Friends and Neighbours."

Here we were called to Dinner, and Sir Roger ended the Discourse ofthis Gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the Servant, that thishis Ancestor was a Brave Man, and narrowly escaped being killed in theCivil Wars; "for," said he, "he was sent out of the Field upon aprivate Message the Day before the Battle of Worcester." The Whim ofnarrowly escaping, by having been within a Day of Danger; with otherMatters above mentioned, mixed with good Sense, left me at a Losswhether I was more delighted with my Friend's Wisdom or Simplicity.

Steele.

SIR ROGER AT HOME (4)

At a little Distance from Sir RORGER's House, among the Ruins of anold Abbey, there is a long Walk of aged Elms; which are shot up sovery high, that when one passes under them, the Rooks and Crows thatrest upon the Tops of them seem to be Cawing in another Region. I amvery much delighted with this Sort of Noise, which I consider as akind of a natural Prayer to that Being who supplies the Wants of hiswhole Creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms,feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him. I like this Retirementthe better, because of an ill Report it lies under of being haunted;for which Reason (as I have been told in the Family) no livingCreature ever walks in it besides the Chaplain. My good Friend theButler desired me with a very grave Face not to venture myself in itafter Sun-set, for that one of the Footmen had been almost frightedout of his Wits by a Spirit that appeared to him in the Shape of ablack Horse without an Head; to which he added, that about a month agoone of the Maids coming home late that Way with a Pail of Milk uponher Head, heard such a Rustling among the Bushes that she let it fall.

I was taking a Walk in this Place last Night between the Hours of Nineand Ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper Scenes inthe World for a Ghost to appear in. The Ruins of the Abbey arescattered up and down on every Side, and half covered with Ivy andElder-Bushes, the Harbours of several solitary Birds which seldom maketheir Appearance till the Dusk of the Evening. The Place was formerlya Church-yard, and has still several Marks in it of Graves andBurying-Places. There is such an Eccho among the old Ruins and Vaults,that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary you hear the Soundrepeated. At the same Time the Walk of Elms, with the Croaking of theRavens which from time to time are heard from the Tops of them, looksexceeding solemn and venerable. These Objects naturally raiseSeriousness and Attention; and when Night heightens the Awfulness ofthe Place, and pours out her supernumerary Horrours upon every thingin it, I do not at all wonder that weak Minds fill it with Spectresand Apparitions.

Mr. Locke, in his Chapter of the Association of Ideas, has verycurious Remarks to shew how by the Prejudice of Education one Ideaoften introduces into the Mind a whole Set that bear no Resemblance toone another in the Nature of things. Among several Examples of thisKind, he produces the following Instance. The Ideas of Goblins andSprights have really no more to do with Darkness than Light: Yet letbut a foolish Maid inculcate these often on the Mind of a Child, andraise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separatethem again so long as he lives; but Darkness shall ever afterwardsbring with it those frightful Ideas, and they shall be so joyned, thathe can no more bear the one than the other.

As I was walking in this Solitude, where the Dusk of the Eveningconspired with so many other Occasions of Terrour, I observed a Cowgrazing not far from me, which an Imagination that was apt tostartle might easily have construed into a black Horse without anHead: and I dare say the poor Footman lost his Wits upon some suchtrivial Occasion.

My Friend Sir Roger has often told me with a good deal of Mirth, thatat his first coming to his Estate he found three Parts of his Housealtogether useless; that the best Room in it had the Reputation ofbeing haunted, and by that Means was locked up; that Noises had beenheard in his long Gallery, so that he could not get a Servant to enterit after eight a Clock at Night; that the Door of one of his Chamberswas nailed up, because there went a Story in the Family that a Butlerhad formerly hanged himself in it; and that his Mother, who lived to agreat Age, had shut up half the Rooms in the House, in which eitherher Husband, a Son, or Daughter had died. The Knight seeing hisHabitation reduced to so small a Compass, and himself in a Manner shutout of his own House, upon the Death of his Mother ordered all theApartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his Chaplain who layin every Room one after another, and by that Means dissipated theFears which had so long reigned in the Family.

I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous Horrours,did not I find them so very much prevail in all Parts of the Country.At the same Time I think a Person who is thus terrify'd with theImagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one whocontrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancientand modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks theAppearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give myself up to this general Testimony of Mankind, I should to therelations of particular Persons who are now living, and whom I cannotdistrust in other Matters of Fact. I might here add, that not only theHistorians, to whom we may joyn the Poets, but likewise thePhilosophers of Antiquity have favoured this Opinion. Lucretiushimself, though by the Course of his Philosophy he was obliged tomaintain that the Soul did not exist separate from the Body, makes noDoubt of the Reality of Apparitions, and that Men have often appearedafter their Death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressedwith the Matter of Fact which he could not have the Confidence todeny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurdunphilosophical Notions that was ever started. He tells us, That theSurfaces of all Bodies are perpetually flying off from theirrespective Bodies, one after another; and that these Surfaces or thinCases that included each other whilst they were joined in the Bodylike the Coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they areseparated from it; by which Means we often behold the Shapes andShadows of Persons who are either dead or absent.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT CHURCH

I am always very well pleased with a Country Sunday; and think, ifkeeping holy the Seventh Day were only a human Institution, it wouldbe the best Method that could have been thought of for the polishingand civilizing of Mankind. It is certain the Country-People would soondegenerate into a kind of Savages and Barbarians, were there not suchfrequent Returns of a stated Time, in which the whole Village meettogether with their best Faces, and in their cleanliest Habits, toconverse with one another upon indifferent Subjects, hear their Dutiesexplained to them, and join together in Adoration of the SupremeBeing. Sunday clears away the Rust of the whole Week, not only as itrefreshes in their Minds the Notions of Religion, but as it puts boththe Sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable Forms, and exertingall such Qualities as are apt to give them a Figure in the Eye of theVillage. A Country-Fellow distinguishes himself as much in theChurchyard, as a Citizen does upon the Change; the wholeParish-Politicks being generally discuss'd in that Place either afterSermon or before the Bell rings.

My Friend Sir ROGER being a good Churchman, has beautified the Insideof his Church with several Texts of his own chusing: He has likewisegiven a handsome Pulpit-Cloth, and railed in the Communion-Table athis own Expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to hisEstate he found his Parishioners very irregular; and that in order tomake them kneel and join in the Responses, he gave every one of them aHassock and a Common-prayer Book: and at the same Time employed anitinerant Singing-Master, who goes about the Country for that Purpose,to instruct them rightly in the Tunes of the Psalms; upon which theynow very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the CountryChurches that I have ever heard.

As Sir Roger is Landlord to the whole Congregation, he keeps them invery good Order, and will suffer no Body to sleep in it besideshimself; for if by Chance he has been surprized into a short Nap atSermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him,and if he sees any Body else nodding, either wakes them himself, orsends his Servants to them. Several other of the old Knight'sParticularities break out upon these Occasions: Sometimes he will belengthening out a Verse in the Singing-Psalms, half a Minute after therest of the Congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he ispleased with the Matter of his Devotion, he pronounces Amen three orfour times to the same Prayer; and sometimes stands up when every Bodyelse is upon their Knees, to count the Congregation, or see if any ofhis Tenants are missing.

I was yesterday very much surprized to hear my old Friend, in theMidst of the Service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind whathe was about, and not disturb the Congregation. This John Matthewsit seems is remarkable for being an idle Fellow, and at that Time waskicking his Heels for his Diversion. This Authority of the Knight,though exerted in that odd Manner which accompanies him in allCirc*mstances of Life, has a very good Effect upon the Parish, who arenot polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his Behaviour;besides that, the general good Sense and Worthiness of his Character,make his friends observe these little Singularities as Foils thatrather set off than blemish his good Qualities.

As soon as the Sermon is finished, no Body presumes to stir till SirRoger is gone out of the Church. The Knight walks down from his Seatin the Chancel between a double Row of his Tenants, that stand bowingto him on each Side; and every now and then enquires how such an one'sWife, or Mother, or Son, or Father do whom he does not see at Church;which is understood as a secret Reprimand to the Person that isabsent.

The Chaplain has often told me, that upon a Catechizing-day, when SirRoger has been pleased with a Boy that answers well, he has ordered aBible to be given him next Day for his Encouragement; and sometimesaccompanies it with a Flitch of Bacon to his Mother. Sir Roger haslikewise added five Pounds a Year to the Clerk's Place; and that hemay encourage the young Fellows to make themselves perfect in theChurch-Service, has promised upon the Death of the present Incumbent,who is very old, to bestow it according to Merit.

The fair Understanding between Sir Roger and his Chaplain, and theirmutual Concurrence in doing Good, is the more remarkable, because thevery next Village is famous for the Differences and Contentions thatrise between the Parson and the 'Squire, who live in a perpetual Stateof War. The Parson is always preaching at the 'Squire, and the 'Squireto be revenged on the Parson never comes to Church. The 'Squire hasmade all his Tenants Atheists and Tithe-Stealers; while the Parsoninstructs them every Sunday in the Dignity of his Order, andinsinuates to them in almost every Sermon, that he is a better Manthan his Patron. In short, Matters are come to such an Extremity, thatthe 'Squire has not said his Prayers either in publick or private thishalf Year; and that the Parson threatens him, if he does not mend hisManners, to pray for him in the Face of the whole Congregation.

Feuds of this Nature, though too frequent in the Country, are veryfatal to the ordinary People; who are so used to be dazled withRiches, that they pay as much Deference to the Understanding of a Manof an Estate, as of a Man of Learning; and are very hardly brought toregard any Truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached tothem, when they know there are several Men of five hundred a Year whodo not believe it.

Addison.

SIR ROGER ON THE WIDOW

In my first Description of the Company in which I pass most of myTime, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great Affliction whichmy Friend Sir ROGER had met with in his Youth, which was no less thana Disappointment in Love. It happened this Evening, that we fell intoa very pleasing Walk at a Distance from his House: As soon as we cameinto it, "It is," quoth the good old Man, looking round him with aSmile, "very hard, that any Part of my Land should be settled upon onewho has used me so ill as the perverse Widow did; and yet I am sure Icould not see a Sprig of any Bough of this whole Walk of Trees, but Ishould reflect upon her and her Severity. She has certainly the finestHand of any Woman in the World. You are to know this was the Placewherein I used to muse upon her; and by that Custom I can never comeinto it, but the same tender Sentiments revive in my Mind, as if I hadactually walked with that beautiful Creature under these Shades. Ihave been Fool enough to carve her Name on the Bark of several ofthese Trees; so unhappy is the Condition of Men in Love, to attemptthe removing of their Passions by the Methods which serve only toimprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest Hand of any Woman inthe World."

Here followed a profound Silence; and I was not displeased to observemy Friend falling so naturally into a Discourse, which I had everbefore taken Notice he industriously avoided. After a very long Pause,he entered upon an Account of this great Circ*mstance in his Life,with an Air which I thought raised my Idea of him above what I hadever had before; and gave me the Picture of that chearful Mind of his,before it received that Stroke which has ever since affected his Wordsand Actions. But he went on as follows.

"I came to my Estate in my Twenty second Year, and resolved to followthe Steps of the most worthy of my Ancestors, who have inhabited thisspot of Earth before me, in all the Methods of Hospitality and goodNeighbourhood, for the Sake of my Fame; and in Country Sports andRecreations, for the Sake of my Health. In my Twenty third Year I wasobliged to serve as Sheriff of the County; and in my Servants,Officers, and whole Equipage, indulged the Pleasure of a young Man(who did not think ill of his own Person) in taking that publickOccasion of shewing my Figure and Behaviour to Advantage. You mayeasily imagine to your self what Appearance I made, who am prettytall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the Head of a wholeCounty, with Musick before me, a Feather in my Hat, and my Horse wellbitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kindLooks and Glances I had from all the Balconies and Windows, as I rodeto the Hall where the Assizes were held. But when I came there, abeautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court, to hear the Eventof a Cause concerning her Dower. This commanding Creature (who wasborn for Destruction of all who behold her) put on such a Resignationin her Countenance, and bore the Whispers of all around the Court withsuch a pretty Uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered her selffrom one Eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meetingsomething so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with aMurrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner metit, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause tobe the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated Calf as I was,Make Way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality madeall the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave tothe fine Widow. During the Time her Cause was upon Trial, she behavedher self, I warrant you, with such a deep Attention to her Business,took Opportunities to have little Billets handed to her Counsel, thenwould be in such a pretty Confusion, occasioned, you must know, byacting before so much Company, that not only I but the whole Court wasprejudiced in her Favour; and all that the next Heir to her Husbandhad to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when itcame to her Counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as everyone besides in the Court thought he could have urged to her Advantage.You must understand, Sir, this perverse Woman is one of thoseunaccountable Creatures that secretly rejoyce in the Admiration ofMen, but indulge themselves in no further Consequences. Hence it isthat she has ever had a Train of Admirers, and she removes from herSlaves in town to those in the Country, according to the Seasons ofthe Year. She is a reading Lady, and far gone in the Pleasures ofFriendship: She is always accompanied by a Confident, who is Witnessto her daily Protestations against our Sex, and consequently a Bar toher first Steps towards Love, upon the Strength of her own Maxims andDeclarations.

However, I must needs say this accomplished Mistress of mine hasdistinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare SirRoger de Coverley was the tamest and most human of all the Brutes inthe Country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me;but upon the Strength of this Slender Encouragement of being thoughtleast detestable, I made new Liveries, new paired my Coach-Horses,sent them all to Town to be bitted, and taught to throw their Legswell, and move altogether, before I pretended to cross the Country andwait upon her. As soon as I thought my Retinue suitable to theCharacter of my Fortune and Youth, I set out from hence to make myAddresses. The particular Skill of this Lady has ever been to inflameyour Wishes, and yet command Respect. To make her Mistress of thisArt, she has a greater Share of Knowledge, Wit, and good Sense, thanis usual even among Men of Merit. Then she is beautiful beyond theRace of Women. If you won't let her go on with a certain Artifice withher Eyes, and the Skill of Beauty, she will arm her self with her realCharms, and strike you with Admiration instead of Desire. It iscertain that if you were to behold the whole Woman, there is thatDignity in her Aspect, that Composure in her Motion, that Complacencyin her Manner, that if her Form makes you hope, her Merit makes youfear. But then again, she is such a desperate Scholar, that noCountry-Gentleman can approach her without being a Jest. As I wasgoing to tell you, when I came to her House I was admitted to herPresence with great Civility; at the same Time she placed her self tobe first seen by me in such an Attitude, as I think you call thePosture of a Picture, that she discovered new Charms, and I at lastcame towards her with such an Awe as made me speechless. This she nosooner observed but she made her Advantage of it, and began aDiscourse to me concerning Love and Honour, as they both are followedby Pretenders, and the real Votaries to them. When she discussed thesePoints in a Discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as thebest Philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she asked me whethershe was so happy as to fall in with my Sentiments on these importantParticulars. Her Confident sat by her, and upon my being in the lastConfusion and Silence, this malicious Aide of hers turning to hersays, I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this Subject,and seems resolved to deliver all his Sentiments upon the Matter whenhe pleases to speak. They both kept their Countenances, and after Ihad sat half an Hour meditating how to behave before such profoundCasuists, I rose up and took my Leave. Chance has since that Timethrown me very often in her Way, and she as often has directed aDiscourse to me which I do not understand. This Barbarity has kept meever at a Distance from the most beautiful Object my Eyes ever beheld.It is thus also she deals with all Mankind, and you must make Love toher, as you would conquer the Sphinx, by posing her. But were she likeother Women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant mustthe Pleasure of that Man be, who could converse with a Creature——But, after all, you may be sure her Heart is fixed on some one orother; and yet I have been credibly informed; but who can believe halfthat is said! After she had done speaking to me, she put her Hand toher Bosom and adjusted her Tucker. Then she cast her Eyes a littledown, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she singsexcellently: Her Voice in her ordinary Speech has something in itinexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a publick Tablethe day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some Tansy in theEye of all the Gentlemen in the Country: She has certainly the finestHand of any Woman in the World. I can assure you, Sir, were you tobehold her, you would be in the same Condition; for as her Speech isMusick, her form is Angelick. But I find I grow irregular while I amtalking of her; but indeed it would be Stupidity to be unconcerned atsuch Perfection. Oh the excellent Creature, she is as inimitable toall Women, as she is inaccessible to all Men!"

I found my Friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards theHouse, that we might be joined by some other Company; and am convincedthat the Widow is the secret Cause of all that Inconsistency whichappears in some Parts of my Friend's Discourse; tho' he has so muchCommand of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according tothat of Martial, which one knows not how to render into English,Dum tacet hanc loquitur. I shall end this Paper with that wholeEpigram, which represents with much Humour my honest Friend'sCondition.

Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Nævia Rufo:
Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur:
Cænat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est
Nævia: si non sit Nævia, mutus erit.
Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem,
Nævia lux, inquit, Nævia numen, ave.

Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk,
Still he can nothing but of Nævia talk;
Let him eat, drink, ask Questions, or dispute,
Still he must speak of Nævia or be mute.
He writ to his Father, ending with this Line,
I am, my Lovely Nævia, ever thine.

Steele.

SIR ROGER IN THE HUNTING FIELD

Bodily Labour is of two kinds, either that which a Man submits to forhis Livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his Pleasure. Thelatter of them generally changes the Name of Labour for that ofExercise, but differs only from ordinary Labour as it rises fromanother Motive.

A Country Life abounds in both these kinds of Labour, and for thatReason gives a Man a greater Stock of Health and consequently a moreperfect Enjoyment of himself, than any other way of Life. I considerthe Body as a System of Tubes and Glands, or to use a more RustickPhrase, a Bundle of Pipes and Strainers, fitted to one another afterso wonderful a manner as to make a proper Engine for the Soul to workwith. This Description does not only comprehend the Bowels, Bones,Tendons, Veins, Nerves and Arteries, but every Muscle and everyLigature, which is a Composition of Fibres, that are so manyimperceptible Tubes or Pipes interwoven on all sides with invisibleGlands or Strainers.

This general Idea of a Human Body, without considering it in itsNiceties of Anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary Labour isfor the right Preservation of it. There must be frequent Motions andAgitations, to mix, digest, and separate the Juices contained in it,as well as to clear and cleanse that Infinitude of Pipes and Strainersof which it is composed, and to give their solid Parts a more firm andlasting Tone. Labour or Exercise ferments the Humours, casts them intotheir proper Channels, throws off Redundancies, and helps Nature inthose secret Distributions, without which the body cannot subsist inits Vigour, nor the Soul act with Chearfulness.

I might here mention the Effects which this has upon all the Facultiesof the Mind, by keeping the Understanding clear, the Imaginationuntroubled, and refining those Spirits that are necessary for theproper Exertion of our intellectual Faculties, during the present Lawsof Union between Soul and Body. It is to a Neglect in this Particularthat we must ascribe the Spleen, which is so frequent in Men ofstudious and sedentary Tempers, as well as the Vapours to which thoseof the other Sex are so often subject.

Had not Exercise been absolutely necessary for our Well-being, Naturewould not have made the Body so proper for it, by giving such anActivity to the Limbs, and such a Pliancy to every Part as necessarilyproduce those Compressions, Extensions, Contortions, Dilatations, andall other kinds of Motions that are necessary for the Preservation ofsuch a System of Tubes and Glands as has been before mentioned. Andthat we might not want Inducements to engage us in such an Exercise ofthe Body as is proper for its Welfare, it is so ordered that nothingvaluable can be procured without it. Not to mention Riches and Honour,even Food and Raiment are not to be come at without the Toil of theHands and Sweat of the Brows. Providence furnishes Materials, butexpects that we should work them up our selves. The Earth must belaboured before it gives its Encrease, and when it is forced into itsseveral Products, how many Hands must they pass through before theyare fit for Use? Manufactures, Trade, and Agriculture, naturallyemploy more than nineteen Parts of the Species in twenty; and as forthose who are not obliged to Labour, by the Condition in which theyare born, they are more miserable than the rest of Mankind, unlessthey indulge themselves in that voluntary Labour which goes by theName of Exercise.

My Friend Sir ROGER has been an indefatigable Man in Business of thiskind, and has hung several Parts of his House with the Trophies of hisformer Labours. The Walls of his great Hall are covered with the Hornsof several kinds of Deer that he has killed in the Chace, which hethinks the most valuable Furniture of his House, as they afford himfrequent Topicks of Discourse, and shew that he has not been Idle. Atthe lower end of the Hall, is a large Otter's Skin stuffed with Hay,which his Mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knightlooks upon with great Satisfaction, because it seems he was but nineYears old when his Dog killed him. A little Room adjoining to the Hallis a kind of Arsenal filled with Guns of several Sizes and Inventions,with which the Knight has made great Havock in the Woods, anddestroyed many thousands of Pheasants, Partridges and Wood-co*cks. HisStable Doors are patched with Noses that belonged to Foxes of theKnight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that forDistinction sake has a Brass Nail stuck through it, which cost himabout fifteen Hours riding, carried him through half a dozen Counties,killed him a brace of Geldings, and lost above half his Dogs. This theKnight looks upon as one of the greatest Exploits of his Life. Theperverse Widow, whom I have given some account of, was the Death ofseveral Foxes; For Sir Roger has told me that in the Course of hisAmours he patched the Western Door of his Stable. Whenever the Widowwas cruel, the Foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as hisPassion for the Widow abated, and old Age came on, he left offFox-hunting; but a Hare is not yet safe that sits within ten Miles ofhis House.

There is no kind of Exercise which I would so recommend to my Readersof both Sexes as this of Riding, as there is none which so muchconduces to Health, and is every way accommodated to the body,according to the Idea which I have given of it. Doctor Sydenham isvery lavish in its Praises; and if the English Reader would see theMechanical Effects of it described at length, he may find them in aBook published not many Years since, under the Title of MedicinaGymnastica. For my own part, when I am in Town, for want of theseopportunities, I exercise my self an Hour every Morning, upon a dumbBell that is placed in a Corner of my Room, and pleases me the morebecause it does everything I require of it in the most profoundSilence. My Landlady and her Daughters are so well acquainted with myHours of Exercise, that they never come into my Room to disturb mewhilst I am ringing.

When I was some Years younger than I am at present, I used to employmy self in a more laborious Diversion, which I learned from a LatinTreatise of Exercises that is written with great Erudition: It isthere called the [Greek: skiomachai], or the Fighting with a Man's ownShadow; and consists in the brandishing of two short Sticks grasped ineach Hand, and Loaden with Plugs of Lead at either end. This opens theChest, exercises the Limbs, and gives a Man all the Pleasure ofBoxing, without the Blows. I could wish that several Learned Men wouldlay out that Time which they employ in Controversies and Disputesabout nothing, in this method of fighting with their own Shadows. Itmight conduce very much to evaporate the Spleen, which makes themuneasy to the Publick as well as to themselves.

To conclude, As I am a Compound of Soul and Body, I consider my selfas obliged to a double Scheme of Duties; and think I have notfulfilled the Business of the Day, when I do not thus employ the onein Labour and Exercise, as well as the other in Study andContemplation.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES

A man's first Care should be to avoid the Reproaches of his own Heart;his next, to escape the Censures of the World: If the last interfereswith the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise,there cannot be a greater Satisfaction to an honest Mind, than to seethose Approbations which it gives itself seconded by the Applauses ofthe Publick: A Man is more sure of his Conduct, when the Verdict whichhe passes upon his own Behaviour is thus warranted, and confirmed bythe Opinion of all that know him.

My worthy Friend Sir ROGER is one of those who is not only at Peacewithin himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receivesa suitable Tribute for his universal Benevolence to mankind, in theReturns of Affection and Good-will, which are paid him by every onethat lives within his Neighbourhood. I lately met with two or threeodd Instances of that general Respect which is shewn to the good oldKnight. He would needs carry Will. Wimble and myself with him to theCounty-Assizes: As we were upon the Road Will. Wimble joined acouple of plain Men who rid before us, and conversed with them forsome Time; during which my Friend Sir Roger acquainted me with theirCharacters.

The first of them, says he, that has a spaniel by his Side, is aYeoman of about an hundred Pounds a Year, an honest Man: He is justwithin the Game-Act, and qualified to kill an Hare or a Pheasant: Heknocks down a Dinner with his Gun twice or thrice a Week; and by thatMeans lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an Estate ashimself. He would be a good Neighbour if he did not destroy so manyPartridges: in short, he is a very sensible Man; shoots flying; andhas been several Times Foreman of the Petty-jury.

The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a Fellow famousfor taking the Law of every Body. There is not one in the Town wherehe lives that he has not sued at a Quarter-Sessions. The Rogue hadonce the Impudence to go to Law with the Widow. His head is full ofCosts, Damages, and Ejectments: He plagued a couple of honestGentlemen so long for a Trespass in breaking one of his Hedges, tillhe was forced to sell the Ground it enclosed to defray the Charges ofthe Prosecution: His Father left him fourscore Pounds a Year; but hehas cast and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. Isuppose he is going upon the old Business of the Willow-Tree.

As Sir Roger was giving me this Account of Tom Touchy, Will.Wimble and his two Companions stopped short till we came up to them.After having paid their Respects to Sir Roger, Will. told him thatMr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a Dispute that arosebetween them. Will. it seems had been giving his Fellow Traveller anAccount of his Angling one Day in such a Hole; when Tom Touchy,instead of hearing out his Story, told him, that Mr. such an One, ifhe pleased, might take the law of him for fishing in that Part ofthe River. My Friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round Trot; andafter having paused some Time told them, with the Air of a Man whowould not give his Judgment rashly, that much might be said on bothSides. They were neither of them dissatisfied with the Knight'sDetermination, because neither of them found himself in the Wrong byit: Upon which we made the best of our Way to the Assizes.

The Court was sat before Sir Roger came, but notwithstanding all theJustices had taken their Places upon the Bench, they made Room for theold Knight at the Head of them; who for his Reputation in the Countrytook Occasion to whisper in the Judge's Ear, That he was glad hisLordship had met with so much good Weather in his Circuit. I waslistening to the Proceedings of the Court with much Attention, andinfinitely pleased with that great Appearance and Solemnity which soproperly accompanies such a publick Administration of our Laws; when,after about an Hour's Sitting, I observed to my great Surprize, in themidst of a Trial, that my Friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. Iwas in some Pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of twoor three Sentences, with a Look of much Business and greatIntrepidity.

Upon his first Rising the Court was hushed, and a general Whisper ranamong the Country-People that Sir Roger was up. The Speech he madewas so little to the Purpose, that I shall not trouble my Readers withan account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the Knighthimself to inform the Court, as to give him a Figure in my Eye, andkeep up his Credit in the Country.

I was highly delighted, when the Court rose, to see the Gentlemen ofthe Country gathering about my old Friend, and striving who shouldcompliment him most; at the same Time that the ordinary People gazedupon him at a Distance, not a little admiring his Courage, that wasnot afraid to speak to the Judge.

In our Return home we met with a very odd Accident; which I cannotforbear relating, because it shews how desirous all who know Sir Rogerare of giving him Marks of their Esteem. When we were arrived upon theVerge of his Estate, we stopped at a little Inn to rest our selves andour Horses. The Man of the House had it seems been formerly a Servantin the Knight's Family; and to do Honour to his old Master, had someTime since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a Sign-post before theDoor; so that the Knight's Head had hung out upon the Road about aWeek before he himself knew anything of the Matter. As soon as SirRoger was acquainted with it, finding that his Servant's Indiscretionproceeded wholly from Affection and Good-will, he only told him thathe had made him too high a Compliment; and when the Fellow seemed tothink that could hardly be, added with a more decisive Look, That itwas too great an Honour for any Man under a Duke; but told him at thesame time that it might be altered with a very few Touches, and thathe himself would be at the Charge of it. Accordingly they got aPainter by the Knight's Directions to add a pair of Whiskers to theFace, and by a little Aggravation of the Features to change it intothe Saracen's Head. I should not have known this Story, had not theInn-keeper upon Sir Roger's alighting told him in my Hearing, That hisHonour's head was brought back last Night with the alterations that hehad ordered to be made in it. Upon this my Friend with his usualChearfulness related the Particulars above-mentioned, and ordered theHead to be brought into the Room. I could not forbear discoveringgreater Expressions of Mirth than ordinary upon the Appearance of thismonstrous Face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown andstare in a most extraordinary Manner, I could still discover a distantResemblance of my old Friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desiredme to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know himin that Disguise. I at first kept my usual Silence; but upon theKnight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still more likehimself than a Saracen, I composed my Countenance in the best MannerI could, and replied, That much might be said on both Sides.

These several Adventures, with the Knight's Behaviour in them, gave meas pleasant a Day as ever I met with in any of my Travels.

Addison.

GIPSIES

As I was Yesterday riding out in the Fields with my Friend Sir ROGER,we saw at a little Distance from us a Troop of Gypsies. Upon the firstDiscovery of them, my Friend was in some Doubt whether he should notexert the Justice of the Peace upon such a Band of lawless Vagrants;but not having his Clerk with him, who is a necessary Counsellor onthese Occasions, and fearing that his Poultry might fare the worse forit, he let the Thought drop: But at the same Time gave me a particularAccount of the Mischiefs they do in the Country, in stealing People'sGoods and spoiling their Servants. If a stray Piece of Linen hangsupon an Hedge, says Sir Roger, they are sure to have it; if a Hogloses his Way in the Fields, it is ten to one but he becomes theirPrey; our Geese cannot live in Peace for them; if a Man prosecutesthem with Severity, his Hen-roost is sure to pay for it: Theygenerally straggle into these Parts about this Time of the Year; andset the Heads of our Servant-Maids so agog for Husbands, that we donot expect to have any Business done, as it should be, whilst they arein the Country. I have an honest Dairy-Maid who crosses their Handswith a Piece of Silver every Summer, and never fails being promisedthe handsomest young Fellow in the Parish for her Pains. Your Friendthe Butler has been Fool enough to be seduced by them; and though heis sure to lose a Knife, a Fork, or a Spoon every Time his Fortune istold him, generally shuts himself up in the Pantry with an old Gypsiefor about half an Hour once in a Twelvemonth. Sweet-hearts are thethings they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon allthose that apply themselves to them. You see now and then somehandsome young Jades among them: The slu*ts have often very white Teethand black Eyes.

Sir Roger observing that I listened with great Attention to hisAccount of a People who were so entirely new to me, told me, That if Iwould they should tell us our Fortunes. As I was very well pleasedwith the Knight's Proposal, we rid up and communicated our Hands tothem. A Cassandra of the Crew, after having examined my Lines verydiligently, told me, That I loved a pretty Maid in a Corner, that Iwas a good Woman's Man, with some other Particulars which I do notthink proper to relate. My Friend Sir Roger alighted from his Horse,and exposing his Palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpledit into all Shapes, and diligently scanned every Wrinkle that could bemade in it; when one of them who was older and more Sun-burnt than therest, told him, That he had a Widow in his Line of Life: Upon whichthe Knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle Baggage, and at the sametime smiled upon me. The Gypsie finding he was not displeased in hisHeart, told him, after a further Enquiry into his Hand, that hisTrue-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to Night. Myold Friend cryed pish, and bid her go on. The Gypsie told him that hewas a Batchelour, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer tosome Body than he thought: the Knight still repeated, She was an idleBaggage, and bid her go on. Ah Master, says the Gypsie, that roguishLeer of yours makes a pretty Woman's Heart ake; you ha'n't that Simperabout the Mouth for Nothing—— The uncouth Gibberish with which allthis was uttered, like the Darkness of an Oracle, made us the moreattentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the Money with her thathe had crossed her Hand with, and got up again on his Horse.

As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me, that he knew severalsensible People who believed these Gypsies now and then foretold verystrange things; and for Half an Hour together appeared more jocundthan ordinary. In the Height of his good Humour, meeting a commonBeggar upon the Road who was no Conjuror, as he went to relieve him hefound his Pocket was pickt: That being a Kind of Palmistry at whichthis Race of Vermin are very dexterous.

I might here entertain my Reader with Historical Remarks on this idleprofligate People, who infest all the Countries of Europe, and livein the Midst of Governments in a kind of Commonwealth by themselves.But instead of entering into Observations of this Nature, I shall fillthe remaining part of my Paper with a Story which is still fresh inHolland, and was printed in one of our Monthly Accounts about twentyYears ago. "As the Trekschuyt, or Hackney-boat, which carriesPassengers from Leiden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a Boyrunning along the Side of the Canal, desir'd to be taken in; which theMaster of the Boat refused, because the Lad had not quite Money enoughto pay the usual Fare. An eminent Merchant being pleased with theLooks of the Boy, and secretly touched with Compassion towards him,paid the Money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upontalking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily inthree or four Languages, and learned upon further Examination that hehad been stolen away when he was a Child by a Gypsy, and had rambledever since with a gang of those Strolers up and down several Parts ofEurope. It happened that the Merchant, whose heart seems to haveinclined towards the Boy by a secret kind of Instinct, had himselflost a Child some Years before. The Parents, after a long Search forhim, gave him for drowned in one of the Canals with which that Countryabounds; and the Mother was so afflicted at the Loss of a fine Boy,who was her only Son, that she died for Grief of it. Upon layingtogether all Particulars, and examining the several Moles and Marks bywhich the Mother used to describe the Child when he was first missing,the Boy proved to be the Son of the Merchant, whose Heart had sounaccountably melted at the Sight of him. The Lad was very wellpleased to find a Father, who was so rich, and likely to leave him agood Estate; the Father, on the other Hand, was not a little delightedto see a Son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such aStrength of Constitution, Sharpness of Understanding, and skill inLanguages." Here the printed Story leaves off; but if I may givecredit to Reports, our Linguist having received such extraordinaryRudiments towards a good Education, was afterwards trained up in everything that becomes a Gentleman; wearing off by little and little allthe vicious Habits and Practices that he had been used to in theCourse of his Peregrinations: Nay, it is said, that he has since beenemployed in foreign Courts upon National Business, with greatReputation to himself and Honour to those who sent him, and that hehas visited several Countries as a publick Minister, in which heformerly wandered as a Gypsy.

Addison.

WITCHES

There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, withoutengaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith asthis, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutelynecessary in a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors andPrepossessions. When the Arguments press equally on both sides inMatters that are indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give upourselves to neither.

It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject ofWitchcraft. When I hear the Relations that are made from all Parts ofthe World, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East andWest Indies, but from every particular Nation in Europe, I cannotforbear thinking that there is such an Intercourse and Commerce withEvil Spirits, as that which we express by the Name of Witchcraft. Butwhen I consider that the ignorant and credulous Parts of the Worldabound most in these Relations, and that the Persons among us who aresupposed to engage in such an Infernal Commerce are People of a weakUnderstanding and crazed Imagination, and at the same time reflectupon the many Impostures and Delusions of this Nature that have beendetected in all Ages, I endeavour to suspend my Belief till I hearmore certain Accounts than any which have yet come to my Knowledge. Inshort, when I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons inthe World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the twoopposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believein general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; butat the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

I am engaged in this Speculation, by some Occurrences that I met withYesterday, which I shall give my Reader an Account of at large. As Iwas walking with my Friend Sir ROGER by the side of one of his Woods,an old Woman applied her self to me for my Charity. Her Dress andFigure put me in mind of the following Description in Otway.

In a close Lane as I pursu'd my Journey,
I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with Age grown double,
Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self.
Her Eyes with scalding Rheum were gall'd and red;
Cold Palsy shook her Head: her Hands seem'd wither'd;
And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrapp'd
The tatter'd Remnants of an old striped Hanging,
Which serv'd to keep her Carcass from the Cold:
So there was nothing of a-piece about her.
Her lower Weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd
With diff'rent-colour'd Rags, black, red, while, yellow,
And seem'd to speak Variety of Wretchedness.

As I was musing on this Description, and comparing it with the Objectbefore me, the Knight told me, that this very old Woman had theReputation of a Witch all over the Country, that her Lips wereobserved to be always in Motion, and that there was not a Switch abouther House which her Neighbours did not believe had carried her severalhundreds of Miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found Sticksor Straws that lay in the Figure of a Cross before her. If she madeany Mistake at Church, and cryed Amen in a wrong Place, they neverfailed to conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. Therewas not a Maid in the Parish that would take a Pin of her, though sheshould offer a Bag of Money with it. She goes by the name of MollWhite, and has made the Country ring with several imaginary Exploitswhich are palmed upon her. If the Dairy Maid does not make her Buttercome so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom ofthe Churn. If a Horse sweats in the Stable, Moll White has been uponhis Back. If a Hare makes an unexpected Escape from the Hounds, theHuntsman curses Moll White. Nay, (says Sir Roger) I have known theMaster of the Pack, upon such an Occasion, send one of his Servants tosee if Moll White had been out that Morning.

This Account raised my Curiosity so far, that I begged my Friend SirRoger to go with me into her Hovel, which stood in a solitary Cornerunder the side of the Wood. Upon our first entring Sir Roger winked tome, and pointed at something that stood behind the Door, which uponlooking that way I found to be an old Broomstaff. At the same time hewhispered me in the Ear to take notice of a Tabby Cat that sat in theChimney-Corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad aReport as Moll White her self; for besides that Moll is said oftento accompany her in the same Shape, the Cat is reported to have spokentwice or thrice in her Life, and to have played several Pranks abovethe Capacity of an ordinary Cat.

I was secretly concerned to see Human Nature in so much Wretchednessand Disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hearSir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old Woman, advising heras a Justice of the Peace to avoid all Communication with the Devil,and never to hurt any of her Neighbours' Cattle. We concluded ourVisit with a Bounty, which was very acceptable.

In our Return home Sir Roger told me, that old Moll had been oftenbrought before him for making Children spit Pins, and giving Maids theNight-Mare; and that the Country People would be tossing her into aPond and trying Experiments with her every Day, if it was not for himand his Chaplain.

I have since found, upon Enquiry, that Sir Roger was several timesstaggered with the Reports that had been brought him concerning thisold Woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the CountySessions, had not his Chaplain with much ado perswaded him to thecontrary.

I have been the more particular in this Account, because I hear thereis scarce a Village in England that has not a Moll White in it.When an old Woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a Parish, sheis generally turned into a Witch, and fills the whole Country withextravagant Fancies, imaginary Distempers, and terrifying Dreams. Inthe meantime the poor Wretch that is the innocent Occasion of so manyEvils begins to be frighted at her self, and sometimes confessessecret Commerce and Familiarities that her Imagination forms in adelirious old Age. This frequently cuts off Charity from the greatestObjects of Compassion, and inspires People with a Malevolence towardsthose poor decrepid Parts of our Species, in whom Human Nature isdefaced by Infirmity and Dotage.

Addison.

My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY told me t'other Night, that he hadbeen reading my Paper upon Westminster-Abbey, in which, says he,there are a great many ingenious Fancies. He told me at the same Time,that he observed I had promised another Paper upon the Tombs, andthat he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visitedthem since he had read History. I could not at first imagine how thiscame into the Knight's Head, till I recollected that he had been verybusy all last Summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quotedseveral Times in his Disputes with Sir ANDREW FREEPORT since his lastcoming to Town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the nextMorning, that we might go together to the Abbey.

I found the Knight under his Butler's Hands, who always shaves him. Hewas no sooner dressed, than he called for a Glass of the WidowTrueby's Water, which he told me he always drank before he wentabroad. He recommended to me a Dram of it at the same Time, with somuch Heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as Ihad got it down I found it very unpalatable, upon which the Knightobserving that I had made several wry Faces, told me that he knew Ishould not like it at first, but that it was the best Thing in theWorld against the Stone or Gravel.

I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the Virtuesof it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he haddone was out of Good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he lookedupon it to be very good for a Man whilst he staid in Town, to keep offInfection, and that he got together a Quantity of it upon the firstNews of the Sickness being at Dantzick: When of a sudden turningshort to one of his Servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call anHackney-Coach, and take Care it was an elderly Man that drove it.

He then resumed his Discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's Water, telling methat the Widow Trueby was one who did more Good than all the Doctorsand Apothecaries in the County: That she distilled every poppy thatgrew within five Miles of her, that she distributed her Water gratisamong all sorts of People; to which the Knight added, that she had avery great Jointure, and that the whole Country would fain have it aMatch between him and her; and truly, says Sir Roger, if I had notbeen engaged, perhaps I could not have done better.

His Discourse was broken off by his Man's telling him he had called a
Coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his Eye upon the
Wheels, he asked the Coachman if his Axle-tree was good; upon the
Fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the Knight turned to me,
told me he looked like an honest Man, and went in without further
Ceremony.

We had not gone far, when Sir Roger popping out his Head, called theCoachman down from his Box, and upon his presenting himself at theWindow, asked him if he smoaked; as I was considering what this wouldend in, he bid him stop by the Way at any good Tobacconist's, and takein a Roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happen'd in theremaining Part of our Journey, till we were set down at the West-Endof the Abbey.

As we went up the Body of the Church, the Knight pointed at theTrophies upon one of the new Monuments, and cry'd out, A brave Man Iwarrant him. Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudsly Shovel, he flung hisHand that Way, and cry'd Sir Cloudsly Shovel! a very gallant Man! Aswe stood before Busby's Tomb, the Knight utter'd himself again afterthe same Manner, Dr. Busby, a great Man, he whipp'd my Grandfather,a very great Man. I should have gone to him my self, if I had not beena Blockhead, a very great Man!

We were immediately conducted into the little Chappel on the RightHand. Sir Roger planting himself at our Historian's Elbow, was veryattentive to every Thing he said, particularly to the Account he gaveus of the Lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's Head. Amongseveral other Figures, he was very pleased to see the StatesmanCecil upon his Knees; and, concluding them all to be great Men, wasconducted to the Figure which represents that Martyr to goodHousewifry, who died by the Prick of a Needle. Upon our Interpreter'stelling us, that she was a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, theKnight was very inquisitive into her Name and Family, and, afterhaving regarded her Finger for some Time, I wonder, says he, that SirRichard Baker has said Nothing of her in his Chronicle.

We were then convey'd to the two Coronation Chairs, where my oldFriend, after having heard that the Stone underneath the most ancientof them, which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob'sPillar, sat himself down in the Chair, and looking like the Figure ofan old Gothic King, asked our Interpreter, What authority they hadto say, that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? The Fellow, insteadof returning him an Answer, told him, that he hoped his Honour wouldpay his Forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon beingthus trapanned; but our Guide not insisting upon his Demand, theKnight soon recovered his good Humour, and whispered in my Ear, thatif WILL. WIMBLE were with us, and saw those two Chairs, it would gohard but he would get a Tobacco-Stopper out of one or t'other of them.

Sir Roger, in the next Place, laid his Hand upon Edward III's Sword,and leaning upon the Pommel of it, gave us the whole History of theBlack Prince; concluding, that in Sir Richard Baker's Opinion,Edward the Third was one of the greatest Princes that ever sate uponthe English Throne.

We were then shewn Edward the Confessor's Tomb; upon which Sir Rogeracquainted us, that he was the first who touched for the Evil; andafterwards Henry the Fourth's, upon which he shook his Head, andtold us, there was fine Reading in the Casualties of that Reign.

Our Conductor then pointed to that Monument, where there is the Figureof one of our English Kings without an Head; and upon giving us toknow, that the Head, which was of beaten Silver, had been stolen awayseveral Years since: Some Whig, I warrant you, says Sir Roger; Youought to lock up your Kings better: They will carry off the Body too,if you don't take Care.

The glorious Names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave theKnight great Opportunities of shining, and of doing Justice to SirRichard Baker, who, as our Knight observed with some surprize, had agreat many Kings in him, whose Monuments he had not seen in the Abbey.

For my own Part, I could not but be pleased to see the Knight shewsuch an honest Passion for the Glory of his Country, and such arespectful Gratitude to the Memory of its Princes.

I must not omit, that the Benevolence of my good old Friend, whichflows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind toour Interpreter, whom he looked upon as an extraordinary Man; forwhich Reason he shook him by the Hand at Parting, telling him, that heshould be very glad to see him at his Lodgings in Norfolk-Buildings,and talk over these Matters with him more at Leisure.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY

My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at theClub, told me that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy with me,assuring me at the same Time, that he had not been at a Play thesetwenty Years. The last I saw, says Sir Roger, was the Committee,which I should not have gone to neither, had I not been toldbefore-hand that it was a good Church of England Comedy. He thenproceeded to enquire of me who this Distress'd Mother was, and uponhearing that she was Hector's Widow, he told me, that her Husbandwas a brave Man, and that when he was a School-Boy, he had read hisLife at the end of the Dictionary. My Friend asked me, in the nextPlace, if there would not be some Danger in coming home late, in casethe Mohocks should be abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I hadfallen into their hands last Night, for I observ'd two or three lustyblack Men that followed me half way up Fleet-street, and mendedtheir Pace behind me, in Proportion as I put on to get away from them.You must know, continued the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had amind to hunt me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in myNeighbourhood, who was serv'd such a Trick in King Charles theSecond's Time; for which Reason he has not ventured himself in Townever since. I might have shown them very good Sport, had this beentheir Design, for as I am an old Fox-hunter, I should have turned anddodged, and have play'd them a thousand Tricks they had never seen intheir Lives before. Sir Roger added, that if these Gentlemen had anysuch Intention, they did not succeed very well in it; for I threw themout, says he, at the End of Norfolk-street, where I doubled theCorner, and got Shelter in my Lodgings before they could imagine whatwas become of me. However, says the Knight, if Captain SENTRY willmake one with us to Morrow Night, and if you will both of you callupon me about Four a-Clock, that we may be at the House before it isfull, I will have my own Coach in Readiness to attend you, for Johntells me he has got the Fore-Wheels mended.

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed Hour,bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same Swordwhich he made use of at the Battel of Steenkirk. Sir Roger'sServants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had, I found,provided themselves with good oaken Plants, to attend their Masterupon this Occasion. When we had plac'd him in his Coach, with my selfat his Left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the Headof his Footmen in the Rear, we convoy'd him in Safety to thePlay-house; where, after having march'd up the Entry in good Order,the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in thePit. As soon as the House was full, and the Candles lighted, my oldFriend stood up and looked about him with that Pleasure, which a Mindseasoned with Humanity naturally feels in it self, at the Sight of aMultitude of People who seem pleased with one another, and partake ofthe same common Entertainment. I could not but fancy to my self, asthe old Man stood up in the Middle of the Pit, that he made a veryproper Center to a Tragick Audience. Upon the Entring of Pyrrhus,the Knight told me, that he did not believe the King of Francehimself had a better Strut. I was indeed very attentive to my oldFriend's Remarks, because I looked upon them as a Piece of NaturalCriticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the Conclusion ofalmost every Scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the Playwould end. One while he appear'd much concerned for Andromache; anda little while after as much for Hermione; and was extremely puzzledto think what would become of Pyrrhus.

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate Refusal to her Lover'sImportunities, he whispered me in the Ear, that he was sure she wouldnever have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinaryVehemence, You can't imagine, Sir, what 'tis to have to do with aWidow. Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards to leave her, theKnight shook his Head, and muttered to himself, Ay, do if you can.This Part dwelt so much upon my Friend's Imagination, that at theClose of the Third Act, as I was thinking of something else, hewhispered in my Ear, These Widows, Sir, are the most perverseCreatures in the World. But pray, says he, you that are a Critick, isthe Play according to your Dramatick Rules, as you call them? Shouldyour People in Tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is nota single Sentence in this Play that I do not know the Meaning of.

The Fourth Act very luckily begun before I had Time to give the oldGentleman an Answer; Well, says the Knight, sitting down with greatSatisfaction, I suppose we are now to see Hector's Ghost. He thenrenewed his Attention, and, from Time to Time, fell a praising theWidow. He made, indeed, a little Mistake as to one of her Pages, whomat his first Entring, he took for Astyanax; but he quickly sethimself right in that Particular, though, at the same time, he ownedhe should have been very glad to have seen the little Boy, who, sayshe, must needs be a very fine Child by the Account that is given ofhim. Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, theAudience gave a loud Clap, to which Sir Roger added, On my Word, anotable Young Baggage.

As there was a very remarkable Silence and Stillness in the Audienceduring the whole Action, it was natural for them to take theOpportunity of these Intervals between the Acts, to express theirOpinion of the Players, and of their respective Parts. Sir Rogerhearing a Cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, andtold them, that he thought his Friend Pylades was a very sensibleMan; As they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in asecond time, And let me tell you, says he, though he speaks butlittle, I like the old Fellow in Whiskers as well as any of them.Captain Sentry, seeing two or three Waggs who sat near us lean with anattentive Ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoakthe Knight, pluck'd him by the Elbow, and whispered something in hisEar, that lasted till the Opening of the Fifth Act. The Knight waswonderfully attentive to the Account which Orestes gives ofPyrrhus his Death, and at the Conclusion of it, told me it was sucha bloody Piece of Work, that he was glad it was not done upon theStage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving Fit, he grew morethan ordinary serious, and took Occasion to moralize (in his Way) uponan evil Conscience, adding that Orestes, in his Madness, looked as ifhe saw something.

As we were the first that came into the House, so we were the lastthat went out of it; being resolved to have a clear Passage for ourold Friend, whom we did not care to venture among the Justling of theCrowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfy'd with his Entertainment, andwe guarded him to his Lodgings in the same manner that we brought himto the Play-house; being highly pleased, for my own Part, not onlywith the Performance of the excellent Piece which had been presented,but with the Satisfaction which it had given to the good old Man.

Addison.

SIR ROGER AT SPRING-GARDEN

As I was sitting in my Chamber, and thinking on a Subject for my nextSpectator, I heard two or three irregular Bounces at my Landlady'sDoor, and upon the opening of it, a loud chearful Voice enquiringwhether the Philosopher was at Home. The Child who went to the Dooranswered very Innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediatelyrecollected that it was my good Friend Sir ROGER's Voice: and that Ihad promised to go with him on the Water to Spring-Garden, in caseit proved a good Evening. The Knight put me in mind of my Promise fromthe Bottom of the Stair-Case, but told me that if I was Speculating hewould stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down I found all theChildren of the Family got about my old Friend, and my Landladyherself, who is a notable prating Gossip, engaged in a Conference withhim, being mightily pleased with his stroaking her little Boy upon theHead, and bidding him be a good Child, and mind his Book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we were surroundedwith a crowd of Watermen, offering us their respective Services. SirRoger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one witha Wooden-leg, and immediately gave him Orders to get his Boat ready.As we were walking towards it, You must know, says Sir Roger, Inever make use of any Body to row me that has not either lost a Leg oran Arm. I would rather bate him a few Strokes of his Oar, than notemploy an honest Man that has been wounded in the Queen's Service. IfI was a Lord or a Bishop, and kept a Barge, I would not put a Fellowin my Livery that had not a Wooden-Leg.

My old Friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the Boat withhis Coachman, who, being a very sober Man, always serves for Ballaston these Occasions, we made the best of our way for Fox-Hall. SirRoger obliged the Waterman to give us the History of his Right Leg,and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many Particularswhich passed in that glorious Action, the Knight in the Triumph of hisHeart made several Reflections on the Greatness of the BritishNation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; thatwe could never be in Danger of Popery so long as we took care of ourFleet; that the Thames was the noblest River in Europe; thatLondon-Bridge was a greater Piece of Work than any of the SevenWonders of the World; with many other honest Prejudices whichnaturally cleave to the Heart of a true Englishman.

After some short Pause, the old Knight turning about his Head twice orthrice, to take a Survey of this great Metropolis, bid me observe howthick the City was set with Churches, and that there was scarce asingle Steeple on this side Temple-Bar. A most Heathenish Sight!says Sir Roger: There is no Religion at this End of the Town. TheFifty new Churches will very much mend the Prospect; but Church-workis slow, Church-work is slow!

I do not remember I have any where mentioned, in Sir Roger'sCharacter, his Custom of saluting every Body that passes by him with aGood-morrow, or a Good-night. This the old Man does out of theOverflowings of his Humanity though at the same time it renders him sopopular among all his Country Neighbours, that it is thought to havegone a good way in making him once or twice Knight of the Shire. Hecannot forbear this Exercise of Benevolence even in Town, when hemeets with any one in his Morning or Evening Walk. It broke from himto several Boats that passed by us upon the Water; but, to theKnight's great Surprize, as he gave the Good-night to two or threeyoung Fellows a little before our Landing, one of them, instead ofreturning the Civility, asked us what queer old Putt we had in theBoat; and whether he was not ashamed to go a Wenching at his Years?with a great deal of the like Thames-Ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed alittle shocked at first, but at length assuming a Face of Magistracy,told us, That if he were a Middlesex Justice, he would make suchVagrants know that her Majesty's Subjects, were no more to be abusedby Water than by Land.

We were now arrived at Spring-Garden, which is exquisitely pleasantat this Time of the Year. When I considered the Fragrancy of the Walksand Bowers, with the Choirs of Birds that sung upon the Trees, and theloose Tribe of People that walk'd under their Shades, I could not butlook upon the Place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise. Sir Roger toldme it put him in mind of a little Coppice by his House in the Country,which his Chaplain us'd to call an Aviary of Nightingales. You mustunderstand, says the Knight, there is nothing in the World thatpleases a Man in Love so much as your Nightingale. Ah, Mr. SPECTATOR!The Many Moonlight Nights that I have walked by my self, and thoughton the Widow by the Musick of the Nightingale! Here he fetch'd a deepSigh, and was falling into a Fit of musing, when a Mask, who camebehind him, gave him a gentle Tap upon the Shoulder, and asked him ifhe would drink a Bottle of Mead with her? But the Knight beingstartled at so unexpected a Familiarity, and displeased to beinterrupted in his Thoughts of the Widow, told her, She was a wantonBaggage, and bid her go about her Business.

We concluded our Walk with a Glass of Burton-Ale, and a Slice ofHung-Beef. When we had done eating our selves, the Knight called aWaiter to him, and bid him carry the Remainder to the Waterman thathad but one Leg. I perceived the Fellow stared upon him at the Oddnessof the Message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified theKnight's Commands with a peremptory Look.

As we were going out of the Garden, my old Friend thinking himselfobliged, as a Member of the Quorum, to animadvert upon the Morals ofthe Place, told the Mistress of the House, who sat at the Bar, That heshould be a better Customer to her Garden, if there were moreNightingales, and fewer bad Characters.

Addison.

DEATH OF SIR ROGER

We last Night received a Piece of ill News at our Club, which verysensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my Readersthemselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them nolonger in Suspense, Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY is dead. He departed thisLife at his House in the Country, after a few Weeks' Sickness. SirANDREW FREEPORT has a Letter from one of his Correspondents in thoseParts, that informs him the old Man caught a Cold at the CountySessions, as he was very warmly promoting an Address of his ownpenning, in which he succeeded according to his Wishes. But thisParticular comes from a Whig Justice of Peace, who was always SirRoger's Enemy and Antagonist. I have Letters both from the Chaplainand Captain Sentry which mention Nothing of it, but are filled withmany Particulars to the Honour of the good old Man. I have likewise aLetter from the Butler, who took so much Care of me last Summer when Iwas at the Knight's House. As my Friend the Butler mentions, in theSimplicity of his Heart, several circ*mstances the others have passedover in Silence, I shall give my Reader a Copy of his Letter withoutany Alteration or Diminution.

"Honoured Sir,

"Knowing that you was my old Master's good Friend, I could not forbearsending you the melancholy News of his Death, which has afflicted thewhole Country, as well as his poor Servants, who loved him, I may say,better than we did our Lives. I am afraid he caught his Death the lastCounty Sessions, where he would go to see Justice done to a poor WidowWoman, and her Fatherless Children that had been wronged by aNeighbouring Gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good Master was alwaysthe poor Man's Friend. Upon his coming home, the first Complaint hemade was, that he had lost his Roast-Beef Stomach, not being able totouch a Sirloin, which was served up according to Custom; and you knowhe used to take great Delight in it. From that Time forward he grewworse and worse, but still kept a good Heart to the last. Indeed wewere once in great Hope of his Recovery, upon a kind Message that wassent him from the Widow Lady whom he had made Love to the forty lastYears of his Life; but this only proved a Light'ning before Death. Hehas bequeathed to this Lady, as a Token of his Love, a great PearlNecklace, and a Couple of Silver Bracelets set with Jewels, whichbelonged to my good old Lady his Mother; He has bequeathed the finewhite Gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his Chaplain,because he thought he would be kind to him, and has left you all hisBooks. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the Chaplain a very prettyTenement with good Lands about it. It being a very cold Day when hemade his Will, he left for Mourning, to every Man in the Parish, agreat Frize Coat, and to every Woman a black Riding-hood. It was amost moving Sight to see him take Leave of his poor Servants,commending us all for our Fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak aWord for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our DearMaster's Service, he has left us Pensions and Legacies, which we maylive very comfortably upon, the remaining Part of our Days. He hasbequeathed a great Deal more in Charity, which is not yet come to myKnowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the Parish, that he has leftMoney to build a Steeple to the Church; for he was heard to say someTime ago, that if he lived two Years longer Coverley Church shouldhave a Steeple to it. The Chaplain tells every Body that he made avery good End, and never speaks of him without Tears. He was buried,according to his own Directions, among the Family of the Coverleys,on the left Hand of his Father Sir Arthur. The Coffin was carried bySix of his Tenants, and the Pall held up by Six of the Quorum: Thewhole Parish followed the Corps with heavy Hearts, and in theirMourning-Suits, the Men in Frize, and the Women in Riding-hoods.Captain Sentry, my Master's Nephew, has taken Possession of theHall-House, and the whole Estate. When my old Master saw him a littlebefore his Death, he shook him by the Hand, and wished him Joy of theEstate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good Useof it, and to pay the several Legacies, and the Gifts of Charity whichhe told him he had left as Quit-rents upon the Estate. The Captaintruly seems a courteous Man, though he says but little. He makes muchof those whom my Master loved, and shews great Kindness to the oldHouse-dog, that you know my poor Master was so fond of. It wou'd havegone to your Heart to have heard the Moans the dumb Creature made onthe Day of my Master's Death. He has ne'er joyed himself since; nomore has any of us. 'Twas the melancholiest Day for the poor Peoplethat ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from,

Honoured Sir,
Your most sorrowful Servant,
Edward Biscuit.

P.S. My Master desired, some Weeks before he died, that a Book whichcomes up to you by the Carrier should be given to Sir AndrewFreeport, in his Name."

This Letter, notwithstanding the poor Butler's Manner of Writing it,gave us such an Idea of our good old Friend, that upon the Reading ofit there was not a dry Eye in the Club. Sir Andrew opening the Bookfound it to be a Collection of Acts of Parliament. There was inParticular the Act of Uniformity, with some Passages in it marked bySir Roger's own Hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two orthree Points, which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last Time heappeared at the Club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at suchan Incident on another Occasion, at the Sight of the Old Man'sHandwriting burst into Tears, and put the Book into his Pocket.Captain Sentry informs me, that the Knight has left Rings andMourning for every one in the Club.

Addison.

A STAGE-COACH JOURNEY

Having notified to my good Friend Sir ROGER that I should set out forLondon the next Day, his Horses were ready at the appointed Hour inthe Evening; and, attended by one of his Grooms, I arrived at theCounty Town at Twilight, in order to be ready for the Stage-Coach theDay following. As soon as we arrived at the Inn, the Servant whowaited upon me, enquired of the Chamberlain in my Hearing what Companyhe had for the Coach? The Fellow answered, Mrs. Betty Arable, thegreat Fortune, and the Widow her Mother, a recruiting Officer (whotook a Place because they were to go), young Squire Quickset herCousin (that her Mother wished her to be married to), Ephraim theQuaker, her Guardian, and a Gentleman that had studied himself dumbfrom Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY'S. I observed by what he said of my self,that according to his Office he dealt much in Intelligence; anddoubted not but there was some Foundation for his Reports of the restof the Company, as well as for the whimsical Account he gave of me.The next Morning at Day-break we were all called; and I, who know myown natural Shyness, and endeavour to be as little liable to bedisputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make noone wait. The first Preparation for our Setting out was, that theCaptain's Half-Pike was placed near the Coach-man, and a Drum behindthe Coach. In the mean Time the Drummer, the Captain's Equipage, wasvery loud, that none of the Captain's things should be placed so as tobe spoiled; upon which his Cloak-bag was fixed in the Seat of theCoach: And the Captain himself, according to a frequent, tho'invidious Behaviour of military Men, ordered His Man to look sharp,that none but one of the Ladies should have the Place he had takenfronting to the Coach-box.

We were in some little Time fixed in our Seats, and sat with thatDislike which People not too good-natured, usually conceive of eachother at first Sight. The Coach jumbled us insensibly into some sortof Familiarity; and we had not moved about two Miles, when the Widowasked the Captain what Success he had in his Recruiting? The Officer,with a Frankness he believed very graceful, told her, "That indeed hehad but very little Luck, and suffered much by Desertion, thereforeshould be glad to end his Warfare in the Service of her or her fairDaughter. In a Word," continued he, "I am a Soldier, and to be plainis my Character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; takeme your self, Widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at yourDisposal. I am a Soldier of Fortune, ha!" This was followed by a vainLaugh of his own, and a deep Silence of all the rest of the Company. Ihad nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with allSpeed. "Come," said he, "resolve upon it, we will make a Wedding atthe next Town: We will wake this pleasant Companion who is fallenasleep, to be the Bride-man, and" (giving the Quaker a Clap on theKnee) he concluded, "This sly Saint, who, I'll warrant understandswhat's what as well as you or I, Widow, shall give the Bride asFather." The Quaker, who happened to be a Man of Smartness, answered,"Friend, I take it in good Part that thou hast given me the Authorityof a Father over this comely and virtuous Child; and I must assurethee, that if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee.Thy Mirth, Friend, savoureth of Folly: Thou art a Person of a lightMind; thy Drum is a Type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty.Verily, it is not from thy Fullness, but thy Emptiness, that thou hastspoken this Day. Friend, Friend, we have hired this Coach inPartnership with thee, to carry us to the great City; we cannot go anyother Way. This worthy Mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utterthy Follies; we cannot help it Friend, I say; if thou wilt, we musthear thee: But if thou wert a Man of Understanding, thou wouldst nottake Advantage of thy couragious Countenance to abash us Children ofPeace. Thou art, thou sayest, a Soldier; give Quarter to us, whocannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our Friend, who feignedhimself asleep? he said nothing, but how dost thou know what hecontaineth? If thou speakest improper things in the Hearing of thisvirtuous young Virgin, consider it as an Outrage against a distressedPerson that cannot get from thee: To speak indiscreetly what we areobliged to hear, by being hasped up with thee in this publick Vehicle,is in some Degree assaulting on the high Road."

Here Ephraim paused, and the Captain with an happy and uncommonImpudence (which can be convicted and support it self at the sametime) crys, "Faith, Friend, I thank thee; I should have been a littleimpertinent if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I see, asmoaky old Fellow, and I'll be very orderly the ensuing Part of theJourney. I was going to give myself Airs, but Ladies I beg Pardon."

The Captain was so little out of Humour, and our Company was so farfrom being sowered by this little Ruffle, that Ephraim and he took aparticular Delight in being agreeable to each other for the future;and assumed their different Provinces in the Conduct of the Company.Our Reckonings, Apartments, and Accommodation, fell under Ephraim;and the Captain looked to all Disputes on the Road, as the goodBehaviour of our Coachman, and the Right we had of taking Place asgoing to London of all Vehicles coming from thence. The Occurrenceswe met with were ordinary, and very little happen'd which couldentertain by the Relation of them: But when I consider'd the Companywe were in, I took it for no small good Fortune that the whole Journeywas not spent in Impertinences, which to one Part of us might be anEntertainment, to the other a Suffering. What therefore Ephraim saidwhen we were almost arrived at London, had to me an Air not only ofgood Understanding, but good Breeding. Upon the young Lady'sexpressing her Satisfaction in the Journey, and declaring howdelightful it had been to her, Ephraim delivered himself as follows:"There is no ordinary Part of humane Life which expresseth so much agood Mind, and a right inward Man, as his Behaviour upon Meeting withStrangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companionsto him: Such a Man when he falleth in the Way with Persons ofSimplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways ofMen, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide hisSuperiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My goodFriend," continued he, turning to the Officer, "thee and I are to partby and by, and peradventure we may never meet again: But be advised bya plain Man; Modes and Apparels are but Trifles to the real Man,therefore do not think such a Man as thy self terrible for thy Garb,nor such a one as me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee andI meet, with Affections as we ought to have towards each other, thoushouldst rejoice to see my peaceable Demeanour, and I should be gladto see thy Strength and Ability to protect me in it."

Steele.

A JOURNEY FROM RICHMOND

It is an inexpressible Pleasure to know a little of the World, and beof no Character or Significancy in it. To be ever unconcerned, andever looking on new Objects with an endless Curiosity, is a Delightknown only to those who are turned for Speculation: Nay, they whoenjoy it, must value things only as they are the Objects ofSpeculation, without drawing any worldly Advantage to themselves fromthem, but just as they are what contribute to their Amusem*nt, or theImprovement of the Mind. I lay one Night last Week at Richmond; andbeing restless, not out of Dissatisfaction, but a certain basicInclination one sometimes has, I arose at Four in the Morning, andtook Boat for London, with a Resolution to rove by Boat and Coachfor the next Four and twenty Hours, till the many different Objects Imust needs meet with should tire my Imagination, and give me anInclination to a Repose more profound than I was at that time capableof. I beg People's Pardon for an odd Humour I am guilty of, and wasoften that Day, which is saluting any Person whom I like, whether Iknow him or not. This is a Particularity would be tolerated in me, ifthey considered that the greatest Pleasure I know I receive at myEyes, and that I am obliged to an agreeable Person for coming abroadinto my View, as another is for a Visit of Conversation at their ownHouses.

The Hours of the Day and Night are taken up in the Cities of Londonand Westminster by People as different from each other as those whoare Born in different Centuries. Men of Six-a-Clock give way to thoseof Nine, they of Nine to the Generation of Twelve, and they of Twelvedisappear, and make Room for the fashionable World, who have madeTwo-a-Clock the Noon of the Day.

When we first put off from Shoar, we soon fell in with a Fleet ofGardiners bound for the several Market-Ports of London; and it wasthe most pleasing Scene imaginable to see the Chearfulness with whichthose industrious People ply'd their Way to a certain Sale of theirGoods. The Banks on each Side are as well Peopled, and beautified withas agreeable Plantations, as any Spot on the Earth; but the Thamesit self, loaded with the Product of each Shoar, added very much to theLandskip. It was very easie to observe by their Sailing, and theCountenances of the ruddy Virgins, who were Supercargos, the Parts ofthe Town to which they were bound. There was an Air in the Purveyorsfor Covent-Garden, who frequently converse with Morning Rakes, veryunlike the seemly Sobriety of those bound for Stocks-Market.

Nothing remarkable happened in our Voyage; but I landed with Ten Sailof Aprico*ck Boats at Strand-Bridge, after having put in atNine-Elmes, and taken in Melons, consigned by Mr. Cuffe of thatPlace, to Sarah Sewell and Company, at their Stall inCovent-Garden. We arrived at Strand-Bridge at Six of the Clock,and were unloading; when the Hackney-Coachmen of the foregoing Nighttook their Leave of each other at the Dark-House, to go to Bedbefore the Day was too far spent. Chimney-Sweepers pass'd by us as wemade up to the Market, and some Raillery happened between one of theFruit-Wenches and those black Men, about the Devil and Eve, withAllusion to their several Professions. I could not believe any Placemore entertaining than Covent-Garden; where I strolled from oneFruit-shop to another, with Crowds of agreeable young Women around me,who were purchasing Fruit for their respective Families. It was almostEight of the Clock before I could leave that Variety of Objects. Itook Coach and followed a young Lady, who tripped into another justbefore me, attended by her Maid. I saw immediately she was of theFamily of the Vainloves. There are a Sett of these, who of allthings affect the Play of Blindman's-Buff, and leading Men into Lovefor they know not whom, who are fled they know not where. This sort ofWoman is usually a janty Slattern; she hangs on her Cloaths, plays herHead, varies her Posture, and changes place incessantly, and all withan Appearance of striving at the same time to hide her self, and yetgive you to understand she is in Humour to laugh at you. You must haveoften seen the Coachmen make Signs with their Fingers as they drive byeach other, to intimate how much they have got that Day. They cancarry on that Language to give Intelligence where they are driving. Inan Instant my Coachman took the Wink to pursue, and the Lady's Drivergave the Hint that he was going through Long-Acre towards St.James's: While he whipp'd up James-Street, we drove for KingStreet, to save the Pass at St. Martin's-Lane. The Coachmen tookcare to meet, justle, and threaten each other for Way, and beintangled at the End of Newport-Street and Long-Acre. The Fright,you must believe, brought down the Lady's Coach Door, and obliged her,with her Mask off, to enquire into the Bustle, when she sees the Manshe would avoid. The Tackle of the Coach-Window is so bad she cannotdraw it up again, and she drives on sometimes wholly discovered, andsometimes half-escaped, according to the Accident of Carriages in herWay. One of these Ladies keeps her Seat in a Hackney-Coach as well asthe best Rider does on a managed Horse. The laced Shooe on her LeftFoot, with a careless Gesture, just appearing on the opposite Cushion,held her both firm, and in a proper Attitude to receive the next Jolt.

As she was an excellent Coach-Woman, many were the Glances at eachother which we had for an Hour and an Half in all Parts of the Town bythe Skill of our Drivers; till at last my Lady was conveniently lostwith Notice from her Coachman to ours to make off, and he should hearwhere she went. This Chace was now at an End, and the Fellow who droveher came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to come again in anHour, for that she was a Silk-Worm. I was surprized with this Phrase,but found it was a Cant among the Hackney Fraternity for their bestCustomers, Women who ramble twice or thrice a Week from Shop to Shop,to turn over all the Goods in Town without buying any thing. TheSilk-Worms are, it seems, indulged by the Tradesmen; for tho' theynever buy, they are ever talking of new Silks, Laces and Ribbands, andserve the Owners in getting them Customers, as their common Dunners doin making them pay.

The Day of People of Fashion began now to break, and Carts and Hackswere mingled with Equipages of Show and Vanity; when I resolved towalk it out of Cheapness; but my unhappy Curiosity is such, that Ifind it always my Interest to take Coach, for some odd Adventure amongBeggars, Ballad-Singers, or the like, detains and throws me intoExpence. It happened so immediately; for at the Corner ofWarwick-Street, as I was listening to a new Ballad, a ragged Rascal,a Beggar who knew me, came up to me, and began to turn the Eyes of thegood Company upon me, by telling me he was extream Poor, and shoulddie in the Streets for want of Drink, except I immediately would havethe Charity to give him Six-pence to go into the next Ale-House andsave his life. He urged, with a melancholy Face, that all his Familyhad died of Thirst. All the Mob have Humour, and two or three began totake the Jest; by which Mr. Sturdy carried his Point, and let mesneak off to a Coach. As I drove along it was a pleasing Reflection tosee the World so prettily chequered since I left Richmond, and theScene still filling with Children of a new Hour. This Satisfactionencreased as I moved towards the City; and gay Signs, well disposedStreets, magnificent publick Structures, and Wealthy Shops, adornedwith contented Faces, made the Joy still rising till we came into theCentre of the City, and Centre of the World of Trade, the Exchangeof London. As other Men in the Crowds about me were pleased withtheir Hopes and Bargains, I found my Account in observing them, inAttention to their several Interests. I, indeed, looked upon my selfas the richest Man that walked the Exchange that Day; for myBenevolence made me share the Gains of every Bargain that was made. Itwas not the least of the Satisfactions in my Survey, to go up Stairs,and pass the Shops of agreeable Females; to observe so many prettyHands busie in the Foldings of Ribbands, and the utmost Eagerness ofa*greeable Faces in the Sale of Patches, Pins, and Wires, on each Sidethe Counters, was an Amusem*nt, in which I should longer have indulgedmy self, had not the dear Creatures called to me to ask what I wanted,when I could not answer, only To look at you. I went to one of theWindows which opened to the Area below, where all the several Voiceslost their Distinction, and rose up in a confused Humming; whichcreated in me a Reflection that could not come into the Mind of anybut of one a little studious; for I said to my self, with a kind ofPunn in thought, What Nonsense is all the Hurry of this World tothose who are above it? In these, or not much wiser Thoughts, I hadlike to have lost my Place at the Chop-House; where every Man,according to the natural Bashfulness or Sullenness of our Nation, eatsin a publick Room a Mess of Broth, or Chop of Meat, in dumb Silence,as if they had no Pretence to speak to each other on the Foot of beingMen, except they were of each other's Acquaintance.

I went afterwards to Robin's and saw People who had dined with me atthe Five-Penny Ordinary just before, give Bills for the Value of largeEstates; and could not but behold with great Pleasure, Property lodgedin, and transferred in a Moment from such as would never be Masters ofhalf as much as is seemingly in them, and given from them every Daythey live. But before Five in the Afternoon I left the City, came tomy common Scene of Covent-Garden, and passed the Evening at Will'sin attending the Discourses of several Sets of People, who relievedeach other within my Hearing on the Subjects of Cards, Dice, Love,Learning and Politicks. The last Subject kept me till I heard theStreets in the Possession of the Bell-man, who had now the World tohimself, and cryed, Past Two of Clock. This rous'd me from my Seat,and I went to my Lodging, led by a Light, whom I put into theDiscourse of his private Oeconomy, and made him give me an Account ofthe Charge, Hazard, Profit and Loss of a Family that depended upon aLink, with a Design to end my trivial Day with the Generosity ofSix-pence, instead of a third Part of that Sum. When I came to myChambers I writ down these Minutes; but was at a Loss what InstructionI should propose to my Reader from the Enumeration of so manyInsignificant Matters and Occurrences; and I thought it of great Use,if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to Gratification,and ready to receive it from any thing it meets with. This oneCirc*mstance will make every Face you see give you the Satisfactionyou now take in beholding that of a Friend; will make every Object apleasing one; will make all the Good which arrives to any Man, anEncrease of Happiness to your self.

Steele.

A PRIZE FIGHT

Being a Person of insatiable Curiosity, I could not forbear going onWednesday last to a Place of no small Renown for the Gallantry ofthe lower Order of Britons, namely, to the Bear-Garden at Hockleyin the Hole; where (as a whitish brown Paper, put into my Hands inthe Street, inform'd me) there was to be a Tryal of Skill to beexhibited between two Masters of the Noble Science of Defence, at twoof the Clock precisely. I was not a little charm'd with the Solemnityof the Challenge, which ran thus:

"I James Miller, Serjeant, (lately come from the Frontiers ofPortugal) Master of the Noble Science of Defence, hearing in mostPlaces where I have been of the great Fame of Timothy Buck ofLondon, Master of the said Science, do invite him to meet me, andexercise at the several Weapons following, viz.

Back-Sword, Single Falchon, Sword and Dagger, Case of Falchons, Sword and Buckler, Quarter-Staff."

If the generous Ardour in James Miller to dispute the Reputation ofTimothy Buck, had something resembling the old Heroes of Romance,Timothy Buck return'd Answer in the same Paper with the like Spirit,adding a little Indignation at being challenged, and seeming tocondescend to fight James Miller, not in regard to Miller himself,but in that, as the Fame went out, he had fought Parkes ofCoventry. The Acceptance of the Combat ran in these Words:

"I Timothy Buck of Clare-Market, Master of the Noble Science ofDefence, hearing he did fight Mr. Parkes of Coventry, will notfail (God willing) to meet this fair Inviter at the Time and Placeappointed, desiring a clear Stage and no Favour.

Vivat Regina."

I shall not here look back on the Spectacles of the Greeks andRomans of this Kind, but must believe this Custom took its Rise fromthe Ages of Knight-Errantry; from those who lov'd one Woman so well,that they hated all Men and Women else; from those who would fightyou, whether you were or were not of their Mind; from those whodemanded the Combat of their Contemporaries, both for admiring theirMistress or discommending her. I cannot therefore but lament, that theterrible Part of the ancient Fight is preserved, when the amorous Sideof it is forgotten. We have retained the Barbarity, but lost theGallantry of the old Combatants. I could wish, methinks, theseGentlemen had consulted me in the Promulgation of the Conflict. I wasobliged by a fair young Maid whom I understood to be called ElisabethPreston, Daughter of the Keeper of the Garden, with a Glass of Water;whom I imagined might have been, for Form's sake, the generalRepresentative of the Lady fought for, and from her Beauty the properAmarillis on these Occasions. It would have ran better in theChallenge; I James Miller, Serjeant, who have travelled Partsabroad, and came last from the Frontiers of Portugal, for the Loveof Elizabeth Preston, do assert, That the said Elizabeth is theFairest of Women. Then the Answer; I Timothy Buck, who have stay'din Great Britain during all the War in Foreign Parts for the Sakeof Susanna Page, do deny that Elizabeth Preston is so fair as thesaid Susanna Page. Let Susanna Page look on, and I desire of JamesMiller no Favour.

This would give the Battel quite another Turn; and a proper Stationfor the Ladies, whose Complexion was disputed by the Sword, wouldanimate the Disputants with a more gallant Incentive than theExpectation of Mony from the Spectators; though I would not have thatneglected, but thrown to that Fair One whose Lover was approved by theDonor.

Yet, considering the Thing wants such Amendments, it was carried withgreat Order. James Miller came on first; preceded by two disabledDrummers, to shew, I suppose, that the Prospect of maimed Bodies didnot in the least deter him. There ascended with the daring Miller aGentleman, whose Name I could not learn, with a dogged Air, asunsatisfied that he was not Principal. This Son of Anger lowred at thewhole Assembly, and weighing himself as he march'd around from Side toSide, with a stiff Knee and Shoulder, he gave Intimations of thePurpose he smothered till he saw the Issue of this Encounter. Millerhad a blue Ribbond tyed round the Sword Arm; which Ornament I conceiveto be the Remain of that Custom of wearing a Mistress's Favour on suchOccasions of old.

Miller is a Man of six Foot eight Inches Height, of a kind but boldAspect, well-fashioned, and ready of his Limbs; and such Readiness asspoke his Ease in them, was obtained from a Habit of Motion inMilitary Exercise.

The Expectation of the Spectators was now almost at its Height, andthe Crowd pressing in, several active Persons thought they were placedrather according to their Fortune than their Merit, and took it intheir Heads to prefer themselves from the open Area, or Pit, to theGalleries. This Dispute between Desert and Property brought many tothe Ground, and raised others in proportion to the highest Seats byTurns for the Space of ten Minutes, till Timothy Buck came on, andthe whole Assembly giving up their Disputes, turned their Eyes uponthe Champions. Then it was that every Man's Affection turned to one orthe other irresistibly. A judicious Gentleman near me said, I could,methinks, be Miller's Second, but I had rather have Buck formine. Miller had an audacious Look, that took the Eye; Buck aperfect Composure, that engaged the Judgment. Buck came on in aplain Coat, and kept all his Air till the Instant of Engaging; atwhich Time he undress'd to his Shirt, his Arm adorned with a Bandageof red Ribband. No one can describe the sudden Concern in the wholeAssembly; the most tumultuous Crowd in Nature was as still and as muchengaged, as if all their Lives depended on the first blow. TheCombatants met in the Middle of the Stage, and shaking Hands asremoving all Malice, they retired with much Grace to the Extremitiesof it; from whence they immediately faced about, and approached eachother. Miller with an Heart full of Resolution, Buck with awatchful untroubled Countenance; Buck regarding principally his ownDefence, Miller chiefly thoughtful of annoying his Opponent. It isnot easie to describe the many Escapes and imperceptible Defencesbetween two Men of quick Eyes and ready Limbs; but Miller's Heatlaid him open to the Rebuke of the calm Buck, by a large Cut on theForehead. Much Effusion of Blood covered his Eyes in a Moment, and theHuzzas of the Crowd undoubtedly quickened the Anguish. The Assemblywas divided into Parties upon their different ways of Fighting; whilea poor Nymph in one of the Galleries apparently suffered for Miller,and burst into a Flood of Tears. As soon as his Wound was wrapped up,he came on again with a little Rage, which still disabled him further.But what brave Man can be wounded into more Patience and Caution? Thenext was a warm eager Onset which ended in a decisive Stroke on theleft Leg of Miller. The Lady in the Gallery, during this secondStrife, covered her Face; and for my Part, I could not keep myThoughts from being mostly employed on the Consideration of herunhappy Circ*mstance that Moment, hearing the Clash of Swords, andapprehending Life or Victory concerned her Lover in every Blow, butnot daring to satisfie herself on whom they fell. The Wound wasexposed to the View of all who could delight in it, and sewed up onthe Stage. The surly Second of Miller declared at this Time, that hewould that Day Fortnight fight Mr. Buck at the same Weapons,declaring himself the Master of the renowned Gorman; but Buckdenied him the Honour of that courageous Disciple, and asserting thathe himself had taught that Champion, accepted the Challenge.

There is something in Nature very unaccountable on such Occasions,when we see the People take a certain painful Gratification inbeholding these Encounters. Is it Cruelty that administers this Sortof Delight? or is it a Pleasure which is taken in the Exercise ofPity? It was methought pretty remarkable, that the Business of the Daybeing a Trial of Skill, the Popularity did not run so high as onewould have expected on the Side of Buck. Is it that People'sPassions have their Rise in Self-love, and thought themselves (inSpite of all the Courage they had) liable to the Fate of Miller, butcould not so easily think themselves qualified like Buck?

Tully speaks of this Custom with less Horrour than one would expect,though he confesses it was much abused in his Time, and seems directlyto approve of it under its first Regulations, when Criminals onlyfought before the People. Crudele Gladiatorum spectaculum & inhumanumnonnullis videri solet; & haud scio annon ita sit ut nunc fit; cumvero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidemnulla, poterat esse fortior contra dolorem & mortem disciplina. TheShows of Gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhumane, and I knownot but it is so as it is now practised; but in those Times when onlyCriminals were Combatants, the Ear perhaps might receive many betterInstructions, but it is impossible that any thing which affects ourEyes, should fortifie us so well against Pain and Death.

Steele.

GOOD TEMPER

It is an unreasonable thing some Men expect of their Acquaintance.They are ever complaining that they are out of Order, or displeas'd,or they know not how; and are so far from letting that be a Reason forretiring to their own Homes, that they make it their Argument forcoming into Company. What has any Body to do with Accounts of a Man'sbeing indispos'd but his Physician? If a man laments in Company, wherethe rest are in Humour enough to enjoy themselves, he should not takeit ill if a Servant is order'd to present him with a Porringer ofCawdle or Posset-drink, by way of Admonition that he go home to Bed.That Part of Life which we ordinarily understand by the WordConversation, is an Indulgence to the sociable Part of our Make; andshould incline us to bring our Proportion of good Will or good Humouramong the Friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with Relationswhich must of Necessity oblige them to a real or feign'd Affliction.Cares, Distresses, Diseases, Uneasinesses, and Dislikes of our own,are by no Means to be obtruded upon our Friends. If we would considerhow little of this Vicissitude of Motion and Rest, which we call Life,is spent with Satisfaction; we should be more tender of our Friends,than to bring them little Sorrows which do not belong to them. Thereis no real Life, but chearful Life; therefore Valetudinarians shouldbe sworn, before they enter into Company, not to say a Word ofthemselves till the Meeting breaks up. It is not here pretended, thatwe should be always sitting with Chaplets of Flowers round our Heads,or be crowned with Roses, in order to make our Entertainment agreeableto us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to bemerry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be wellpleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad.Whatever we do we should keep up the Chearfulness of our Spirits, andnever let them sink below an Inclination at least to be well pleased:The Way to this, is to keep our Bodies in Exercise, our Minds at Ease.That insipid State wherein neither are in Vigour, is not to beaccounted any Part of our Portion of Being. When we are in theSatisfaction of some innocent Pleasure, or Pursuit of some laudableDesign, we are in the Possession of Life, of human Life. Fortune willgive us Disappointments enough, and Nature is attended withInfirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy Side of ourAccount by our Spleen or ill Humour. Poor Cottilus, among so manyreal Evils, a chronical Distemper and a narrow Fortune, is never heardto complain: That equal Spirit of his, which any Man may have that,like him, will conquer Pride, Vanity, and Affectation, and followNature, is not to be broken, because it has no Points to contend for.To be anxious for nothing but what Nature demands as necessary, if itis not the way to an Estate, is the way to what Men aim at by gettingan Estate. This Temper will preserve Health in the Body, as well asTranquility in the Mind. Cottilus sees the World in an Hurry, withthe same Scorn that a sober Person sees a Man drunk. Had he beencontented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such aone have met with such a Disappointment? If another had valued hisMistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in herPower: If her Virtue had had a Part of his Passion, her Levity hadbeen his Cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at thesame Time.

Since we cannot promise our selves constant Health, let us endeavourat such a Temper as may be our best Support in the Decay of it.Uranius has arrived at that Composure of Soul, and wrought himselfup to such a Neglect of every thing with which the Generality ofMankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute Pains can give himDisturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate Friendshe has a Secret which gives him present Ease. Uranius is sothoroughly perswaded of another Life, and endeavours so sincerely tosecure an Interest in it, that he looks upon Pain but as a quickeningof his Pace to an Home, where he shall be better provided for than inhis present Apartment. Instead of the melancholy Views which othersare apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he ismortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the Time ofhis Birth he entered into an eternal Being; and the short Article ofDeath he will not allow an Interruption of Life, since that Moment isnot of half the Duration as is his ordinary Sleep. Thus is his Beingone uniform and consistent Series of chearful Diversions and moderateCares, without Fear or Hope of Futurity. Health to him is more thanPleasure to another Man, and Sickness less affecting to him thanIndisposition is to others.

I must confess, if one does not regard Life after this Manner, nonebut Idiots can pass it away with any tolerable Patience. Take a fineLady who is of a delicate Frame, and you may observe from the Hour sherises a certain Weariness of all that passes about her. I know morethan one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of suchstrange frightful People that they meet; one is so awkward and anotherso disagreeable, that it looks like a Penance to breathe the same Airwith them. You see this is so very true, that a great Part of Ceremonyand Good-breeding among the Ladies turns upon their Uneasiness; andI'll undertake, if the How-d'ye Servants of our Women were to make aweekly Bill of Sickness, as the Parish Clerks do of Mortality, youwould not find in an Account of Seven Days, one in thirty that was notdownright Sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than shewas, and so forth.

It is certain, that to enjoy Life and Health as a constant Feast, weshould not think Pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at anEquality of Mind. It is as mean to be overjoy'd upon Occasions of goodFortune, as to be dejected in Circ*mstances of Distress. Laughter inone Condition, is as unmanly as weeping in the other. We should notform our Minds to expect Transport on every Occasion, but know how tomake Enjoyment to be out of Pain. Ambition, Envy, vagrant Desire, orimpertinent Mirth will take up our Minds, without we can possess ourselves in that Sobriety of Heart which is above all Pleasures, and canbe felt much better than described: But the ready Way, I believe, tothe right Enjoyment of Life, is by a Prospect towards another to havebut a very mean Opinion of it. A great Author of our Time has set thisin an excellent Light, when with a philosophick Pity of human Life hespoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following Manner.

For what is this Life but a Circulation of little mean Actions? Welie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, workor play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the Circlereturns. We spend the Day in Trifles, and when the Night comes wethrow our selves into the Bed of Folly, amongst Dreams and brokenThoughts and wild Imaginations. Our Reason lies asleep by us, and weare for the Time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls orin the Field. Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these? andought not his Ambition and Expectations to be greater? Let us beAdventurers for another World: 'Tis at least a fair and noble Chance;and there is nothing in this worth our Thoughts or our Passions. If weshould be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of ourFellow-Mortals; and if we succeed in our Expectations, we areeternally happy.

Steele.

THE EMPLOYMENTS OF A HOUSEWIFE IN THE COUNTRY

To The Rambler.

Sir,

As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters fromthe country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy ofyour attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idlenessand diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in thissober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you theemployments of those who look with contempt on the pleasures anddiversions of polite life, and employ all their powers of censure andinvective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly of dress, visits,and conversation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me tothe house where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together,had at last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after thecivilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure andtranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if wellconducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care and atumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded andevery motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation,was, indeed, very full of the happiness which she received from myvisit, and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, insisted thatI should recompense the long delay of my company with a promise not toleave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and caresses, shevery frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxiousearnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed to sendthem out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience wouldnot suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must leave mefor a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but was againdisturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the sametrepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of businessand solicitude.

However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, andhowever my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations asnaturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger togratify myself with inquiries; but, finding none of the family inmourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather see awedding than a funeral.

At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of theyoung ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to inquire, wasunder a necessity of attending some affair that could not beneglected: soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularityof her family and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last letme know that they had purposed that night to go to bed sooner than wasusual, because they were to rise early in the morning to makecheesecakes. This hint sent me to my chamber, to which I wasaccompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excuse some largesieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds of the floor, forthey intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no otherroom that so conveniently received the rising sun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I roseearly in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. Istole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I foundnothing either more great or elegant than in the same number of acrescultivated for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that hislady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that Iwas come hither at the time in which I might learn to make morepickles and conserves than could be seen at any other house a hundredmiles round.

It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunitiesof knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her ownaccomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from somesweetmeats which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for twolong hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods ofconserving, reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us withgreat contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom theseterms were very often confounded; and hinted how much she should beashamed to set before company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so darka colour as she had often seen at Mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great business of her life to watch the skillet onthe fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatchit off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which shehas bred her daughters are to turn rose leaves in the shade, to pickout the seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit withoutbruising it, and to extract bean flower water for the skin. Such arethe tasks with which every day, since I came hither, has begun andended, to which the early hours of life are sacrificed, and in whichthat time is passing away which never shall return.

But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady hassettled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her ownperformances with all the firmness of stupidity accustomed to beflattered. Her daughters, having never seen any house but their own,believe their mother's excellence on her own word. Her husband is amere sportsman, who is pleased to see his table well furnished, andthinks the day sufficiently successful in which he brings home a leashof hares to be potted by his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told methat none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she neverloved to see young women give their minds to such follies, by whichthey would only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters tounderstand a house, and who ever should marry them, if they knewanything of good cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary science too sublimefor youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not beinitiated till the years of serious maturity, and which are referredto the day of marriage as the supreme qualification for connubiallife. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all theneighbourhood, and which she has hitherto found means of mixing andbaking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes itsflavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this greataffair with all the caution that human policy can suggest. It is neverknown beforehand when this pudding will be produced; she takes theingredients privately into her own closet, employs her maids anddaughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven to beheated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands: themouth of the oven is then stopped, and all inquiries are vain.

The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda,that if she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told withoutreserve. But the art of making English capers she has not yetpersuaded herself to discover, but seems resolved that secret shallperish with her, as some alchymists have obstinately suppressed theart of transmuting metals.

I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which sheleft upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of gooseberrywine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the eventsufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of thedanger to which her secrets were exposed, I was not able to make useof the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge wasso well concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother,her mother, and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it,and lost the opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowingthe language in which its answers were returned.

It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship'sesteem, that I should apply myself to some of these economicalaccomplishments; for I overheard her, two days ago, warning herdaughters, by my mournful example, against negligence of pastry, andignorance in carving; for you saw, said she, that, with all herpretensions to knowledge, she turned the partridge the wrong way whenshe attempted to cut it, and, I believe, scarcely knows the differencebetween paste raised and paste in a dish.

The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's characterbefore you, is a desire to be informed whether in your opinion it isworthy of imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which Ihave hitherto thought it my duty to read, for The Lady's Closetopened, The complete Servant-maid, and The Court Cook, and resignall curiosity after right and wrong for the art of scalding damasceneswithout bursting them, and preserving the whiteness of pickledmushrooms.

Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to fruits andflowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herselffree from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. Shehas no curiosity after the events of a war, or the fate of heroes indistress; she can hear without the least emotion the ravage of a fire,or devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, comeinto the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is pressingthe jelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive thatshe is more free from disquiet than those whose understandings take awider range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are oftenscattered by the wind, the rain sometimes falls upon fruit when itought to be gathered dry. While her artificial wines are fermenting,her whole life is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are notalways bright, and the maid sometimes forgets the just proportion ofsalt and pepper, when venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, herwines sour, and pickles mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, sheis every day mortified with the defeat of her schemes and thedisappointment of her hopes.

With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. Shehas no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has nodesire to be praised but for her cookery; nor wishes any ill to therest of mankind, but that whenever they aspire to a feast, theircustards may be wheyish, and their pie-crusts tough.

I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladiesas the great pattern of our sex, and to consider conserves and picklesas the business of my life; whether the censures which I now suffer bejust, and whether the brewers of wines, and the distillers of washes,have a right to look with insolence on the weakness of

CORNELIA.

Samuel Johnson.

THE STAGE COACH

To The Adventurer.

Sir,

It has been observed, I think, by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, and after him byalmost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety ofcharacters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the libertyprevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of beingwise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity ofhypocrisy or the servility of imitation.

That the position itself is true, I am not completely satisfied. To benearly acquainted with the people of different countries can happen tovery few; and in life, as in every thing else beheld at a distance,there appears an even uniformity: the petty discriminations whichdiversify the natural character, are not discoverable but by a closeinspection; we, therefore, find them most at home, because there wehave most opportunities of remarking them. Much less am I convinced,that his peculiar diversification, if it be real, is the consequenceof peculiar liberty; for where is the government to be found thatsuperintends individuals with so much vigilance, as not to leave theirprivate conduct without restraint? Can it enter into a reasonable mindto imagine, that men of every other nation are not equally masters oftheir own time or houses with ourselves, and equally at liberty to beparsimonious or profuse, frolic or sullen, abstinent or luxurious?Liberty is certainly necessary to the full play of predominanthumours; but such liberty is to be found alike under the government ofthe many or the few, in monarchies or in commonwealths.

How readily the predominant passion snatches an interval of liberty,and how fast it expands itself when the weight of restraint is takenaway, I had lately an opportunity to discover, as I took a journeyinto the country in a stage coach; which, as every journey is a kindof adventure, may be very properly related to you, though I candisplay no such extraordinary assembly as CERVANTES has collected atDON QUIXOTE'S inn.

In a stage coach the passengers are for the most part wholly unknownto one another, and without expectation of ever meeting again whentheir journey is at an end; one should, therefore, imagine, that itwas of little importance to any of them, what conjectures the restshould form concerning him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselvessecure from detection, all assume that character of which they aremost desirous, and on no occasion is the general ambition ofsuperiority more apparently indulged.

On the day of our departure, in the twilight of the morning, Iascended the vehicle with three men and two women, my fellowtravellers. It was easy to observe the affected elevation of mien withwhich every one entered, and the supercilious civility with which theypaid their compliments to each other. When the first ceremony wasdispatched, we sat silent for a long time, all employed in collectingimportance into our faces, and endeavouring to strike reverence andsubmission into our companions.

It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that thelonger talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say. We began now to wish for conversation; but no one seemedinclined to descend from his dignity, or first to propose a topic ofdiscourse. At last a corpulent gentleman, who had equipped himself forthis expedition with a scarlet surtout and a large hat with a broadlace, drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then held itdangling at his finger. This was, I suppose, understood by all thecompany as an invitation to ask the time of the day, but no bodyappeared to heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so farovercame his resentment, that he let us know of his own accord that itwas past five, and that in two hours we should be at breakfast.

His condescension was thrown away; we continued all obdurate; theladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching theirbehaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself incounting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat overhis eyes and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shewthat he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune and beat timeupon his snuff-box.

Thus universally displeased with one another, and not much delightedwith ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for ourrepast; and all began at once to recompense themselves for theconstraint of silence, by innumerable questions and orders to thepeople that attended us. At last, what every one had called for wasgot, or declared impossible to be got at that time, and we werepersuaded to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in the redsurtout looked again upon his watch, told us that we had half an hourto spare, but he was sorry to see so little merriment among us; thatall fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that itwas always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember,"says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my lordMumble and the duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called ata little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you,not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious,and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were allready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening tooverhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was sosurprised and confounded that we could scarcely get a word from her;and the duke never met me from that day to this, but he talks of thelittle house, and quarrels with me for terrifying the landlady."

He had scarcely had time to congratulate himself on the venerationwhich this narrative must have procured him from the company, when oneof the ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part of thetable, began to remark the inconveniences of travelling, and thedifficulty which they who never sat at home without a great number ofattendants found in performing for themselves such offices as the roadrequired; but that people of quality often travelled in disguise, andmight be generally known from the vulgar by their condescension topoor inn-keepers, and the allowance which they made for any defect intheir entertainment; that for her part, while people were civil andmeant well, it was never her custom to find fault, for one was not toexpect upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own house.

A General emulation seemed now to be excited. One of the men, who hadhitherto said nothing, called for the last news paper; and havingperused it a-while with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible," says he,"for any man to guess how to act with regard to the stocks: last weekit was the general opinion that they would fall; and I sold out twentythousand pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risenunexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my return to London I shallrisk thirty thousand pounds amongst them again."

A young man, who had hitherto distinguished himself only by thevivacity of his look, and a frequent diversion of his eyes from oneobject to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that"he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges onthe subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to bewell acquainted with the principles on which they were established,but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain intheir produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had beenadvised by three judges his most intimate friends, never to venturehis money in the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till hecould light upon an estate in his own country."

It might be expected that upon these glimpses of latent dignity, weshould all have began to look round us with veneration; and havebehaved like the princes of romance, when the enchantment thatdisguises them is dissolved, and they discover the dignity of eachother: yet it happened, that none of these hints made much impressionon the company; every one was apparently suspected of endeavouring toimpose false appearances upon the rest; all continued theirhaughtiness, in hopes to enforce their claims; and all grew every hourmore sullen, because they found their representations of themselveswithout effect.

Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence perpetuallyincreasing, and without any endeavour but to outvie each other insuperciliousness and neglect; and when any two of us could separateourselves for a moment, we vented our indignation at the sauciness ofthe rest.

At length the journey was at an end; and time and chance, that stripoff all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords anddukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the moneyhe has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is the clerkof a broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed herquality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man, whois so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribesfor bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I couldmake no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed nocharacter, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, withoutany struggle for distinction or superiority.

I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud,which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often tosucceed, and by the success of which no advantage could have beenobtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; andof claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with thebreath that paid them.

But, MR. ADVENTURER, let not those who laugh at me and my companions,think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journeyof life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellowtravellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears thosepraises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him foraccepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceivingothers; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shallcease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and ALL must beshown to ALL in their real estate.

I am, Sir,
Your humble Servant,
VIATOR.

Samuel Johnson.

THE SCHOLAR'S COMPLAINT OF HIS OWN BASHFULNESS

To The Rambler.

Sir,

Though one of your correspondents has presumed to mention with somecontempt that presence of attention and easiness of address, which thepolite have long agreed to celebrate and esteem, yet I cannot bepersuaded to think them unworthy of regard or cultivation; but aminclined to believe that as we seldom value rightly what we have neverknown the misery of wanting, his judgment has been vitiated by hishappiness; and that a natural exuberance of assurance has hindered himfrom discovering its excellence and use.

This felicity, whether bestowed by constitution, or obtained by earlyhabitudes, I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under aman of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignityof knowledge and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonitionand confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe that thesplendour of literature would always attract reverence, if notdarkened by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessantindustry, and avoided everything which I had been taught to considereither as vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt andreproach as inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation thegreatest calamity.

At the university I found no reason for changing my opinion; forthough many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a moreremiss discipline to gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved hernatural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect, were notsuffered to insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments foundits way into the receptacles of learning, but was observed to seizecommonly on those who either neglected the sciences or could notattain them; and I was therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my oldmaster, and thought nothing worthy of my care but the means of gainingand imparting knowledge.

This purity of manners and intenseness of application soon extended myrenown, and I was applauded by those whose opinion I then thoughtunlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes offuture eminence. My performances in time reached my native province,and my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours thatwere added to their family.

I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught withcriticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity,and my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. Toplease will always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must bethe constant aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself asabout to receive the reward of my honest labours, and to find theefficacy of learning and of virtue.

The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman whohad summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration ofhis wedding day. I set forward with great exultation, and thoughtmyself happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge toso numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, tillgoing upstairs to the dining-room, I heard the mingled roar ofobstreperous merriment. I was, however disgusted rather thanterrified, and went forward without dejection. The whole company roseat my entrance; and when I saw so many eyes fixed at once upon me, Iwas blasted with a sudden imbecility; I was quelled by some namelesspower which I found impossible to be resisted. My sight was dazzled,my cheeks glowed, my perceptions were confounded; I was harassed bythe multitude of eager salutations, and returned the common civilitieswith hesitation and impropriety; the sense of my own blundersincreased my confusion, and before the exchange of ceremonies allowedme to sit down, I was ready to sink under the oppression of surprise;my voice grew weak, and my knees trembled.

The assembly then resumed their places, and I sat with my eyes fixedupon the ground. To the questions of curiosity, or the appeals ofcomplaisance, I could seldom answer but with negative monosyllables,or professions of ignorance; for the subjects on which they conversedwere such as are seldom discussed in books, and were therefore out ofmy range of knowledge. At length an old clergyman, who rightlyconjectured the reason of my conciseness, relieved me by somequestions about the present state of natural knowledge, and engagedme, by an appearance of doubt and opposition, in the explication anddefence of the Newtonian philosophy.

The consciousness of my own abilities roused me from depression, andlong familiarity with my subject enabled me to discourse with ease andvolubility; but however I might please myself, I found very littleadded by my demonstrations to the satisfaction of the company; and myantagonist, who knew the laws of conversation too well to detain theirattention long upon an unpleasing topic, after he had commended myacuteness and comprehension, dismissed the controversy, and resignedme to my former insignificance and perplexity.

After dinner I received from the ladies, who had heard that I was awit, an invitation to the tea table. I congratulated myself upon anopportunity to escape from the company, whose gaiety began to betumultuous, and among whom several hints had been dropped of theuselessness of universities, the folly of book learning, and theawkwardness of scholars. To the ladies, therefore, I flew as to arefuge from clamour, insult and rusticity; but found my heart sink asI approached their apartment, and was again disconcerted by theceremonies of entrance, and confounded by the necessity ofencountering so many eyes at once.

When I sat down I considered that something pretty was always said toladies, and resolved to recover my credit by some elegant observationor graceful compliment. I applied myself to the recollection of all Ihad read or heard in praise of beauty, and endeavoured to accommodatesome classical compliment to the present occasion. I sunk intoprofound meditation, revolved the character of the heroines of old,considered whatever the poets have sung in their praise, and afterhaving borrowed and invented, chosen and rejected a thousandsentiments, which, if I had uttered them, would not have beenunderstood, I was awakened from my dream of learned gallantry by theservant who distributed the tea.

There are not many situations more incessantly uneasy than that inwhich the man is placed who is watching an opportunity to speakwithout courage to take it when it is offered, and who, though heresolves to give a specimen of his abilities, always finds some reasonor other for delaying it to the next minute. I was ashamed of silence,yet could find nothing to say of elegance or importance equal to mywishes. The ladies, afraid of my learning, thought themselves notqualified to propose any subject to prattle to a man so famous fordispute, and there was nothing on either side but impatience andvexation.

In this conflict of shame, as I was reassembling my scatteredsentiments, and, resolving to force my imagination to some sprightlysally, had just found a very happy compliment, by too much attentionto my own meditations, I suffered the saucer to drop from my hand, thecup was broken, the lapdog was scalded, a brocaded petticoat wasstained, and the whole assembly was thrown into disorder. I nowconsidered all hopes of reputation as at an end, and while they wereconsoling and assisting one another, stole away in silence.

The misadventures of this happy day are not yet at an end; I am afraidof meeting the meanest of them that triumphed over me in this state ofstupidity and contempt, and feel the same terrors encroaching upon myheart at the sight of those who have once impressed them. Shame, aboveany other passion, propagates itself. Before those who have seen meconfused I can never appear without new confusion, and the remembranceof the weakness which I formerly discovered hinders me from acting orspeaking with my natural force.

But is this misery, Mr. Rambler, never to cease? Have I spent my lifein study only to become the sport of the ignorant, and debarred myselffrom all the common enjoyments of youth to collect ideas which mustsleep in silence, and form opinions which I must not divulge? Informme, dear sir, by what means I may rescue my faculties from theseshackles of cowardice, how I may rise to a level with my fellowbeings, recall myself from this languor of involuntary subjection tothe free exertion of my intellects, and add to the power of reasoningthe liberty of speech.

I am, sir, etc.,
VERECUNDULUS.

Samuel Johnson.

THE MISERY OF A MODISH LADY IN SOLITUDE

To The Rambler.

MR. RAMBLER,

I am no great admirer of grave writings, and therefore very frequentlylay your papers aside before I have read them through; yet I cannotbut confess that, by slow degrees, you have raised my opinion of yourunderstanding, and that, though I believe it will be long before I canbe prevailed upon to regard you with much kindness, you have, however,more of my esteem than those whom I sometimes make happy withopportunities to fill my teapot, or pick up my fan. I shall thereforechoose you for the confident of my distresses, and ask your counselwith regard to the means of conquering or escaping them, though Inever expect from you any of that softness and pliancy whichconstitutes the perfection of a companion for the ladies: as, in theplace where I now am, I have recourse to the mastiff for protection,though I have no intention of making him a lapdog.

My mamma is a very fine lady, who has more numerous and more frequentassemblies at our house than any other person in the same quarter ofthe town. I was bred from my earliest infancy to a perpetual tumult ofpleasure, and remember to have heard of little else than messages,visits, playhouses, and balls; of the awkwardness of one woman, andthe coquetry of another; the charming convenience of some risingfashion, the difficulty of playing a new game, the incidents of amasquerade, and the dresses of a court night. I knew before I was tenyears old all the rules of paying and receiving visits, and to howmuch civility every one of my acquaintance was entitled: and was ableto return, with the proper degree of reserve or vivacity, the statedand established answer to every compliment; so that I was very sooncelebrated as a wit and a beauty, and had heard before I was thirteenall that is ever said to a young lady. My mother was generous to souncommon a degree as to be pleased with my advance into life, andallowed me, without envy or reproof, to enjoy the same happiness withherself; though most women about her own age were very angry to seeyoung girls so forward, and many fine gentlemen told her how cruel itwas to throw new claims upon mankind, and to tyrannize over them atthe same time with her own charms and those of her daughter.

I have now lived two and twenty years, and have passed of each yearnine months in town, and three at Richmond; so that my time has beenspent uniformly in the same company and the same amusem*nts, except asfashion has introduced new diversions, or the revolutions of the gayworld have afforded new successions of wits and beaux. However, mymother is so good an economist of pleasure that I have no spare hoursupon my hands; for every morning brings some new appointment, andevery night is hurried away by the necessity of making our appearanceat different places, and of being with one lady at the opera, and withanother at the card-table.

When the time came of settling our scheme of felicity for the summer,it was determined that I should pay a visit to a rich aunt in a remotecounty. As you know the chief conversation of all tea-tables, in thespring, arises from a communication of the manner in which time is tobe passed till winter, it was a great relief to the barrenness of ourtopics to relate the pleasures that were in store for me, to describemy uncle's seat, with the park and gardens, the charming walks andbeautiful waterfalls; and everyone told me how much she envied me, andwhat satisfaction she had once enjoyed in a situation of the samekind.

As we are all credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine somelatent satisfaction in any thing which we have not experienced, I willconfess to you, without restraint, that I had suffered my head to befilled with expectations of some nameless pleasure in a rural life,and that I hoped for the happy hour that should set me free fromnoise, and flutter, and ceremony, dismiss me to the peaceful shade,and lull me in content and tranquility. To solace myself under themisery of delay, I sometimes heard a studious lady of my acquaintanceread pastorals, I was delighted with scarce any talk but of leavingthe town, and never went to bed without dreaming of groves, andmeadows, and frisking lambs.

At length I had all my clothes in a trunk, and saw the coach at thedoor; I sprung in with ecstasy, quarreled with my maid for being toolong in taking leave of the other servants, and rejoiced as the groundgrew less which lay between me and the completion of my wishes. A fewdays brought me to a large old house, encompassed on three sides withwoody hills, and looking from the front on a gentle river, the sightof which renewed all my expectations of pleasure, and gave me someregret for having lived so long without the enjoyment which thesedelightful scenes were now to afford me. My aunt came out to receiveme, but in a dress so far removed from the present fashion that Icould scarcely look upon her without laughter, which would have beenno kind requital for the trouble which she had taken to make herselffine against my arrival. The night and the next morning were drivenalong with inquiries about our family; my aunt then explained ourpedigree, and told me stories of my great grandfather's bravery in thecivil wars; nor was it less than three days before I could persuadeher to leave me to myself.

At last economy prevailed; she went in the usual manner about her ownaffairs, and I was at liberty to range in the wilderness, and sit bythe cascade. The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for awhile, but after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon beganto perceive that the country was not my element; that shades, andflowers, and lawns, and waters had very soon exhausted all their powerof pleasing, and that I had not in myself any fund of satisfactionwith which I could supply the loss of my customary amusem*nts.

I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that Ihad leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only are yet gone, and howshall I live through the remaining four? I go out and return; I plucka flower, and throw it away; I catch an insect, and when I haveexamined its colours, set it at liberty; I fling a pebble into thewater, and see one circle spread after another. When it chances torain I walk in the great hall, and watch the minute-hand upon thedial, or play with a litter of kittens which the cat happens to havebrought in a lucky time.

My aunt is afraid I shall grow melancholy, and therefore encouragesthe neighbouring gentry to visit us. They came at first with greateagerness to see the fine lady from London, but when we met we had nocommon topic on which we could converse; they had no curiosity afterplays, operas, or music; and I find as little satisfaction from theiraccounts of the quarrels or alliances of families, whose names, whenonce I can escape, I shall never hear. The women have now seen me,know how my gown is made, and are satisfied; the men are generallyafraid of me, and say little, because they think themselves not atliberty to talk rudely.

Thus am I condemned to solitude; the day moves slowly forward, and Isee the dawn with uneasiness, because I consider that night is at agreat distance. I have tried to sleep by a brook, but find its murmursineffectual; so that I am forced to be awake at least twelve hours,without visits, without cards, without laughter, and without flattery.I walk because I am disgusted with sitting still, and sit down becauseI am weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object oflove, or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot dress with spirit,for I have neither rival nor admirer. I cannot dance without apartner, nor be kind, or cruel, without a lover.

Such is the life of Euphelia, and such it is likely to continue for amonth to come. I have not yet declared against existence, nor calledupon the destinies to cut my thread; but I have sincerely resolved notto condemn myself to such another summer, nor too hastily to flattermyself with happiness. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those whonever thought themselves so much at ease as in solitude, and cannotbut suspect it to be some way or other my own fault, that, withoutgreat pain, either of mind or body, I am thus weary of myself: thatthe current of youth stagnates, and that I am languishing in a deadcalm for want of some external impulse. I shall, therefore, think youa benefactor to our sex, if you will teach me the art of living alone;for I am confident that a thousand and a thousand and a thousandladies, who affect to talk with ecstasies of the pleasures of thecountry, are, in reality, like me, longing for the winter, and wishingto be delivered from themselves by company and diversion.

I am, sir, yours,
EUPHELIA.

Samuel Johnson.

THE HISTORY OF AN ADVENTURER IN LOTTERIES

To The Rambler.

Sir,

As I have passed much of life in disquiet and suspense, and lost manyopportunities of advantage by a passion which I have reason to believeprevalent in different degrees over a great part of mankind, I cannotbut think myself well qualified to warn those, who are yetuncaptivated of the danger which they incur by placing themselveswithin its influence.

I served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, with uncommon reputationfor diligence and fidelity; and at the age of three-and-twenty openeda shop for myself with a large stock, and such credit among all themerchants, who were acquainted with my master, that I could commandwhatever was imported curious or valuable. For five years I proceededwith success proportionate to close application and untaintedintegrity; was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notesbefore they were due; and advanced so fast in commercial reputationthat I was proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, andevery one expected that a few years would make me an alderman.

In this course of even propensity, I was one day persuaded to buy aticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, part was to berepaid though fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore myestablished maxims of frugality did not restrain me from so triflingan experiment. The ticket lay almost forgotten till the time at whichevery man's fate was to be determined; nor did the affairs even thenseem of any importance, till I discovered by the public papers thatthe number next to mine had conferred the great prize.

My heart leaped at the thoughts of such an approach of sudden riches,which I considered myself, however contrarily to the laws ofcomputation, as having missed by a single chance; and I could notforbear to revolve the consequences which such a bounteous allotmentwould have produced, if it had happened to me. This dream of felicity,by degrees, took possession of my imagination. The great delight of mysolitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations withmoney which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends butI spoiled their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck.

At length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated myimagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressedamong the first purchasers, had not my ardour been withheld bydeliberation upon the probability of success from one ticket ratherthan another. I hesitated long between even and off; considered thesquare and cubic numbers through the lottery; examined all those towhich good luck had been hitherto annexed; and at last fixed upon one,which, by some secret relation to the events of my life, I thoughtpredestined to make me happy. Delay in great affairs is oftenmischievous; the ticket was sold, and its possessor could not befound.

I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication,fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Never didcaptive, heir, or lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace oftime, as I suffered between the purchase of my ticket and thedistribution of the prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as well as Icould, by frequent contemplations of approaching happiness; when thesun arose I knew it would set, and congratulated myself at night thatI was so much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticketappeared, and rewarded all my care and sagacity with a despicableprize of fifty pounds.

My friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success, were very coldlyreceived; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrinmight fume away without observation, and then returning to my shop,began to listen after another lottery.

With the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now foundthe vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I resolved totake the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, notomitting, however, to divide them between the even and odd numbers,that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form,and many experiments did I try to determine from which of thosetickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unableto satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upondice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusem*nt of throwingthem in a garret; and examining the event by an exact register, found,on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbershad been turned up five times more than any of the rest in threehundred and thirty thousand throws.

This experiment was fallacious; the first day presented the hopefulticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different fortune,and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds by this great adventure.

I had now wholly changed the cast of my behaviour and the conduct ofmy life. The shop was for the most part abandoned to my servants, andif I entered it, my thoughts were so engrossed by my tickets that Iscarcely heard or answered a question, but considered every customeras an intruder upon my meditations, whom I was in haste to dispatch. Imistook the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgotto file my receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. Myacquaintances by degrees began to fall away; but I perceived thedecline of my business with little emotion, because whateverdeficience there might be in my gains I expected the next lottery tosupply.

Miscarriage naturally produced diffidence; I began now to seekassistance against ill luck, by an alliance with those that had beenmore successful. I inquired diligently at what office any prize hadbeen sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; solicitedthose who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with mein my new tickets, and whenever I met with one that had in any eventof his life been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a largershare. I had, by this rule of conduct, so diffused my interest, that Ihad a fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and asixteenth of ninety.

I waited for the decision of my fate with my former palpitations, andlooked upon the business of my trade with the usual neglect. The wheelat last was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long successionof sorrows and disappointments. I indeed often partook of a smallprize, and the loss of one day was generally balanced by the gain ofthe next; but my desires yet remained unsatisfied, and when one of mychances had failed, all my expectation was suspended on those whichremained yet undetermined. At last a prize of five thousand pounds wasproclaimed; I caught fire at the cry, and inquiring the number, foundit to be one of my own tickets, which I had divided among those onwhose luck I depended, and of which I had retained only a sixteenthpart.

You will easily judge with what detestation of himself a man thusintent upon gain reflected that he had sold a prize which was once inhis possession. It was to no purpose that I represented to my mind theimpossibility of recalling the past, or the folly of condemning anact, which only its event, an event which no human intelligence couldforesee, proved to be wrong. The prize which, though put in my hands,had been suffered to slip from me, filled me with anguish; and knowingthat complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself upsilently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest.

My indisposition soon became visible: I was visited by my friends, andamong them by Eumathes, a clergyman, whose piety and learning gave himsuch an ascendant over me that I could not refuse to open my heart.There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in thehands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipatefuturity, and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kindof casual adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate tohis hope. You have long wasted that time which, by a properapplication, would have certainly, though moderately, increased yourfortune, in a laborious and anxious pursuit of a species of gain whichno labour or anxiety, no art or expedient, can secure or promote. Youare now fretting away your life in repentance of an act against whichrepentance can give no caution but to avoid the occasion of committingit. Rouse from this lazy dream of fortuitous riches, which ifobtained, you could scarcely have enjoyed, because they could conferno consciousness of desert; return to rational and manly industry, andconsider the mere gift of luck as below the care of a wise man.

Samuel Johnson.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO

In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find amagnificent eulogy on my old school,[6] such as it was, or now appearsto him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, veryoddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding withhis; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for thecloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can besaid in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argumentmost ingeniously.

[Footnote 6: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.]

I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had somepeculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows had not.His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had theprivilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, throughsome invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthysub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. Hehad his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening uponour quarter of a penny loaf—our crug—moistened with attenuatedsmall beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jackit was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless,and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched forhim with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from thehot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat lessrepugnant—(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week)—wasendeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack ofginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon.In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef onThursdays (strong as caro equina), with detestable marigoldsfloating in the pail to poison the broth—our scanty mutton crags onFridays—and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the sameflesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish whichexcited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equalproportion)—he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more temptinggriskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternalkitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt! Iremember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squattingdown upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing theviands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministeredto the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding.There was love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and themanner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to sharein it; and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions!)predominant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardness,and a troubling over-consciousness.

I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those who should care forme, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they couldreckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forcednotice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival intown, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them torecur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one afteranother, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundredplaymates.

O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! Theyearnings which I used to have towards it in those unfledged years!How, in my dreams, would my native town (far in the west) come back,with its church, and trees, and faces! How I would wake weeping, andin the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire!

To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by therecollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days ofsummer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the hauntingmemory of those whole-day-leaves, when, by some strange arrangement,we were turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own hands, whetherwe had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing excursionsto the New River, which L. recalls with such relish, better, I think,than he can—for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care forsuch water-pastimes:—How merrily we would sally forth into thefields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton likeyoung dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which thoseof us that were penniless (our scanty morning crust long sinceexhausted) had not the means of allaying—while the cattle, and thebirds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing tosatisfy our cravings—the very beauty of the day, and the exercise ofthe pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge uponthem!—How faint and languid, finally we would return, towardsnightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, thatthe hours of our uneasy liberty had expired!

It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streetsobjectless—shivering at cold windows of print-shops, to extract alittle amusem*nt; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a littlenovelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individualfaces should be as well known to the warden as those of his owncharges) to the Lions in the Tower—to whose levée, by courtesyimmemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission.

L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to thefoundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaintwhich he had to make was sure of being attended to. This wasunderstood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against theseverity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressionsof these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. Ihave been called out of my bed, and waked for the purpose, in thecoldest winter nights—and this not once, but night after night—in myshirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with elevenother sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there hasbeen any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six lastbeds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept,answerable for an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had thepower to hinder.—The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part ofus from the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and underthe cruellest penalties, forbade the indulgence of a drink of water,when we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, andthe day's sports.

There was one H——,[7] who, I learned, in after days, was seenexpiating some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself infancying that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered—atNevis, I think, or St. Kitts,—some few years since? My friend Tobinwas the benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) Thispetty Nero actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with ared-hot iron; and nearly starved forty of us, with exactingcontributions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass,which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance of the nurse'sdaughter (a young flame of his) he had contrived to smuggle in, andkeep upon the leads of the ward, as they called our dormitories.This game went on for better than a week, till the foolish beast, notable to fare well but he must cry roast meat—happier than Caligula'sminion, could he have kept his own counsel—but, foolisher, alas! thanany of his species in the fables—waxing fat, and kicking, in thefulness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his goodfortune to the world below; and, laying out his simple throat, blewsuch a ram's horn blast, as (toppling down the walls of his ownJericho) set concealment any longer at defiance. The client wasdismissed, with certain attentions, to Smithfield; but I neverunderstood that the patron underwent any censure on the occasion. Thiswas in the stewardship of L.'s admired Perry.

[Footnote 7: Hodges.]

Under the same facile administration, can L. have forgotten the coolimpunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in openplatters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint,which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out forour dinners? These things were daily practised in that magnificentapartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises sohighly for the grand paintings "by Verrio, and others," with which itis "hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek, well-fedblue-coat boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, littleconsolatory to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part ofour provisions carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselvesreduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido)

"To feed our mind with idle portraiture."

L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, or the fat offresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition. But theseunctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children areuniversally fat-haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled meats,unsalted, are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalentto a goul, and held in equal detestation. —— suffered under theimputation.

"——'Twas said,
He ate strange flesh."

He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnantsleft at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may creditme)—and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which hewould convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at hisbed-side. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privatelydevoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of suchmidnight practices were discoverable. Some reported, that, onleave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large bluecheck handkerchief, full of something. This then must be the accursedthing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose ofit. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generallyprevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would playwith him. He was excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. Hewas too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode ofthat negative punishment, which is more grievous than many stripes.Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of hisschool-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and hadtraced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-outbuilding, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery Lane, which arelet out to various scales of pauperism with open door, and a commonstaircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealthup four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened byan aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now ripened into certainty.The informers had secured their victim. They had him in their toils.Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal waslooked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a littleafter my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all hisconduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded tosentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receiversor purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parentsof ——, an honest couple come to decay,—whom this seasonable supplyhad, in all probability, saved from mendicancy; and that this youngstork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while beenonly feeding the old birds!—The governors on this occasion, much totheir honour, voted a present relief to the family of ——, andpresented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward readupon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medalto ——, I believe, would not be lost upon his auditory.—I had leftschool then, but I well remember ——. He was a tall, shambling youth,with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostileprejudices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think Iheard he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by theold folks.

I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon theday of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted toassuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was of tender years,barely turned of seven; and had only read of such things in books, orseen them but in dreams. I was told he had run away. This was thepunishment for the first offence.—As a novice I was soon after takento see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where aboy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket—a mattress,I think, was afterwards substituted—with a peep of light, let inaskance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by. Herethe poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of anybut the porter who brought him his bread and water—who might notspeak to him;—or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call himout to receive his periodical chastisem*nt, which was almost welcome,because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude:—and herehe was shut up by himself by nights, out of the reach of any sound,to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incidentto his time of life, might subject him to.[8] This was the penalty forthe second offence.—Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became ofhim in the next degree?

[Footnote 8: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide,accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of thispart of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits wasdispensed with.—This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout ofHoward's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul),methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue.]

The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whoseexpulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, asat some solemn auto da fe, arrayed in uncouth and most appallingattire—all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, hewas exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplightersformerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of thisdivestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could haveanticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was as if some ofthose disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In thisdisguisem*nt he was brought into the hall (L.'s favouritestate-room), where awaited him the whole number of his schoolfellows,whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforward to share no more;the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time; ofthe executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the occasion; andof two faces more, of direr import, because never but in theseextremities visible. These were governors; two of whom, by choice, orcharter, were always accustomed to officiate at these UltimaSupplicia; not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), but toenforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert,I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle turningrather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for themysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long andstately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. Wewere generally too faint with attending to the previous disgustingcirc*mstances, to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree ofcorporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out the backknotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his SanBenito, to his friends, if he had any (but commonly such poorrunagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhancethe effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on theoutside of the hall gate.

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil thegeneral mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise andrecreation after school hours; and, for myself, I must confess, thatI was never happier, than in them. The Upper and Lower GrammarSchools were held in the same room; and an imaginary line only dividedtheir bounds. Their character was as different as that of theinhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer wasthe Upper Master: but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over thatportion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be amember. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did justwhat we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or agrammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take twoyears in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two inforgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and thenthe formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, abrush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the soleremonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded thecane with no great good will—holding it "like a dancer." It looked inhis hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; andan emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that didnot care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any greatconsideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, nowand then, but often stayed away whole days from us; and when he came,it made no difference to us—he had his private room to retire to, theshort time he stayed, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirthand uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholdento "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current amongus—Peter Wilkins—the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle—theFortunate Blue Coat Boy—and the like. Or we cultivated a turn formechanic or scientific operation; making little sun-dials of paper; orweaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-cradles; or makingdry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the artmilitary over that laudable game "French and English," and a hundredother such devices to pass away the time—mixing the useful with theagreeable—as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Lockechuckle to have seen us.

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect tomix in equal proportion the gentleman, the scholar, and theChristian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generallyfound to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engagedin gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levée, whenhe should have been attending upon us. He had for many years theclassical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five firstyears of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceededfurther than two or three of the introductory fables of Phædrus. Howthings were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was theproper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhapsfelt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. Ihave not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogetherdispleased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. Wewere a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, withironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then,with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat andfresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering theirbrains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as thatenjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in ourlittle Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, andthe prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thundersrolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us;contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, ourfleece was dry.[9] His boys turned out the better scholars; we, Isuspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of himwithout something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembranceof Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, andsummer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, andElysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday."

[Footnote 9: Cowley.]

Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we werenear enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. Weoccasionally heard sounds of the Ululantes, and caught glances ofTartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was cramped tobarbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to thoseperiodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[10]—He wouldlaugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibbleabout Rex——or at the tristis severitas in vultu, or inspicerein patinas, of Terence—thin jests, which at their first broachingcould hardly have had vis enough to move a Roman muscle.—He had twowigs, both pedantic, but of different omen. The one serene, smiling,fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old discoloured,unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe tothe school, when he made his morning appearance in his passy, orpassionate wig. No comet expounded surer.—J. B. had a heavy hand. Ihave known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (thematernal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presumeto set your wits at me?"—Nothing was more common than to see him makea headlong entry into the schoolroom, from his inner recess, orlibrary, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od'smy life, Sirrah" (his favourite adjuration), "I have a great mind towhip you,"—then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back intohis lair—and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which allbut the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong outagain, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some Devil'sLitany, with the expletory yell—"and I WILL too."—In his gentlermoods, when the rabidus furor was assuaged, he had resort to aningenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to himself, ofwhipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same time; aparagraph, and a lash between; which in those times, whenparliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in theserealms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a venerationfor the diffuser graces of rhetoric.

[Footnote 10: In this and everything B. was the antipodes of hiscoadjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems,worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in themore flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his,under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by thechroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick,but the town did not give it their sanction.—B. used to say of it, ina way of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was too classical forrepresentation.]

Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectualfrom his hand—when droll squinting W—— having been caught puttingthe inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect hadclearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicityaverred, that he did not know that the thing had been forewarned.This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral ordeclaratory struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heardit (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission wasunavoidable.

L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge,in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ampleencomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not tocompare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannotdismiss him better than with the pious ejacul*tion of C.—when heheard that his old master was on his death-bed—"Poor J. B.!—may allhis faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherubboys, all head and wings, with no bottoms to reproach his sublunaryinfirmities."

Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.—First Grecian of mytime was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, sinceCo-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T——e.[11]What an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to thosewho remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!—You nevermet the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which wasquickly dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of theother. Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened foreach other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, inadvanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was notlong in discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces also.Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked inyours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the CiceroDe Amicitia, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the youngheart even then was burning to anticipate!—Co-Grecian with S. wasTh——,[12] who has since executed with ability various diplomaticfunctions at the Northern courts. Th—— was a tall, dark, saturnineyouth, sparing of speech, with raven locks.—Thomas Fanshaw Middletonfollowed him (now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in histeens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author(besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article,against Sharpe.—M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where theregni novitas (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. Ahumility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not beexactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesanswith a reverence for home institutions, and the church which thosefathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild,and unassuming.—Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards,author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the OxfordPrize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian.—Then followed poor S——,[13]ill-fated M——![14] of these the Muse is silent.

[Footnote 11: Trollope.]

[Footnote 12: Thornton.]

[Footnote 13: Scott; died in Bedlam.]

[Footnote 14: Maunde; dismissed school.]

Finding some of Edward's race
Unhappy, pass their annals by.

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thyfancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee—the dark pillarnot yet turned—Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Logician, Metaphysician,Bard!—How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters standstill, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportionbetween the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hearthee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries ofJamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not paleat such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, orPindar——while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to theaccents of the inspired charity-boy! Many were the "wit-combats" (todally awhile with the words of old Fuller) between him and C. V. LeG——,[15] "which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion, and anEnglish man-of-war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built farhigher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. L.,with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing,could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of allwinds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."

[Footnote 15: Charles Valentine Le Grice.]

Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with thecordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wontto make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignantjest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and,peradventure, practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles,with that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert the Nireusformosus of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thoudidst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed byprovoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by thyangel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "bl——," for agentler greeting—"bless thy handsome face!"

Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends ofElia—the junior Le G—— and F——;[16] who impelled, the former by aroving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect—ill capableof enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in ourseats of learning—exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp; perishing,one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca:—Le G——sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured; F—— dogged, faithful,anticipative of insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Romanheight about him.

Fine, frank-hearted Fr——,[17] the present master of Hertford, withMarmaduke T——,[18] mildest of Missionaries—and both my good friendsstill—close the catalogue of Grecians in my time.

[Footnote 16: Favell; left Cambridge, ashamed of his father, who was ahousepainter there.]

[Footnote 17: Franklin.]

[Footnote 18: Thompson.]

Lamb.

ALL FOOLS' DAY

The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry firstof April to us all!

Many happy returns of this day to you—and you—and you, Sir—nay,never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do not we knowone another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touchof that same—you understand me—a speck of the motley. Beshrew theman who on such a day as this, the general festival, should affectto stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of thecorporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forestto-day, shall meet with no wise-acre, I can tell him. Stultus sum.Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for yourpains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, atthe least computation.

Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry—we will drink no wise,melancholy, politic port on this day—and let us troll the catch ofAmiens—duc ad me—duc ad me—how goes it?

Here shall we see
Gross fools as he.

Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, whowas the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in abumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without muchdifficulty name you the party.

Remove your cap a little further, if you please; it hides my bauble.And now each man bestride his hobby, and dust away his bells to whattune he pleases. I will give you, for my part,

——The crazy old church clock
And the bewildered chimes.

Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long since you went asalamander-gathering down Ætna. Worse than samphire-picking by someodds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios.

Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at thebottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of thedisinterested sect of the Calenturists.

Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring inyour trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at myright hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if Iremember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, orthereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell youmust have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on thelow grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions bya rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument onFish Street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat.

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?—cry, baby, put its fingerin its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, prettymoppet!

Mister Adams——'odso, I honour your coat—pray do us the favour toread to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipshod—thetwenty and second in your portmanteau there—on Female Incontinence—thesame—it will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable tothe time of the day.

Good Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray correct that error.——

Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you a bumper, or a paradox.We will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day. Removethose logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shinsof his apprehension stumbling across them.

Master Stephen, you are late.—Ha! co*kes, is it you?—Aguecheek, mydear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.—Master Shallow, yourworship's poor servant to command.—Master Silence, I will use fewwords with you.—Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you insomewhere.—You six will engross all the poor wit of the companyto-day.—I know it, I know it.

Ha! honest R——,[19] my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out ofmind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new,threadbare as thy stories:—what dost thou flitting about the world atthis rate?—Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceasedto read long ago.—Thou goest still among them, seeing if,peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two.—Good GranvilleS——,[20] thy last patron, is flown.

[Footnote 19: Ramsay.]

[Footnote 20: Granville Sharp.]

King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapt in lead.—

Nevertheless, noble R——, come in, and take your seat here, betweenArmado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantasticsmiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodlyornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wisesentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons ofSpain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thysinging the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be happywith either, situated between those two ancient spinsters—when Iforget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning nowto the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile—as ifCervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousandsof periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could havegiven his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertiedand meritorious-equal damsels. * * * *

To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our Fools'Banquet beyond its appropriate day,—for I fear the second of April isnot many hours distant—in sober verity I will confess a truth tothee, reader. I love a Fool—as naturally, as if I were of kith andkin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that divednot below the surface of the matter, I read those Parables—notguessing at their involved wisdom—I had more yearnings towards thatsimple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than Ientertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hardcensure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent;and—prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to myapprehension, somewhat unfeminine wariness of their competitors—Ifelt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a tendre, for those fivethoughtless virgins—I have never made an acquaintance since, thatlasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not sometincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honestobliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shallcommit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that hewill not betray or overreach you. I love the safety which apalpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out ofseason ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fooltold it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram offolly in his mixture, had pounds of much worse matter in hiscomposition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl orfish—woodco*cks,—dotterels,—cod's-heads, &c., the finer the fleshthereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but suchwhereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of thekindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity,minions of the goddess, and her white boys?—Reader, if you wrest mywords beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that arethe April Fool.

Lamb.

WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS

We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross forfools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us)involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of thisvisible world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd todetect an historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisibleworld was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of badspirits assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, offitness, or proportion—of that which distinguishes the likely fromthe palpable absurd—could they have to guide them in the rejectionor admission of any particular testimony?—that maidens pined away,wasting inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire—thatcorn was lodged, and cattle lamed—that whirlwinds uptore in diabolicrevelry the oaks of the forest—or that spits and kettles only danceda fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no windwas stirring—were all equally probable where no law of agency wasunderstood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by theflower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to theweak fantasy of indigent eld—has neither likelihood nor unlikelihoodà priori to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, orstandard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in thedevil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolised by agoat, was it to be wondered at so much, that he should comesometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor.—That theintercourse was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps themistake—but that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving oneattested story of this nature more than another on the score ofabsurdity. There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by whicha dream may be criticised.

I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days ofreceived witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village whereone of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or moreobtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in leaguewith the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to theirmuttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupledissuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon them—as if theyshould subpoena Satan!—Prospero in his boat, with his books and wandabout him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy of hisenemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, wethink, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to thenon-resistance of witches to the constituted powers.—What stops theFiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces—or who had made it acondition of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the gloriousbait—we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country.

From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches andwitch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with goodstore. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosityoriginally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the Historyof the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. Thepictures with which it abounds—one of the ark, in particular, andanother of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity ofocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon thespot—attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, ofthe Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. Weshall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes—andthere was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, withinfinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from the situationwhich they occupied upon an upper shelf. I have not met with the workfrom that time to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testamentstories, orderly set down, with the objection appended to eachstory, and the solution of the objection regularly tacked to that.The objection was a summary of whatever difficulties had beenopposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness ofancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimentaryexcess of candour. The solution was brief, modest, and satisfactory.The bane and antidote were both before you. To doubts so put, and soquashed, there seemed to be an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, forthe foot of the veriest babe to trample on. But—like as was ratherfeared than realised from that slain monster in Spenser—from the wombof those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, exceeding theprowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to vanquish. The habitof expecting objections to every passage, set me upon starting moreobjections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own for them. Ibecame staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. The prettyBible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost theirpurity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so manyhistoric or chronologic theses to be defended against whateverimpugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but—the next thing tothat—I was to be quite sure that some one or other would or haddisbelieved them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the lettinghim know that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man'sweakness, but the child's strength. O, how ugly sound scripturaldoubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling!—I should have lostmyself in these mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfitsustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece ofill-fortune, which about this time befel me. Turning over the pictureof the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in itsingenious fabric—driving my inconsiderate fingers right through thetwo larger quadrupeds—the elephant, and the camel—that stare (aswell they might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in thatunique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was henceforth lockedup, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, theobjections and solutions gradually cleared out of my head, andhave seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.—But there wasone impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock orbar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nervesrather more seriously.—That detestable picture!

I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The nighttime solitude, andthe dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature wouldjustify the expression. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose,from the fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life—so far asmemory serves in things so long ago—without an assurance, whichrealised its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be oldStackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture ofthe Witch raising up Samuel—(O that old man covered with a mantle!) Iowe—not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy—but the shapeand manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for me a hagthat nightly sate upon my pillow—a sure bedfellow, when my aunt or mymaid was far from me. All day long, while the book was permitted me, Idreamed waking over his delineation, and at night (if I may use sobold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision true. Idurst not, even in the daylight, once enter the chamber where I slept,without my face turned to the window, aversely from the bed where mywitch-ridden pillow was.—Parents do not know what they do when theyleave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. The feeling aboutfor a friendly arm—the hoping for a familiar voice—when they wakescreaming—and find none to soothe them—what a terrible shaking it isto their poor nerves! The keeping them up till midnight, throughcandle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are called,—would, Iam satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the bettercaution.—That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the fashion tomy dreams—if dreams they were—for the scene of them was invariablythe room in which I lay. Had I never met with the picture, the fearswould have come self-pictured in some shape or other—

Headless bear, black man, or ape—

but, as it was, my imaginations took that form.—It is not book, orpicture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create theseterrors in children. They can at most but give them a direction. Dearlittle T. H.[21] who of all children has been brought up with the mostscrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition—who was neverallowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of badmen, or to read or hear of any distressing story—finds all this worldof fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded ab extra, in hisown "thick-coming fancies;" and from his little midnight pillow, thisnurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition,in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer aretranquillity.

[Footnote 21: Thornton Hunt.]

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras—dire stories of Celæno and theHarpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—butthey were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypesare in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which weknow in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at all?—or

——Names, whose sense we see not,
Fray us with things that be not?

Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, consideredin their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?—O,least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyondbody—or, without the body, they would have been the same. All thecruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante—tearing, mangling,choking, stifling, scorching demons—are they one half so fearful tothe spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodiedfollowing him—

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn'd round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.[22]

[Footnote 22: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.]

That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual—that it isstrong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth—that itpredominates in the period of sinless infancy—are difficulties, thesolution of which might afford some probable insight into ourante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land ofpre-existence.

My night-fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess anoccasional night-mare; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud ofthem. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished taper, will come and lookat me; but I know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude theirpresence, and I fight and grapple with them. For the credit of myimagination, I am almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreamsare grown. They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are ofarchitecture and of buildings—cities abroad, which I have never seen,and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, for the seeming lengthof a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon—their churches,palaces, squares, marketplaces, shops, suburbs, ruins, with aninexpressible sense of delight—a map-like distinctness of trace—anda daylight vividness of vision, that was all but being awake.—I haveformerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells—my highest Alps,—butthey are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recognition;and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual struggles of theinner eye, to make out a shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn.Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. Thepoverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Coleridge, at his will canconjure up icy domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, andAbyssinian maids, and songs of Abora, and caverns,

Where Alph, the sacred river, runs,

to solace his night solitudes—when I cannot muster a fiddle. BarryCornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling before him innocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune—when mystretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, raiseup the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat amortifying light—it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet,that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and the poorplastic power, such as it is, within me set to work, to humour myfolly in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was upon theocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and mounted high, with thecustomary train sounding their conchs before me, (I myself, you may besure, the leading god,) and jollily we went careering over the main,till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think it wasIno) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell froma sea-roughness to a sea-calm, and thence to a river-motion, and thatriver (as happens in the familiarisation of dreams) was no other thanthe gentle Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave ortwo, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambethpalace.

The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish nowhimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in thesame soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humourist,used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling ofhis acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first questionwould be,—"Young man, what sort of dreams have you?" I have so muchfaith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle veinreturning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element ofprose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious inlandlanding.

Lamb.

MY FIRST PLAY

At the north end of Cross Court there yet stands a portal, of somearchitectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving atpresent for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, ifyou are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entranceto Old Drury—Garrick's Drury—all of it that is left. I never pass itwithout shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring tothe evening when I passed through it to see my first play. Theafternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elderfolks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beatingheart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness ofwhich I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem toremember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

We went with orders, which my godfather F.[23] had sent us. He keptthe oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone Building, inHolborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and hadpretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with JohnPalmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; ifJohn (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of hismanner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by,Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley broughthis first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school atBath—the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over aquadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmoniouscharge.—From either of these connexions it may be inferred that mygodfather could command an order for the then Drury Lane theatre atpleasure—and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets,in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say was the soleremuneration which he had received for many years' nightlyillumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre—andhe was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan'sfamiliarity—or supposed familiarity—was better to my godfather thanmoney.

[Footnote 23: Field.]

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen: grandiloquent, yet courteous.His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He hadtwo Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latinfrom an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabledme to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been soundedvice versâ—but in those young years they impressed me with more awethan they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro—in his ownpeculiar pronunciation monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicised,into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the helpof these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to thehighest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow.

He is dead—and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for myfirst orders (little wondrous talismans!—slight keys, andinsignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabianparadises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I cameinto possession of the only landed property which I could ever call myown—situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, inHertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and plantedfoot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended uponme, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces overmy allotment of three-quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansionin the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that allbetwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into moreprudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager whoabolished them!—with one of these we went. I remember the waiting atthe door—not that which is left—but between that and an inner doorin shelter—O when shall I be such an expectant again!—with the cryof nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in thosedays. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of thetheatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase somenumparels, chase a bill of the play;"—chase pro chuse. But when wegot in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to myimagination, which was soon to be disclosed——the breathlessanticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plateprefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakespeare—the tentscene with Diomede—and a sight of that plate can always bring back ina measure the feeling of that evening.—The boxes at that time, fullof well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and thepilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (Iknow not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling—a homelyfancy—but I judged it to be sugar-candy—yet, to my raisedimagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared aglorified candy!—The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fairAuroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet onceagain—and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in asort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time.The curtain drew up—I was not past six years old—and the play wasArtaxerxes!

I had dabbled a little in the Universal History—the ancient part ofit—and here was the court of Persia. I was being admitted to a sightof the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for Iunderstood not its import—but I heard the word Darius, and I was inthe midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeousvests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew notplayers. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol oftheir devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I wasawe-struck, and believed those significations to be something morethan elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No suchpleasure has since visited me but in dreams.—Harlequin's invasionfollowed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistratesinto reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice,and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as thelegend of St. Denys.

The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, ofwhich, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are leftin my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost—asatiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead—but to myapprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece ofantiquity as Lud—the father of a line of Harlequins—transmitting hisdagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw theprimeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of whitepatch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins(thought I) look when they are dead.

My third play followed in quick succession. It was the Way of theWorld. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, Iremember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected melike some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in whichCrusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as inthe story.—The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes haveclean passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them,than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at thegrotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devoutmeaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the oldRound Church (my church) of the Templars.

I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to sevenyears old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for atschool all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of atheatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in myfancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the sameoccasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, thanthe latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At thefirst period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminatednothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all—

Was nourished, I could not tell how—

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. Thesame things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, wasgone!—The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between twoworlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present"a royal ghost,"—but a certain quantity of green baize, which was toseparate the audience for a given time from certain of theirfellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. Thelights—the orchestra lights—came up a clumsy machinery. The firstring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter'sbell—which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of avoice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. Theactors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them;but it was in myself, and the alteration which those manycenturies—of six short twelvemonths—had wrought in me.—Perhaps itwas fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but anindifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonableexpectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotionswith which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearanceto me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soonyielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre becameto me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.

Lamb.

DREAM-CHILDREN; A REVERIE

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when theywere children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of atraditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom they never saw. It was inthis spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening tohear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great housein Norfolk[24] (a hundred times bigger than that in which they andpapa lived) which had been the scene—so at least it was generallybelieved in that part of the country—of the tragic incidents whichthey had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Childrenin the Wood. [Footnote 24: Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, is meant,where Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper.] Certain it isthat the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to beseen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the greathall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolishrich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern inventionin its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of herdear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I wenton to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Fieldwas, how beloved and respected by every body, though she was notindeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it(and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of ittoo) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newerand more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in theadjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it hadbeen her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sortwhile she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulleddown, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to theowner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward asif some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately atthe Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room.Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed."And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended bya concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of theneighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for hermemory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so goodindeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great partof the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then Itold what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmotherField once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the bestdancer—here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement,till upon my looking grave, it desisted—the best dancer, I wassaying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came,and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her goodspirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because shewas so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep byherself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how shebelieved that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnightgliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but shesaid "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I usedto be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because Iwas never half so good or religious as she—and yet I never saw theinfants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to lookcourageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grand-children,having us to the great house in the holydays, where I in particularused to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts ofthe Twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marbleheads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble withthem; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion,with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, flutteringtapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbedout—sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I hadalmost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening manwould cross me—and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon thewalls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they wereforbidden fruit, unless now and then,—and because I had more pleasurein strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or thefirs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which weregood for nothing but to look at—or in lying about upon the freshgrass, with all the fine garden smells around me—or basking in theorangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with theoranges and the limes in that grateful warmth—or in watching the dacethat darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden,with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the waterin silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings,—Ihad more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweetflavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baitsof children. Here John slily deposited back upon the plate a bunch ofgrapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing withher, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present asirrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how,though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, yetin an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, JohnL——, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king tothe rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, likesome of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get,when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him overhalf the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were anyout—and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had toomuch spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries—and howtheir uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, tothe admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field mostespecially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was alame-footed boy—for he was a good bit older than me—many a mile whenI could not walk for pain;—and how in after life he becamelame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enoughfor him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficientlyhow considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how whenhe died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he haddied a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life anddeath; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, butafterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or takeit to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I haddied, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much Ihad loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, andwished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for wequarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was asuneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when thedoctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and askedif their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, andthey looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but totell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told howfor seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yetpersisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W——n; and, as much aschildren could understand, I explained to them what coyness, anddifficulty, and denial meant in maidens—when suddenly, turning toAlice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such areality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stoodthere before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stoodgazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding,and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features wereseen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangelyimpressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor ofthee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrumfather. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are onlywhat might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethemillions of ages before we have existence, and a name"—andimmediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelorarmchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridgetunchanged by my side—but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.

Lamb.

THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS

I like to meet a sweep—understand me—not a grown sweeper—oldchimney-sweepers are by no means attractive—but one of those tendernovices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washingsnot quite effaced from the cheek—such as come forth with the dawn, orsomewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding likethe peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark shouldI pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating thesun-rise?

I have a kindly yearning toward these dim specks—poor blots—innocentblacknesses—

I reverence these young Africans of our own growth—these almostclergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from theirlittle pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of aDecember morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind.

When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness theiroperation! to see a chit no bigger than one's-self enter, one knew notby what process, into what seemed the fauces Averni—to pursue himin imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stiflingcaverns, horrid shades!—to shudder with the idea that "now, surely,he must be lost for ever!"—to revive at hearing his feeble shout ofdiscovered day-light—and then (O fulness of delight) running out ofdoors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge insafety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flagwaved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember having been told,that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicatewhich way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not muchunlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of achild crowned with a tree in his hand rises."

Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy earlyrambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give himtwo-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles ofhis hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment)be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to atester.

There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood tobe the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kindof tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to sometastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palatemay relish it; for myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr.Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one heavers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasantbeverage," on the south side of Fleet Street, as thou approachestBridge Street—the only Salopian house,—I have never yet venturedto dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commendedingredients—a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantlywhispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all duecourtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise notuninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup it up with avidity.

I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens,but I have always found that this composition is surprisinglygratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper—whether the oilyparticles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and softenthe fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections)to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners;or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitterwood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earthher sassafras for a sweet lenitive—but so it is, that no possibletaste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey adelicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, theywill yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratifyone sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domesticanimals—cats—when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian.There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy caninculcate.

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is theonly Salopian house; yet be it known to thee, reader—if thou artone who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant ofthe fact—he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls,and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humblercustomers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) therake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisanleaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle,not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for thehonours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between theexpired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of ourfair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake,who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in more gratefulcoffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stopsto taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast.

This is Saloop—the precocious herb-woman's darling—the delight ofthe early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break ofday from Hammersmith to Covent Garden's famed piazzas—the delight,and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Himshouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over thegrateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost theebut three half-pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (anadded halfpenny)—so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-chargedsecretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lightervolume to the welkin—so may the descending soot never taint thycostly well-ingredienced soups—nor the odious cry, quick-reachingfrom street to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattlingengines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casualscintillation thy peace and pocket!

I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers andtaunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over thecasual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endurethe jocularity of a young sweep with something more thanforgiveness.—In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside withmy accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slidebrought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain andshame enough—yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing hadhappened—when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encounteredme. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob,and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till thetears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) workedthemselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many aprevious weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all withsuch a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth——but Hogarthhas got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley,grinning at the pie-man——there he stood, as he stands in thepicture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever—with such amaximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth—for the grinof a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it—that I could havebeen content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to haveremained his butt and his mockery till midnight.

I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fineset of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is acasket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they shouldtake leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, orfine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must Iconfess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even toostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me asan agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. Itis, as when

A sable cloud
Turns forth her silver lining on the night.

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of betterdays; a hint of nobility:—and, doubtless, under the obscuringdarkness and double night of their forlorn disguisem*nt, oftentimeslurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry,and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tendervictims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, andalmost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy,so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to beaccounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many nobleRachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance thefact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, andthe recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of goodfortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations.

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since—under aducal canopy—(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity tovisitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especiallya connoisseur)—encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, withstarry coronets inwoven—folded between a pair of sheets whiter andsofter than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius—was discovered bychance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fastasleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehowconfounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys,by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber;and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist thedelicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so,creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon thepillow, and slept like a young Howard.

Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.—But I cannothelp seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted atin this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I ammistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, withwhatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, undersuch a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheetsof a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them,when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still farabove his pretensions—is this probable, I would ask, if the greatpower of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested withinhim, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (forsuch my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory,not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, whenhe was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just suchsheets as he there found, into which he was but now creeping back asinto his proper incunabula, and resting-place.—By no other theory,than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), canI explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, soindecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper.

My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief ofmetamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort toreverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he institutedan annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure toofficiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held inSmithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew.Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about themetropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now andthen an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedlywinked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight,indeed, who relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into ourparty, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be nochimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out ofthe presence with universal indignation, as not having on the weddinggarment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The placechosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of thefair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbubof that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to theinterruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembledabout seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables werespread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board acomely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrilsof the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as headwaiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trustycompanion[25] BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. [Footnote25: John Fenwick.] There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure,who should get at the first table—for Rochester in his maddest dayscould not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than myfriend. After some general expression of thanks for the honour thecompany had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasywaist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood fryingand fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprintupon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host wouldset up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teethstartled the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to seethe sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuoussayings—how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, reservingthe lengthier links for the seniors—how he would intercept a morseleven in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to thepan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman'seating"—how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or thatpiece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all tohave a care of cracking their teeth, which were their bestpatrimony,—how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if itwere wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good heshould lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe thelip before drinking. Then we had our toasts—"The King,"—the"Cloth,"—which, whether they understood or not, was equally divertingand flattering;—and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed,"May the Brush supersede the Laurel." All these, and fifty otherfancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, wouldhe utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a"Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was aprodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then stuffinginto his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions)indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased themmightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of theentertainment.

Golden lads and lasses must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust—

James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased.He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died—of myworld at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and,missing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and theglory of Smithfield departed for ever.

Lamb.

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M.[26] wasobliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventythousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the livinganimal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. [Footnote 26: ThomasManning.] This period is not obscurely hinted at by their greatConfucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where hedesignates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally theCook's holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art ofroasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother)was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd,Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was,to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of hiseldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing withfire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape intoa bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagrationover every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes.Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of abuilding, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a finelitter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished.China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from theremotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in utmost consternation,as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which hisfather and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, andthe labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of thepigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, andwringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimelysufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which hehad before experienced. What could it proceed from?—not from theburnt cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by nomeans the first accident of the kind which had occurred through thenegligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemblethat of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening atthe same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. Henext stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life init. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in hisbooby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skinhad come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (inthe world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) hetasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did notburn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort ofhabit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that itwas the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and,surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing upwhole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and wascramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sireentered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, andfinding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue'sshoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any morethan if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which heexperienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous toany inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His fathermight lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he hadfairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of hissituation, something like the following dialogue ensued.

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it notenough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog'stricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I knownot what—what have you got there, I say?"

"O, father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pigeats."

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and hecursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burntpig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon rakedout another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser halfby main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out "Eat, eat,eat the burnt pig, father, only taste—O Lord,"—with such-likebarbarous ejacul*tions, cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing,wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnaturalyoung monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it haddone his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turntasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would fora pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion(for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and sonfairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they haddespatched all that remained of the litter.

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for theneighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominablewretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which Godhad sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It wasobserved that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently thanever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break outin broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed,so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself,which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemedto grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched,the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to taketheir trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence wasgiven, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict aboutto be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of theburnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed intothe box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning theirfingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and natureprompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all thefacts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,—to thesurprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and allpresent—without leaving the box, or any manner of consultationwhatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity ofthe decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, andbought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a fewdays his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thingtook wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in everydirection. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district.The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighterand slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science ofarchitecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus thiscustom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says mymanuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, thatthe flesh of swine; or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked(burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming awhole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron.Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, Iforget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes themanuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts,make their way among mankind.——

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it mustbe agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment assetting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned infavour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be foundin ROAST PIG.

Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintainit to be the most delicate—princeps obsoniorum.

I speak not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—thosehobbydehoys—but a young and tender suckling—under a moonold—guiltless as yet of the sty—with no original speck of the amorimmunditiæ, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yetmanifest—his voice as yet not broken, but something between achildish treble, and a grumble—the mild forerunner, or præludium,of a grunt.

He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate themseethed, or boiled—but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!

There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp,tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as it is wellcalled—the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure atthis banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance—with theadhesive oleaginous—O call it not fat—but an indefinable sweetnessgrowing up to it—the tender blossoming of fat—fat cropped in thebud—taken in the shoot—in the first innocence—the cream andquintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food——the lean, no lean,but a kind of animal manna—or, rather, fat and lean, (if it must beso) so blended and running into each other, that both together makebut one ambrosian result, or common substance.

Behold him, while he is doing—it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth,than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably hetwirleth round the string!—Now he is just done. To see the extremesensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his prettyeyes—radiant jellies—shooting stars—

See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!—wouldstthou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocilitywhich too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he wouldhave proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeableanimal—wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation—from thesesins he is happily snatched away—

Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade
Death came with timely care—

his memory is odoriferous—no clown curseth, while his stomach halfrejecteth, the rank bacon—no coalheaver bolteth him in reekingsausages—he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of thejudicious epicure—and for such a tomb might be content to die.

He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almosttoo transcendent—a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning,that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause—tooravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips thatapproach her—like lovers' kisses, she biteth—she is a pleasurebordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish—butshe stoppeth at the palate—she meddleth not with the appetite—andthe coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop.

Pig—let me speak his praise—is no less provocative of the appetite,than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate.The strong man may batten on him, and weakling refuseth not his mildjuices.

Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices,inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, heis—good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another.He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is theleast envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare.

I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of thegood things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are inthis kind) to a friend. I protest to take as great an interest in myfriend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mineown. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants,partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"),capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as Ireceive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of myfriend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear,"give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is aningratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate,or send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friendship, orI know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, Imay say, to my individual palate—It argues an insensibility.

I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good oldaunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday withoutstuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, haddismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from theoven. In my way to school (it was over London Bridge) a grey-headedold beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he wasa counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanityof self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, Imade him a present of—the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyedup, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing ofself-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, mybetter feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking howungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good giftaway to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be abad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my auntwould be taking in thinking that I—I myself, and not another—wouldeat her nice cake—and what should I say to her the next time I sawher—how naughty I was to part with her pretty present—and the odourof that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasureand the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy whenshe sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that Ihad never had a bit of it in my mouth at last—and I blamed myimpertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy ofgoodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of thatinsidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor.

Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tendervictims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, aswe hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is goneby, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical lightmerely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating anddulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh ofyoung pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should becautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdomof the practice. It might impart a gusto—

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when Iwas at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry onboth sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtainedhis death by whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded apleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possiblesuffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in usingthat method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision.

His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done upwith his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dearMrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your wholehogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out withplantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, ormake them stronger than they are—but consider, he is a weakling—aflower.

Lamb.

POOR RELATIONS

A Poor Relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature,—a piece ofimpertinent correspondency,—an odious approximation,—a hauntingconscience,—a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of ourprosperity,—an unwelcome remembrancer,—a perpetually recurringmortification,—a drain on your purse,—a more intolerable dun uponyour pride,—a drawback upon success,—a rebuke to your rising,—astain in your blood,—a blot on your 'scutcheon,—a rent in yourgarment,—a death's head at your banquet,—Agathocles' pot,—aMordecai in your gate,—a Lazarus at your door,—a lion in yourpath,—a frog in your chamber,—a fly in your ointment,—a mote inyour eye,—a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,—theone thing not needful,—the hail in harvest,—the ounce of sour in apound of sweet.

He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. ——." Arap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, at the sametime, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smilingand—embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake,and—draweth it back again. He casually looketh in aboutdinner-time—when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeingyou have company, but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and yourvisitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He nevercometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, "Mydear, perhaps Mr. —— will drop in to-day." He rememberethbirthdays—and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one.He declareth against fish, the turbot being small—yet sufferethhimself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. Hesticketh by the port—yet will be prevailed upon to empty theremainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is apuzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, ornot civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen himbefore." Everyone speculateth upon his condition; and the most parttake him to be—a tide waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name,to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiarby half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half thefamiliarity he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldnesshe would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is toohumble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits aclient. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as hebringeth up no rent—yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, thatyour guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whisttable; refuseth on the score of poverty, and—resents being left out.When the company break up he proffereth to go for a coach—and letsthe servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust insome mean and quite unimportant anecdote of—the family. He knewit when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in seeingit now." He reviveth past situations to institute what hecalleth—favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort ofcongratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture: andinsults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He isof opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all,there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle—whichyou must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience inhaving a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is notso. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and didnot know, till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of thefamily. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talka trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismisshis chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairlyrid of two nuisances.

There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is—a female PoorRelation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him offtolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is anold humourist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. Hiscirc*mstances are better than folks would take them to be. You arefond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But inthe indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No womandresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out withoutshuffling, "She is plainly related to the L——s; or what does she attheir house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Ninetimes out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is somethingbetween a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidentlypredominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiouslysensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressedsometimes—aliquando suffiaminandus erat—but there is no raisingher. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped—after thegentlemen. Mr. —— requests the honour of taking wine with her; shehesitates between Port and Madeira, and choses the former—because hedoes. She calls the servant Sir; and insists on not troubling him tohold her plate. The housekeeper patronises her. The children'sgoverness takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken thepiano for harpsichord.

Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a noticeable instance of thedisadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of affinityconstituting a claim to an acquaintance, may subject the spirit of agentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and alady with a great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by themalignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him "herson Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense hisindignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, underwhich it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sinkhim. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amletin real life, who wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W—— wasof my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth ofpromise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its qualitywas inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, andserves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward offderogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carriedas far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which hewould have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would haveyou to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I hadwith him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made usmore obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would notthread the alleys and blind ways of the town with him to elude notice,when we have been out together on a holiday in the streets of thissneering and prying metropolis. W—— went, sore with these notions,to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a scholar's life,meeting with the alloy of a humble introduction, wrought in him apassionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion to thesociety. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung tohim with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, underwhich Latimer must have walked erect; and in which Hooker, in hisyoung days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity.In the depths of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poorstudent shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, whichinsult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances.He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyondhis domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him,to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when thewaywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worsemalignity. The father of W—— had hitherto exercised the humbleprofession of house-painter at N——, near Oxford. A supposed interestwith some of the heads of colleges had now induced him to take up hisabode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some publicworks which were talked of. From that moment I read in the countenanceof the young man, the determination which at length tore him fromacademical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with ourUniversities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, asthey are called—the trading part of the latter especially—is carriedto an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The temperamentof W——'s father was diametrically the reverse of his own. Old W——was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his son upon hisarm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to anything thatwore the semblance of a gown—insensible to the winks and openerremonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or equal instanding, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously ducking.Such a state of things could not last. W—— must change the air ofOxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the sturdymoralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high as theycan bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the struggle. Istood with W——, the last afternoon I ever saw him, under the eavesof his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading from theHigh Street to the back of **** college, where W—— kept his rooms.He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to rallyhim—finding him in a better mood—upon a representation of the ArtistEvangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning toflourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over hisreally handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge ofgratitude to his saint. W—— looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan,"knew his mounted sign—and fled." A letter on his father's table thenext morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in aregiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first whoperished before the walls of St. Sebastian.

I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating halfseriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful;but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter fortragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep theaccount distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which Ireceived on this matter, are certainly not attended with anythingpainful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my father's table(no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysteriousfigure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yetcomely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; hiswords few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. Ihad little inclination to have done so—for my cue was to admire insilence. A particular elbow chair was appropriated to him, which wasin no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, whichappeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. Iused to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of himwas, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago atLincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a placewhere all the money was coined—and I thought he was the owner of allthat money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about hispresence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort ofmelancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom Ifancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; acaptive—a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Oftenhave I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of anhabitual general respect which we all in common manifested towardshim, would venture now and then to stand up against him in someargument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient cityof Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between thedwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked distinctionformed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (howeverbrought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternalresidence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in thecode of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leadingMountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, inskill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) over theBelow Boys (so were they called), of which party his contemporaryhad been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on thistopic—the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever broughtout—and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement(so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned toinsist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversationupon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the generalpreference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, thedweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliatinglevel, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I sawthe old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish thethought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." Hehad been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I havealready mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. Hehad refused with a resistance amounting to rigour—when my aunt, anold Lincolnian, but who had something of this in common with my cousinBridget, that she would sometimes press civility out ofseason—uttered the following memorable application—"Do take anotherslice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The oldgentleman said nothing at the time—but he took occasion in the courseof the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, toutter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills menow as I write it—"Woman, you are superannuated." John Billet did notsurvive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survivedlong enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if Iremember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in theplace of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint(anno 1781) where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortableindependence; and with five pounds, fourteen shillings, and a penny,which were found in his escrutoire after his decease, left the world,blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had neverbeen obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was—a Poor Relation.

Lamb.

THE CHILD ANGEL

A DREAM

I chanced upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of a dream theother night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves ofthe Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations,suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth toinnumerable conjectures; and, I remember, the last waking thought,which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder "whatcould come of it."

I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely makeout—but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavensneither—not the downright Bible heaven—but a kind of fairylandheaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and airitself, I will hope, without presumption.

Methought—what wild things dreams are!—I was present—at what wouldyou imagine?—at an angel's gossiping.

Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it camepurely of its own head, neither you nor I know—but there lay, sureenough, wrapt in its little cloudy swaddling bands—a Child Angel.

Sun-threads—filmy beams—ran through the celestial napery of whatseemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered around,watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which,when it did, first one, and then the other—with a solicitude andapprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dim the expandingeye-lids of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those itsunhereditary palaces—what an inextinguishable titter that time sparednot celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming—O theinexplicable simpleness of dreams!—bowls of that cheering nectar,

—which mortals caudle call below.

Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants,—stricken in years, asit might seem,—so dexterous were those heavenly attendants tocounterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrialchild-rites the young present, which earth had made to heaven.

Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those bywhich the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earthspeak oftentimes, muffled so to accommodate their sound the better tothe weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of thosesubdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudimentsof pinions—but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms ofthose full-winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as yearswent round in heaven—a year in dreams is as a day—continually itswhite shoulders put forth buds of wings, but, wanting the perfectangelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fellfluttering—still caught by angel hands—for ever to put forth shoots,and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the unmixedvigour of heaven.

And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to be calledGe-Urania, because its production was of earth and heaven.

And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption intoimmortal palaces; but it was to know weakness, and reliance, and theshadow of human imbecility; and it went with a lame gait; but in itsgoings it exceeded all mortal children in grace and swiftness. Thenpity first sprang up in angelic bosoms; and yearnings (like the human)touched them at the sight of the immortal lame one.

And with pain did then first those Intuitive Essences, with pain andstrife to their natures (not grief), put back their brightintelligences, and reduce their ethereal minds, schooling them todegrees and slower processes, so to adapt their lessons to the gradualillumination (as must needs be) of the half-earth-born; and whatintuitive notices they could not repel (by reason that their natureis, to know all things at once), the half-heavenly novice, by thebetter part of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding;so that Humility and Aspiration went on even-paced in the instructionof the glorious Amphibium.

But, by reason that Mature Humanity is too gross to breathe the air ofthat super-subtile region, its portion was, and is, to be a child forever.

And because the human part of it might not press into the heart andinwards of the palace of its adoption, those full-natured angelstended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace, where were shadygroves and rivulets, like this green earth from which it came: soLove, with Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertainments of thenew-adopted.

And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is nothing), andstill it kept, and is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the TutelarGenius of Childhood upon earth, and still goes lame and lovely.

By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the grave ofthe terrestrial Adah, whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child; but not thesame which I saw in heaven. A mournful hue overcasts its lineaments;nevertheless, a correspondency is between the child by the grave, andthat celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of the griefupon the heavenly, is a shadow or emblem of that which stains thebeauty of the terrestrial. And this correspondency is not to beunderstood but by dreams.

And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how that once theangel Nadir, being exiled from his place for mortal passion,upspringing on the wings of parental love (such power had parentallove for a moment to suspend the else-irrevocable law) appeared for abrief instant in his station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth,straightway disappeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And thischarge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely—but Adahsleepeth by the river Pison.

Lamb.

OLD CHINA

I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to seeany great house, I enquire for the china-closet, and next for thepicture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference, but bysaying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date toadmit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I cancall to mind the first play, and the first exhibition, that I wastaken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucerswere introduced into my imagination.

I had no repugnance then—why should I now have?—to those little,lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that under the notion of men andwomen, float about, uncirc*mscribed by any element, in that worldbefore perspective—a china tea-cup.

I like to see my old friends—whom distance cannot diminish—figuringup in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firmastill—for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeperblue,—which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, had made tospring up beneath their sandals.

I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, withstill more womanish expressions.

Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from asalver—two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! Andhere the same lady, or another—for likeness is identity ontea-cups—is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hitherside of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in aright angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infalliblyland her in the midst of a flowery mead—a furlong off on the otherside of the same strange stream!

Farther on—if far or near can be predicated of their world—seehorses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.

Here—a cow and rabbit couchant, and co-extensive—so objects show,seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine Cathay.

I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our Hyson, (whichwe are old fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon)some of these speciosa miracula upon a set of extraordinary old bluechina (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using;and could not help remarking, how favourable circ*mstances had been tous of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimeswith trifles of this sort—when a passing sentiment seemed toovershade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting thesesummer clouds in Bridget.

"I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we werenot quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor; but therewas a middle state"—so she was pleased to ramble on,—"in which I amsure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, nowthat you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be atriumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had toget you to consent in those times!)—we were used to have a debate twoor three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and thinkwhat we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, thatshould be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we feltthe money that we paid for it."

"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, tillall your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare—and allbecause of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged homelate at night from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you remember how weeyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase,and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock ofthe Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing youshould be too late—and when the old bookseller with some grumblingopened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was settingbedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when youlugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when youpresented it to me—and when we were exploring the perfectness of it(collating you called it)—and while I was repairing some of theloose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to beleft till daybreak—was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or canthose neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful tokeep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half thehonest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that overwornsuit—your old corbeau—for four or five weeks longer than you shouldhave done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen—orsixteen shillings was it?—a great affair we thought it then—whichyou had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any bookthat pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home anynice old purchases now."

"When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less numberof shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the'Lady Blanch;' when you looked at the purchase, and thought of themoney—and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture—wasthere no pleasure in being a poor man. Now, you have nothing to do butto walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet doyou?"

"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter'sBar, and Waltham, when we had a holyday—holydays, and all other fun,are gone, now we are rich—and the little hand-basket in which I usedto deposit our day's fare of savoury cold lamb and salad—and how youwould pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might goin, and produce our store—only paying for the ale that you must callfor—and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she waslikely to allow us a table-cloth—and wish for such another honesthostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasantbanks of the Lea, when he went a fishing—and sometimes they wouldprove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly uponus—but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat ourplain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall?Now,—when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, weride part of the way—and go into a fine inn, and order the best ofdinners, never debating the expense—which, after all, never has halfthe relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy ofuncertain usage, and a precarious welcome."

"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do youremember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle ofHexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland inthe Children in the Wood—when we squeezed out our shillings a-pieceto sit three or four times in a season in the one-shillinggallery—where you felt all the time that you ought not to havebrought me—and more strongly I felt obligation to you for havingbrought me—and the pleasure was the better for a little shame—andwhen the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, orwhat mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were withRosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used tosay, that the Gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a playsocially—that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion tothe infrequency of going—that the company we met there, not being ingeneral readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and didattend, to what was going on, on the stage—because a word lost wouldhave been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up. Withsuch reflections we consoled our pride then—and I appeal to you,whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention andaccommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations inthe house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up thoseinconvenient staircases, was bad enough,—but there was still a law ofcivility to woman recognised to quite as great an extent as we everfound in the other passages—and how a little difficulty overcomeheightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards. Now we can onlypay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleriesnow. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then—but sight, andall, I think, is gone with our poverty."

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quitecommon—in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear—to havethem for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If wewere to treat ourselves now—that is, to have dainties a little aboveour means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is very little more thatwe allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makeswhat I call a treat—when two people living together, as we have done,now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like;while each apologises, and is willing to take both halves of the blameto his single share. I see no harm in people making much of themselvesin that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much ofothers. But now—what I mean by the word—we never do make much ofourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poorof all, but persons as we were, just above poverty."

"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at theend of the year to make all meet,—and much ado we used to have everyThirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings—many along face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contrivingto make it out how we had spent so much—or that we had not spent somuch—or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year—andstill we found our slender capital decreasing—but then, betwixt ways,and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk ofcurtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future—and thehope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were neverpoor till now) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with 'lustybrimmers' (as you used to quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr.Cotton, as you called him), we used to welcome in the 'coming guest.'Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year—noflattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when shegets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I couldnot help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dearimagination had conjured up out of a clear income of a poor—hundredpounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but wewere also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with theexcess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we shouldnot much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grewup together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, andknit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been toeach other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you nowcomplain of. The resisting power—those natural dilations of theyouthful spirit, which circ*mstances cannot straighten—with us arelong since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, asorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. Wemust ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie softer—andshall be wise to do so—than we had means to do in those good old daysyou speak of. Yet could those days return—could you and I once morewalk our thirty miles a-day—could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again beyoung, and you and I be young to see them—could the good oldone-shilling gallery days return—they are dreams, my cousin, now—butcould you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by ourwell-carpeted fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa—be once morestruggling up those inconvenient stair cases, pushed about, andsqueezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble or poor galleryscramblers—could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours—andthe delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when thetopmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerfultheatre down beneath us—I know not the fathom line that ever toucheda descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in thanCroesus had, or the great Jew R—— is supposed to have, to purchaseit. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holdingan umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that prettyinsipid half-Madonaish chit of a lady in that very blue summer house."

Lamb.

POPULAR FALLACIES

I

THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST

Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who reallybelieves this saying. The inventor of it did not believe it himself.It was made in revenge by somebody who was disappointed of a regale.It is a vile cold-scrag-of-mutton sophism; a lie palmed upon thepalate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for afeast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usuallysomething left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to aclass of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervaluemoney. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money isnot health; riches cannot purchase every thing; the metaphor whichmakes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fineclothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsomeexcretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt toacres—a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it istrue only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage sawsassuming to inculcate content, we verily believe to have been theinvention of some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse ofhis wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to carry by force ofthese verbal jugglings. Translate any one of these sayings out of theartful metonyme which envelopes it, and the trick is apparent. Goodlylegs and shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures,the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence, heart'sease, a man's own time to himself, are not muck—however we may bepleased to scandalise with that appellation the faithful metal thatprovides them for us.

II

THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD

This axiom contains a principle of compensation, which disposes us toadmit the truth of it. But there is no safe trusting to dictionariesand definitions. We should more willingly fall in with this popularlanguage, if we did not find brutality sometimes awkwardly coupledwith valour in the same vocabulary. The comic writers, with theirpoetical justice, have contributed not a little to mislead us uponthis point. To see a hectoring fellow exposed and beaten upon thestage, has something in it wonderfully diverting. Some people's shareof animal spirits is notoriously low and defective. It has notstrength to raise a vapour, or furnish out the wind of a tolerablebluster. These love to be told that huffing is no part of valour. Thetruest courage with them is that which is the least noisy andobtrusive. But confront one of these silent heroes with the swaggererof real life, and his confidence in the theory quickly vanishes.Pretensions do not uniformly bespeak non-performance. A modestinoffensive deportment does not necessarily imply valour; neither doesthe absence of it justify us in denying that quality. Hickman wantedmodesty—we do not mean him of Clarissa—but who ever doubted hiscourage? Even the poets—upon whom this equitable distribution ofqualities should be most binding—have thought it agreeable to natureto depart from the rule upon occasion. Harapha, in the "Agonistes," isindeed a bully upon the received notions. Milton has made him at oncea blusterer, a giant, and a dastard. But Almanzor, in Dryden, talks ofdriving armies singly before him—and does it. Tom Brown had ashrewder insight into this kind of character than either of hispredecessors. He divides the palm more equably, and allows his hero asort of dimidiate pre-eminence:—"Bully Dawson kicked by half thetown, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson." This was truedistributive justice.

III

THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK

At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night gear,and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are notnaturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman—thathas no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to suchpreposterous exercises—we take ten, or half after ten (eleven, ofcourse, during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest hour,at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow. We think ofit, we say; for to do it in earnest, requires another half-hour's goodconsideration. Not but there are pretty sun-risings, as we are told,and such like gawds, abroad in the world, in summer time especially,some hours before what we have assigned; which a gentleman may see, asthey say, only for getting up. But, having been tempted, once ortwice, in earlier life, to assist at those ceremonies, we confess ourcuriosity abated. We are no longer ambitious of being the sun'scourtiers, to attend at his morning levees. We hold the good hours ofthe dawn too sacred to waste them upon such observances; which have inthem, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we neveranticipated our usual hour, or got up with the sun (as 'tis called),to go a journey, or upon a foolish whole day's pleasuring, but wesuffered for it all the long hours after in listlessness andheadaches; Nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of ourpresumption in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by themeasures of that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny not thatthere is something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially,in these break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start ofa lazy world; to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds ofsleep and mortality are in us; and we pay usually in strange qualmsbefore night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion. Therefore,while the busy part of mankind are fast huddling on their clothes, arealready up and about their occupations, content to have swallowedtheir sleep by wholesale; we choose to linger a-bed, and digest ourdreams. It is the very time to recombine the wandering images, whichnight in a confused mass presented; to snatch them from forgetfulness;to shape, and mould them. Some people have no good of their dreams.Like fast feeders, they gulp them too grossly, to taste themcuriously. We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision; to collectthe scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, withfirmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies; to drag into day-lighta struggling and half-vanishing night-mare; to handle and examine theterrors, or the airy solaces. We have too much respect for thesespiritual communications, to let them go so lightly. We are not sostupid, or so careless, as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, thatwe should need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem tous to have as much significance as our waking concerns; or rather toimport us more nearly, as more nearly we approach by years to theshadowy world, whither we are hastening. We have shaken hands with theworld's business; we have done with it; we have discharged ourself ofit. Why should we get up? we have neither suit to solicit, nor affairsto manage. The drama has shut in upon us at the fourth act. We havenothing here to expect, but in a short time a sick bed, and adismissal. We delight to anticipate death by such shadows as nightaffords. We are already half acquainted with ghosts. We were nevermuch in the world. Disappointment early struck a dark veil between usand its dazzling illusions. Our spirits showed grey before our hairs.The mighty changes of the world already appear as but the vain stuffout of which dramas are composed. We have asked no more of life thanwhat the mimic images in play-houses present us with. Even those typeshave waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We areSUPERANNUATED. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction, we contractpolitic alliances with shadows. It is good to have friends at court.The abstracted media of dreams seem no ill introduction to thatspiritual presence, upon which, in no long time, we expect to bethrown. We are trying to know a little of the usages of that colony;to learn the language, and the faces we shall meet with there, that wemay be less awkward at our first coming among them. We willingly calla phantom our fellow, as knowing we shall soon be of their darkcompanionship. Therefore, we cherish dreams. We try to spell in themthe alphabet of the invisible world; and think we know already, how itshall be with us. Those uncouth shapes, which, while we clung to fleshand blood, affrighted us, have become familiar. We feel attenuatedinto their meagre essences, and have given the hand of half-wayapproach to incorporeal being. We once thought life to be something;but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. Therefore wechoose to dally with visions. The sun has no purposes of ours to lightus to. Why should we get up?

Lamb.

WHITSUN-EVE

The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Ourhouse, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might,with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf or hung up in atree, would be utterly unbearable in wet weather were it not that wehave a retreat out of doors, and a very pleasant retreat it is. Tomake my readers comprehend it I must describe our whole territories.

Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage atone end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little courtrunning along one side; and a long thatched shed, open towards thegarden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the other. The bottom isbounded half by an old wall and half by an old paling, over which wesee a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, andpaling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honeysuckles, andjessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up betweenthem; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificentbay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts,breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of thebuildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort ofrustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the flower-bedsby a row of geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.

I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, withthe western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lightingup our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set asthick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven,intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where wemay guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. Iknow nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower,with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted sogloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the littlebirds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests—for there arealways two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry ofcherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which covers ourwalls—now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as theysport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which thecountry people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[27] thatbird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetestflowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of thejessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the geranium,whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast: thatinsect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest;always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-supported, and whosewings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, solulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixtureof rich flowers and leaves, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so prettyto look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily itresembles a picture in more qualities than one—it is fit for nothingbut to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framedcanvas. There are walks, to be sure—tiny paths of smooth gravel, bycourtesy called such—but they are so overhung by roses and lilies,and such gay encroachers—so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease,and mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edgethrough them occasionally for the purpose of planting, or weeding, orwatering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks ofwalking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate andtrackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footeddenizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and goout for a walk towards sunset, just as if we had not been sitting inthe open air all day.

[Footnote 27: Sphinx lugustri, privet hawk-moth.]

What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturdaynight is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this isWhitsun-Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when Londonjourneymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visittheir families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest andliveliest of any; for even the gambols and merry-makings of Christmasoffer but a poor enjoyment compared with the rural diversions, theMayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide.

We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by themen, who, since a certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, Iam sorry to say, rather chop-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous forthe honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, BenKirby, marched in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday afterour melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, andbeat them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory.Our boys enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it hadlike to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of theBeech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stone, enragedpast all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball atBen Kirby with so true an aim that if that sagacious leader had notwarily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probablyhave been a coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would havebeen tried for manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that thecricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yardsoff, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum,the umpires, both say they never saw so tremendous a ball. If AmosStone live to be a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'llbe a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday with his party to playthe return match, the umpires having respectively engaged FarmerThackum that Amos shall keep the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall giveno unnecessary or wanton provocation—a nicely worded and lawyer-likeclause, and one that proves that Tom Coper hath his doubts of theyoung gentleman's discretion; and, of a truth, so have I. I would notbe Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the security is worded—no! notfor a white double dahlia, the present object of my ambition.

This village of ours is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and allthe church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if tocall them together. I must try to give some notion of the variousfigures.

First, there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-doorcustomers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a tablesmoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy'sfiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who aresurrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in theirball is mending by Master Keep himself, under the jointsuperintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing much verbalrespect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment andexperience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all;whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less trustedcommons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twistingthe waxed twine round the handles of the bats—the poor bats, whichplease nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little andtoo light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and too large.Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greaterdelight—even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the street isthe pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a day'sholiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery, whomshe is trying to curtsy off before her deaf grandmother sees him. Iwonder whether she will succeed!

Ascending the hill are two couples of a different description. DanielTubb and his fair Valentine, walking boldly along like licensedlovers; they have been asked twice in church, and are to be married onTuesday; and closely following that happy pair, near each other butnot together, come Jem Tanner and Mabel Green, the poor culprits ofthe wheat-hoeing. Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The courseof true love doth not yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodgesalong, whistling "Cherry-ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and tobe thinking of nobody; but every now and then he pauses in hisnegligent saunter, and turns round outright to steal a glance atMabel, who, on her part, is making believe to walk with poor OliveHathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even affecting to talk and tolisten to that gentle, humble creature, as she points to the wildflowers on the common, and the lambs and children disporting amongstthe gorse, but whose thought and eyes are evidently fixed on JemTanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing smile, andhalf springs forward to meet him: whilst Olive has broken off theconversation as soon as she perceived the pre-occupation of hercompanion, and begun humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or threelines of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," and "Gi'eme a glance of thy bonny black e'e," were never better exemplifiedthan in the couple before her. Really, it is curious to watch them,and to see how gradually the attraction of this tantalising vicinitybecomes irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his prettymistress like the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to thedeepening twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humourof the happy lads and lasses who are passing and repassing on allsides—or rather, perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, thekind villagers, the squinting lover, and the whole world. On theytrip, arm in arm, he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing faceunder her bonnet, and she hanging down her head, and avoiding his gazewith a mixture of modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the ruralbeauty. On they go, with a reality and intensity of affection whichmust overcome all obstacles; and poor Olive follows her with anevident sympathy in their happiness which makes her almost as enviableas they; and we pursue our walk amidst the moonshine and thenightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart looming in the distance, and themerry sounds of Whitsuntide, the shout, the laugh, and the song,echoing all around us, like "noises of the air."

Mary Russell Mitford.

ON GOING A JOURNEY

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but Ilike to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors,nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than whenalone.

"The fields his study, nature was his book."

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When Iam in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not forcriticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order toforget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for thispurpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. Ilike more elbow-room, and fewer incumbrances. I like solitude, when Igive myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for

"——a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet."

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, dojust as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of allimpediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, muchmore to get rid of others. It is because I want a littlebreathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation

"May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd,"

that I absent myself from the town for awhile, without feeling at aloss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in apost-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and varythe same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce withimpertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the greenturf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours'march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot startsome game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing forjoy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my pastbeing, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong intothe wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgottenthings, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon myeager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Insteadof an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dullcommon-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart whichalone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations,antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimeshad rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I havejust now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but iswith me "very stuff of the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweetwithout a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in itscoat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circ*mstance thathas so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better thenkeep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here toyonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distanthorizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and thereforeprefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moodyfit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries.But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and youare thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Outupon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either entirelyto myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or besilent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I waspleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that "he thought it abad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that anEnglishman ought to do only one thing at a time." So I cannot talk andthink, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fitsand starts, "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, "were itbut to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It isbeautifully said: but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notesinterferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind,and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind ofdumb show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making atoil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature, without beingperpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit ofothers. I am for the synthetical method on a journey, in preference tothe analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and toexamine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notionsfloat like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to havethem entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, Ilike to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you arealone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection toargue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but notfor pleasure. If you remark the scent of a beanfield crossing theroad, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to adistant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out hisglass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in thecolour of a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect of which youare unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasycraving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way,and in the end probably produces ill humour. Now I never quarrel withmyself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find itnecessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that youmay not be of accord on the objects and circ*mstances that presentthemselves before you—these may recal a number of objects, and leadto associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicatedto others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondlyclutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give wayto our feelings before company, seems extravagance or affectation; andon the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being atevery turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwisethe end is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We must"give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend C——,however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightfulexplanatory way over hill and dale, a summer's day, and convert alandscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far abovesinging." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words,I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swellingtheme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still tohear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had "that finemadness in them which our first poets had;" and if they could havebeen caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strainsas the following.

"——Here be woods as green
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet
As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curled stream, with flow'rs as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbine, caves and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest."——

Faithful Shepherdess.

Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wakethe thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the eveningclouds: but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops andcloses up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing outon the spot:—I must have time to collect myself.—

In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should bereserved for Table-talk. L—— is for this reason, I take it, theworst company in the world out of doors; because he is the bestwithin. I grant, there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talkon a journey; and that is, what one shall have for supper when we getto our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversationor friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Everymile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at theend of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turretedjust at the approach of night-fall, or to come to some stragglingvillage, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; andthen after inquiring for the best entertainment that the placeaffords, to "take one's ease at one's inn!" These eventful moments inour lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felthappiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. Iwould have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: theywill do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicatespeculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea,

"The cups that cheer, but not inebriate,"

and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering whatwe shall have for supper—eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered inonions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation oncefixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, isnot to be disparaged. Then in the intervals of pictured scenery andShandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in thekitchen—Procul, O procul este profani! These hours are sacred tosilence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feedthe source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them inidle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, Iwould rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes hishue and character from the time and place; he is a part of thefurniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the WestRiding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try tosympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. I associate nothingwith my travelling companion but present objects and passing events.In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself.But a friend reminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, anddestroys the abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciouslybetween us and our imaginary character. Something is dropped in thecourse of conversation that gives a hint of your profession andpursuits; or from having some one with you that knows the less sublimeportions of your history, it seems that other people do. You are nolonger a citizen of the world: but your "unhoused free condition isput into circ*mscription and confine." The incognito of an inn isone of its striking privileges—"lord of one's-self, uncumber'd with aname." Oh! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and ofpublic opinion—to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlastingpersonal identity in the elements of nature, and become the creatureof the moment, clear of all ties—to hold to the universe only by adish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the score of theevening—and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt,to be known by no other title than the Gentleman in the parlour! Onemay take one's choice of all characters in this romantic state ofuncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitelyrespectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice anddisappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to beobjects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no morethose hackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the world: an innrestores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! Ihave certainly spent some enviable hours at inns—sometimes when Ihave been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve somemetaphysical problem, as once at Witham-common, where I found out theproof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas—atother times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St.Neot's, (I think it was) where I first met with Gribelin's engravingsof the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn onthe borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some ofWestall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that Ihad, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who hadferried me over the Severn, standing up in the boat between me and thetwilight—at other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with apeculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the nightto read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater,after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I gotthrough two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the tenthof April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at theinn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. Theletter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings ashe first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays deVaud, which I had brought with me as a bon bouche to crown theevening with. It was my birth-day, and I had for the first time comefrom a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. Theroad to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passinga certain point, you come all at once upon the valley, which openslike an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state oneither side, with "green upland swells that echo to the bleat offlocks" below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in themidst of them. The valley at this time "glittered green with sunnyshowers," and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in thechiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high roadthat overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which Ihave just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems. But besides the prospectwhich opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight,a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hopecould make them, these four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE;which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idlegaze.

"The beautiful is vanished, and returns not."

Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; but Iwould return to it alone. What other self could I find to share thatinflux of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which Icould hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken anddefaced! I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipiceof years that separates me from what I then was. I was at that timegoing shortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. Where is henow? Not only I myself have changed; the world, which was then new tome, has become old and incorrigible. Yet will I turn to thee inthought, O sylvan Dee, in joy, in youth and gladness as thou thenwert; and thou shalt always be to me the river of Paradise, where Iwill drink of the waters of life freely!

There is hardly any thing that shows the short-sightedness orcapriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. Withchange of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings.We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves to old andlong-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again;but we forget those that we have just left. It seems that we can thinkbut of one place at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of acertain extent, and if we paint one set of objects upon it, theyimmediately efface every other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, weonly shift our point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to theenraptured eye, we take our fill of it, and seem as if we could formno other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think no more ofit: the horizon that shuts it from our sight, also blots it from ourmemory like a dream. In travelling through a wild barren country, Ican form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me thatall the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country weforget the town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond HydePark," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "all is a desert." All that part ofthe map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in ourconceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not oneprospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom tokingdom, lands to seas, making an image voluminous and vast;—the mindcan form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a singleglance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation ofarithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of thatimmense mass of territory and population, known by the name of Chinato us? An inch of paste-board on a wooden globe, of no more accountthan a China orange! Things near us are seen of the size of life:things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding.We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend the textureof our own being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember aninfinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechanicalinstrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must play themin succession. One idea recalls another, but it at the same timeexcludes all others. In trying to renew old recollections, we cannotas it were unfold the whole web of our existence; we must pick out thesingle threads. So in coming to a place where we have formerly livedand with which we have intimate associations, every one must havefound that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach thespot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression: we remembercirc*mstances, feelings, persons, faces, names, that we had notthought of for years; but for the time all the rest of the world isforgotten!—To return to the question I have quitted above.

I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, incompany with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for theformer reason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and will beartalking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but communicable andovert. Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge willbear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. Insetting out on a party of pleasure, the first consideration always iswhere we shall go to: in taking a solitary ramble, the question iswhat we shall meet with by the way. "The mind is its own place;" norare we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself dothe honours indifferently well to works of art and curiosity. I oncetook a party to Oxford with no mean eclat—shewed them that seat ofthe Muses at a distance,

"With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd"—

descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadranglesand stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian;and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Ciceroni that attendedus, and that pointed in vain with his wand to common-place beauties inmatchless pictures.—As another exception to the above reasoning, Ishould not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreigncountry without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear thesound of my own language. There is an involuntary antipathy in themind of an Englishman to foreign manners and notions that requires theassistance of social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance fromhome increases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes apassion and an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to findhimself in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen: theremust be allowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome thatclaims the utterance of speech; and I own that the Pyramids are toomighty for any simple contemplation. In such situations, so oppositeto all one's ordinary train of ideas, one seems a species byone's-self, a limb torn off from society, unless one can meet withinstant fellowship and support.—Yet I did not feel this want orcraving very pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughingshores of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. Theconfused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine poured intomy ears; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was sung from the top of anold crazy vessel in the harbour, as the sun went down, send an aliensound into my soul. I only breathed the air of general humanity. Iwalked over "the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France," erectand satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down and chained tothe foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at no loss for language, for thatof all the great schools of painting was open to me. The whole isvanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom, all are fled:nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people!—There isundoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts that is to behad nowhere else: but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. Itis too remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic ofdiscourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state ofexistence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is ananimated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort toexchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse ofour old transports revive very keenly, we must "jump" all our presentcomforts and connexions. Our romantic and itinerant character is notto be domesticated. Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign traveladded to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad.In fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful and in onesense instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial,downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not thesame, but another, and perhaps more enviable individual, all the timewe are out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves, as well asour friends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings,

"Out of my country and myself I go."

Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absentthemselves for a while from the ties and objects that recal them: butwe can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave usbirth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole ofmy life in travelling abroad, if I could any where borrow another lifeto spend afterwards at home!

Hazlitt.

ON LIVING TO ONE'S-SELF[28]

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po."

[Footnote 28: Written at Winterslow Hut, January 18th-19th, 1821.]

I never was in a better place or humour than I am at present forwriting on this subject. I have a partridge getting ready for mysupper, my fire is blazing on the hearth, the air is mild for theseason of the year, I have had but a slight fit of indigestion to-day(the only thing that makes me abhor myself), I have three hours goodbefore me, and therefore I will attempt it. It is as well to do it atonce as to have it to do for a week to come.

If the writing on this subject is no easy task, the thing itself is aharder one. It asks a troublesome effort to ensure the admiration ofothers: it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's ownthoughts. As I look from the window at the wide bare heath before me,and through the misty moon-light air see the woods that wave over thetop of Winterslow,

"While Heav'n's chancel-vault is blind with sleet,"

my mind takes its flight through too long a series of years, supportedonly by the patience of thought and secret yearnings after truth andgood, for me to be at a loss to understand the feeling I intend towrite about; but I do not know that this will enable me to convey itmore agreeably to the reader.

Lady G. in a letter to Miss Harriet Byron, assures her that "herbrother Sir Charles lived to himself:" and Lady L. soon after (forRichardson was never tired of a good thing) repeats the sameobservation; to which Miss Byron frequently returns in her answers toboth sisters—"For you know Sir Charles lives to himself," till atlength it passes into a proverb among the fair correspondents. This isnot, however, an example of what I understand by living toone's-self, for Sir Charles Grandison was indeed always thinking ofhimself; but by this phrase I mean never thinking at all aboutone's-self, any more than if there was no such person in existence.The character I speak of is as little of an egotist as possible:Richardson's great favourite was as much of one as possible. Somesatirical critic has represented him in Elysium "bowing over thefaded hand of Lady Grandison" (Miss Byron that was)—he ought tohave been represented bowing over his own hand, for he never admiredany one but himself, and was the god of his own idolatry. Neither do Icall it living to one's-self to retire into a desert (like the saintsand martyrs of old) to be devoured by wild beasts, nor to descend intoa cave to be considered as a hermit, nor to get to the top of a pillaror rock to do fanatic penance and be seen of all men. What I mean byliving to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: itis as if no one knew there was such a person, and you wished no one toknow it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things,not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful,anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel theslightest inclination to make or meddle with it. It is such a life asa pure spirit might be supposed to lead, and such an interest as itmight take in the affairs of men, calm, contemplative, passive,distant, touched with pity for their sorrows, smiling at their follieswithout bitterness, sharing their affections, but not troubled bytheir passions, not seeking their notice, not once dreamt of by them.He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busyworld through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to minglein the fray. "He hears the tumult, and is still." He is not able tomend it, nor willing to mar it. He sees enough in the universe tointerest him without putting himself forward to try what he can do tofix the eyes of the universe upon him. Vain the attempt! He reads theclouds, he looks at the stars, he watches the return of the seasons,the falling leaves of autumn, the perfumed breath of spring, startswith delight at the note of a thrush in a copse near him, sits by thefire, listens to the moaning of the wind, pores upon a book, ordiscourses the freezing hours away, or melts down hours to minutes inpleasing thought. All this while he is taken up with other things,forgetting himself. He relishes an author's style, without thinking ofturning author. He is fond of looking at a print from an old picturein the room, without teasing himself to copy it. He does not frethimself to death with trying to be what he is not, or to do what hecannot. He hardly knows what he is capable of, and is not in the leastconcerned whether he shall ever make a figure in the world. He feelsthe truth of the lines—

"The man whose eye is ever on himself,
Doth look on one, the least of nature's works;
One who might move the wise man to that scorn
Which wisdom holds unlawful ever"—

he looks out of himself at the wide extended prospect of nature, andtakes an interest beyond his narrow pretensions in general humanity.He is free as air, and independent as the wind. Woe be to him when hefirst begins to think what others say of him. While a man is contentedwith himself and his own resources, all is well. When he undertakes toplay a part on the stage, and to persuade the world to think moreabout him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track wherehe will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation anddisappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years ofmy life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solvesome knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky,or wander by the pebbled sea-side—

"To see the children sporting on the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

I cared for nothing, I wanted nothing. I took my time to considerwhatever occurred to me, and was in no hurry to give a sophisticalanswer to a question—there was no printer's devil waiting for me. Iused to write a page or two perhaps in half a year; and rememberlaughing heartily at the celebrated experimentalist Nicholson, whotold me that in twenty years he had written as much as would makethree hundred octavo volumes. If I was not a great author, I couldread with ever fresh delight, "never ending, still beginning," and hadno occasion to write a criticism when I had done. If I could not paintlike Claude, I could admire "the witchery of the soft blue sky" as Iwalked out, and was satisfied with the pleasure it gave me. If I wasdull, it gave me little concern: if I was lively, I indulged myspirits. I wished well to the world, and believed as favourably of itas I could. I was like a stranger in a foreign land, at which I lookedwith wonder, curiosity, and delight, without expecting to be an objectof attention in return. I had no relations to the state, no duty toperform, no ties to bind me to others: I had neither friend normistress, wife or child. I lived in a world of contemplation, and notof action.

This sort of dreaming existence is the best. He who quits it to go insearch of realities, generally barters repose for repeateddisappointments and vain regrets. His time, thoughts, and feelings areno longer at his own disposal. From that instant he does not surveythe objects of nature as they are in themselves, but looks asquint atthem to see whether he cannot make them the instruments of hisambition, interest, or pleasure; for a candid, undesigning,undisguised simplicity of character, his views become jaundiced,sinister, and double: he takes no farther interest in the greatchanges of the world but as he has a paltry share in producing them:instead of opening his senses, his understanding, and his heart to theresplendent fabric of the universe, he holds a crooked mirror beforehis face, in which he may admire his own person and pretensions, andjust glance his eye aside to see whether others are not admiring himtoo. He no more exists in the impression which "the fair variety ofthings" makes upon him, softened and subdued by habitualcontemplation, but in the feverish sense of his own upstartself-importance. By aiming to fix, he is become the slave of opinion.He is a tool, a part of a machine that never stands still, and is sickand giddy with the ceaseless motion. He has no satisfaction but in thereflection of his own image in the public gaze, but in the repetitionof his own name in the public ear. He himself is mixed up with, andspoils every thing. I wonder Buonaparte was not tired of the N.N.'sstuck all over the Louvre and throughout France. Goldsmith (as we allknow), when in Holland, went out into a balcony with some handsomeEnglishwomen, and on their being applauded by the spectators, turnedround, and said peevishly—"There are places where I also am admired."He could not give the craving appetite of an author's vanity one day'srespite. I have seen a celebrated talker of our own time turn pale andgo out of the room when a showy-looking girl has come into it, who fora moment divided the attention of his hearers. Infinite are themortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity;numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still thevicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success—

"Whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery, that
The fear's as bad as falling."

"Would to God," exclaimed Oliver Cromwell, when he was at any timethwarted by the Parliament, "that I had remained by my wood-side totend a flock of sheep, rather than have been thrust on such agovernment as this!" When Buonaparte got into his carriage to proceedon his Russian expedition, carelessly twirling his glove, and singingthe air—"Malbrook to the wars is going"—he did not think of thetumble he has got since, the shock of which no one could have stoodbut himself. We see and hear chiefly of the favourites of Fortune andthe Muse, of great generals, of first-rate actors, of celebratedpoets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glitteringeminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same temptingcareer:—not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants arein vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with"the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of theunworthy takes;" how many half-starved strolling-players are doomed topenury and tattered robes in country-places, dreaming to the last of aLondon engagement; how many wretched daubers shiver and shake in theague-fit of alternate hopes and fears, waste and pine away in theatrophy of genius, or else turn drawing-masters, picture-cleaners, ornewspaper critics; how many hapless poets have sighed out their soulsto the Muse in vain, without ever getting their effusions fartherknown than the Poets' Corner of a country newspaper, and looked andlooked with grudging, wistful eyes at the envious horizon that boundedtheir provincial fame! Suppose an actor, for instance, "after theheart-aches and the thousand natural pangs that flesh is heir to,"does get at the top of his profession, he can no longer bear a rivalnear the throne; to be second or only equal to another, is to benothing: he starts at the prospect of a successor, and retains themimic sceptre with a convulsive grasp: perhaps as he is about to seizethe first place which he has long had in his eye, an unsuspectedcompetitor steps in before him, and carries off the prize, leaving himto commence his irksome toil again: he is in a state of alarm at everyappearance or rumour of the appearance of a new actor: "a mouse thattakes up its lodging in a cat's ear"[29] has a mansion of peace tohim: he dreads every hint of an objection, and least of all canforgive praise mingled with censure: to doubt is to insult, todiscriminate is to degrade: he dare hardly look into a criticismunless some one has tasted it for him, to see that there is nooffence in it: if he does not draw crowded houses every night, he canneither eat nor sleep; or if all these terrible inflictions areremoved, and he can "eat his meal in peace," he then becomes surfeitedwith applause and dissatisfied with his profession: he wants to besomething else, to be distinguished as an author, a collector, aclassical scholar, a man of sense and information, and weighs everyword he utters, and half retracts it before he utters it, lest if hewere to make the smallest slip of the tongue, it should get buzzedabroad that Mr. —— was only clever as an actor! If ever there wasa man who did not derive more pain than pleasure from his vanity, thatman, says Rousseau, was no other than a fool. A country gentleman nearTaunton spent his whole life in making some hundreds of wretchedcopies of second-rate pictures, which were bought up at his death by aneighbouring Baronet, to whom

"Some demon whisper'd, L——, have a taste!"

[Footnote 29: Webster's duch*ess of Malfy.]

A little Wilson in an obscure corner escaped the man of virtù, andwas carried off by a Bristol picture-dealer for three guineas, whilethe muddled copies of the owner of the mansion (with the frames)fetched thirty, forty, sixty, a hundred ducats a piece. A friend ofmine found a very fine Canaletti in a state of strange disfigurement,with the upper part of the sky smeared over and fantasticallyvariegated with English clouds; and on enquiring of the person to whomit belonged whether something had not been done to it, received foranswer "that a gentleman, a great artist in the neighbourhood, hadretouched some parts of it." What infatuation! Yet this candidate forthe honours of the pencil might probably have made a jovial fox-hunteror respectable justice of the peace, if he could only have stuck towhat nature and fortune intended him for. Miss —— can by no means bepersuaded to quit the boards of the theatre at ——, a little countrytown in the West of England. Her salary has been abridged, her personridiculed, her acting laughed at; nothing will serve—she isdetermined to be an actress, and scorns to return to her formerbusiness as a milliner. Shall I go on? An actor in the same companywas visited by the apothecary of the place in an ague-fit, who, onasking his landlady as to his way of life, was told that the poorgentleman was very quiet and gave little trouble, that he generallyhad a plate of mashed potatoes for his dinner, and lay in bed most ofhis time, repeating his part. A young couple, every way amiable anddeserving, were to have been married, and a benefit-play was bespokeby the officers of the regiment quartered there, to defray the expenseof a licence and of the wedding-ring, but the profits of the night didnot amount to the necessary sum, and they have, I fear, "virgined ite'er since!" Oh for the pencil of Hogarth or Wilkie to give a view ofthe comic strength of the company at ——, drawn up in battle-array inthe Clandestine Marriage, with a coup d'oeil of the pit, boxes, andgallery, to cure for ever the love of the ideal, and the desire toshine and make holiday in the eyes of others, instead of retiringwithin ourselves and keeping our wishes and our thoughts at home!

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage,how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the handsof others! Most of the friends I have seen have turned out thebitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance. Old companionsare like meats served up too often that lose their relish and theirwholesomeness. He who looks at beauty to admire, to adore it, whor*ads of its wondrous power in novels, in poems, or in plays, is notunwise: but let no man fall in love, for from that moment he is "thebaby of a girl." I like very well to repeat such lines as these in theplay of Mirandola—

—"With what a waving air she goes
Along the corridor. How like a fawn!
Yet statelier. Hark! No sound, however soft,
Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads,
But every motion of her shape doth seem
Hallowed by silence"—

but however beautiful the description, defend me from meeting with theoriginal!

"The fly that sips treacle
Is lost in the sweets;
So he that tastes woman
Ruin meets."

The song is Gay's, not mine, and a bitter-sweet it is.—How few out ofthe infinite number of those that marry and are given in marriage, wedwith those they would prefer to all the world; nay, how far thegreater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience,accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by thevery fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination:yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace ordeath: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well asmind) chained to another, in spite of himself—

"Like life and death in disproportion met."

So Milton (perhaps from his own experience) makes Adam exclaim, in thevehemence of his despair,

"For either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld
By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate and shame;
Which infinite calamity shall cause
To human life, and household peace confound."

If love at first sight were mutual, or to be conciliated by kindoffices; if the fondest affection were not so often repaid and chilledby indifference and scorn; if so many lovers both before and since themadman in Don Quixote had not "worshipped a statue, hunted the wind,cried aloud to the desert;" if friendship were lasting; if merit wererenown, and renown were health, riches, and long life; or if thehomage of the world were paid to conscious worth and the trueaspirations after excellence, instead of its gaudy signs and outwardtrappings:—then indeed I might be of opinion that it is better tolive to others than one's-self: but as the case stands, I incline tothe negative side of the question.[30]

[Footnote 30: Shenstone and Gray were two men, one of whom pretendedto live to himself, and the other really did so. Gray shrunk from thepublic gaze (he did not even like his portrait to be prefixed to hisworks) into his own thoughts and indolent musings; Shenstone affectedprivacy, that he might be sought out by the world; the one courtedretirement in order to enjoy leisure and repose, as the othercoquetted with it, merely to be interrupted with the importunity ofvisitors and the flatteries of absent friends.]

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee—
Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles—nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind which thus itself subdued.

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me—
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things—hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful nor weave
Snares for the failing: I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem—
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."

Sweet verse embalms the spirit of sour misanthropy: but woe betide theignoble prose-writer who should thus dare to compare notes with theworld, or tax it roundly with imposture.

If I had sufficient provocation to rail at the public, as Ben Jonsondid at the audience in the Prologues to his plays, I think I should doit in good set terms, nearly as follows. There is not a more mean,stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungratefulanimal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it isafraid of itself. From its unwieldy, overgrown dimensions, it dreadsthe least opposition to it, and shakes like isinglass at the touch ofa finger. It starts at its own shadow, like the man in the Hartzmountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has alion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleepless eyes.It stands "listening its fears." It is so in awe of its own opinion,that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour,lest it should be behind-hand in its judgment, and echoes it till itis deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what thepublic will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, andacts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that in shortthe public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender whochooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secretwhispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that athing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, andthe hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the "still, smallvoice" of reason. We may believe or know that what is said is nottrue: but we know or fancy that others believe it—we dare notcontradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and thereforegive up our internal, and, as we think, our solitary conviction to asound without substance, without proof, and often without meaning. Naymore, we may believe and know not only that a thing is false, but thatothers believe and know it to be so, that they are quite as much inthe secret of the imposture as we are, that they see the puppets atwork, the nature of the machinery, and yet if any one has the art orpower to get the management of it, he shall keep possession of thepublic ear by virtue of a cant-phrase or nickname; and, by dint ofeffrontery and perseverance, make all the world believe and repeatwhat all the world know to be false. The ear is quicker than thejudgment. We know that certain things are said; by that circ*mstancealone we know that they produce a certain effect on the imagination ofothers, and we conform to their prejudices by mechanical sympathy, andfor want of sufficient spirit to differ with them. So far then ispublic opinion from resting on a broad and solid basis, as theaggregate of thought and feeling in a community, that it is slight andshallow and variable to the last degree—the bubble of the moment—sothat we may safely say the public is the dupe of public opinion, notit* parent. The public is pusillanimous and cowardly, because it isweak. It knows itself to be a great dunce, and that it has no opinionsbut upon suggestion. Yet it is unwilling to appear in leading-strings,and would have it thought that its decisions are as wise as they areweighty. It is hasty in taking up its favourites, more hasty in layingthem aside, lest it should be supposed deficient in sagacity in eithercase. It is generally divided into two strong parties, each of whichwill allow neither common sense nor common honesty to the other side.It reads the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and believes themboth—or if there is a doubt, malice turns the scale. Taylor andHessey told me that they had sold nearly two editions of theCharacters of Shakespeare's Plays in about three months, but thatafter the Quarterly Review of them came out, they never sold anothercopy. The public, enlightened as they are, must have known the meaningof that attack as well as those who made it. It was not ignorance thenbut cowardice that led them to give up their own opinion. A crew ofmischievous critics at Edinburgh having fixed the epithet of theco*ckney School to one or two writers born in the metropolis, all thepeople in London became afraid of looking into their works, lest theytoo should be convicted of co*ckneyism. Oh brave public! This epithetproved too much for one of the writers in question, and stuck like abarbed arrow in his heart. Poor Keats! What was sport to the town wasdeath to him. Young, sensitive, delicate, he was like

"A bud bit by an envious worm,
Ere he could spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun"—

and unable to endure the miscreant cry and idiot laugh, withdrew tosigh his last breath in foreign climes.—The public is as envious andungrateful as it is ignorant, stupid, and pigeon-livered—

"A huge-sized monster of ingratitudes."

It reads, it admires, it extols only because it is the fashion, notfrom any love of the subject or the man. It cries you up or runs youdown out of mere caprice and levity. If you have pleased it, it isjealous of its own involuntary acknowledgment of merit, and seizes thefirst opportunity, the first shabby pretext, to pick a quarrel withyou, and be quits once more. Every petty caviller is erected into ajudge, every tale-bearer is implicitly believed. Every little lowpaltry creature that gaped and wondered only because others did so, isglad to find you (as he thinks) on a level with himself. An author isnot then, after all, a being of another order. Public admiration isforced, and goes against the grain. Public obloquy is cordial andsincere: every individual feels his own importance in it. They giveyou up bound hand and foot into the power of your accusers. To attemptto defend yourself is a high crime and misdemeanour, a contempt ofcourt, an extreme piece of impertinence. Or, if you prove every chargeunfounded, they never think of retracting their error, or making youamends. It would be a compromise of their dignity; they considerthemselves as the party injured, and resent your innocence as animputation on their judgment. The celebrated Bub Doddington, when outof favour at court, said "he would not justify before his sovereign:it was for Majesty to be displeased, and for him to believe himself inthe wrong!" The public are not quite so modest. People already beginto talk of the Scotch Novels as overrated. How then can common authorsbe supposed to keep their heads long above water? As a general rule,all those who live by the public starve, and are made a bye-word and astanding jest into the bargain. Posterity is no better (not a bit moreenlightened or more liberal), except that you are no longer in theirpower, and that the voice of common fame saves them the trouble ofdeciding on your claims. The public now are the posterity of Miltonand Shakespeare. Our posterity will be the living public of a futuregeneration. When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erectmonuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthdayin set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living?No!—I was complaining of this to a Scotchman who had been attending adinner and a subscription to raise a monument to Burns. He replied, hewould sooner subscribe twenty pounds to his monument than have givenit him while living; so that if the poet were to come to life again,he would treat him just as he was treated in fact. This was an honestScotchman. What he said, the rest would do.

Enough: my soul, turn from them, and let me try to regain theobscurity and quiet that I love, "far from the madding strife," insome sequestered corner of my own, or in some far-distant land! In thelatter case, I might carry with me as a consolation the passage inBolingbroke's Reflections on Exile, in which he describes in glowingcolours the resources which a man may always find within himself, andof which the world cannot deprive him.

"Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order inthe world, that of all which belongs to us, the least valuable partscan alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is best is safest;lies out of the reach of human power; can neither be given nor takenaway. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Suchis the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world whereofit makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours, and as long aswe remain in one we shall enjoy the other. Let us march thereforeintrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents.Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, weshall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall feel the samerevolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon[31] will guide thecourse of our year. The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, willbe every where spread over our heads. There is no part of the worldfrom whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, indifferent orbits round the same central sun; from whence we may notdiscover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed starshung up in the immense space of the universe, innumerable suns whosebeams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them;and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst mysoul is thus raised up to heaven, imports me little what ground Itread upon."

[Footnote 31: Plut. of Banishment. He compares those who cannot liveout of their own country, to the simple people who fancied the moon ofAthens was a finer moon than that of Corinth,

——Labentem coelo quæ ducitis annum. VIRG., Georg.]

Hazlitt.

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN

B—— it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as thedefence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, hewould undertake neither, I suppose I must do both—a task for which hewould have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than thefelicity of his pen—

"Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate."

Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece ofbusiness of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, andbesides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it.I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of otherpeople than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradoxor mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like,or than seems fair and reasonable.

On the question being started, A—— said, "I suppose the two firstpersons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names inEnglish literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this A——, asusual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing atthe expression of B——'s face, in which impatience was restrained bycourtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, "butthey were not persons—not persons."—"Not persons?" said A——,looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might bepremature. "That is," rejoined B——, "not characters, you know. ByMr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the Essay on the HumanUnderstanding, and the Principia, which we have to this day. Beyondtheir contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. Butwhat we want to see any one bodily for, is when there is somethingpeculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn fromtheir writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke andNewton were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paintShakspeare?"—"Ay," retorted A——, "there it is; then I suppose youwould prefer seeing him and Milton instead?"—"No," said B——,"neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and onbook-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantle-pieces, that I am quitetired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face, theimpressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is toostarched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of themanna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and theprecisian's band and gown."—"I shall guess no more," said A——. "Whois it, then, you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if youhad your choice of the whole range of English literature?" B—— thennamed Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir PhilipSidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasureto encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown andslippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this A——laughed outright, and conceived B—— was jesting with him; but as noone followed his example, he thought there might be something in it,and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. B——then (as well as I can remember a conversation that passed twentyyears ago—how time slips!) went on as follows: "The reason why Ipitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, andthey themselves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble thesoothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; andI should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal butthemselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson, I haveno curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswelltogether have pretty well let me into the secret of what passedthrough his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficientlyexplicit: my friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb,(were it in my power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.

'And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold.'

"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (theUrn-burial) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at thebottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like astately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I wouldinvoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, whowould not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, havinghimself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated liketrees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a trulyformidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical,cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and forthe unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of anencounter with so portentous a commentator!"—"I am afraid in thatcase," said A——, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, themerit might be lost;"—and turning to me, whispered a friendlyapprehension, that while B—— continued to admire these old crabbedauthors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne wasmentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interestingcountenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was oftenquite as uncomeatable, without a personal citation from the dead, asthat of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced; and whilesome one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of theportrait prefixed to the old edition, A—— got hold of the poetry,and exclaiming "What have we here?" read the following:—

"'Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.'"

There was no resisting this, till B——, seizing the volume, turned tothe beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her fromaccompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and afaltering tongue.

"'By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind.
Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one with th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly cloth'd apes are called apes, and as soon
Eclips'd as bright we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable cameleons,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee…. O stay here! for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation; till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess,
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh,
Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go,
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love.'"

Some one then inquired of B—— if we could not see from the windowthe Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; and on hisname being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was ageneral sensation in his favour in all but A——, who said somethingabout the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintnessof the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss,pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked"if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that hadfirst greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of Englishliterature; to see the head, round which the visions of fancy musthave played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watchthose lips that "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"—as by amiracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he hadbeen the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly tomodern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standingbefore his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humouristwithal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of histime, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, andwould make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His interviewwith Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seenChaucer in company with the author of the Decameron, and have heardthem exchange their best stories together, the Squire's Tale againstthe Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Prologue against theAdventures of Friar Albert. How fine to see the high mysterious browwhich learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men ofthe world, and by the courtesies of genius. Surely, the thoughts andfeelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers oflearning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must havestamped an expression on their features, as different from the modernsas their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I continued, "isas interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineamentscuriosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit,and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. Thereis a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's; light,Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's largecolossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the kindthat has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty dead,' and this istruly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." B—— put it to me if I shouldlike to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered withouthesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, notpalpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosityabout the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very haloround the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individualmight dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to themellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel couldvie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to ourapprehensions) rather 'a creature of the element, that lived in therainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal.Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like oneof his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like adream or sound—

——'That was Arion crown'd: So went he playing on the wat'ry plain!'"

Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted at theWandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the firstmade over to the New World.

"I should like," said Miss D——, "to have seen Pope talking with
Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to
look at Miss D——, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of
Goldsmith.

"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there anyaccount of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotlandwith the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in theHighlands in company with Boswell many years after 'with lack-lustreeye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or associated in his mindwith interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be anadditional reason for my liking him; and I would give something tohave seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain,and penning the Proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of thelegitimate Government."

"I thought," said A——, turning short round upon B——, "that you ofthe Lake School did not like Pope?"—"Not like Pope! My dear sir, youmust be under a mistake—I can read him over and over for ever!"—"Whycertainly, the 'Essay on Man' must be a masterpiece."—"It may be so,but I seldom look into it."—"Oh! then it's his Satires youadmire?"—"No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and hiscompliments."—"Compliments! I did not know he ever made any."—"Thefinest," said B——, "that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each ofthem is worth an estate for life—nay, is an immortality. There isthat superb one to Lord Cornbury:

'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.'

"Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And thenthat noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however littledeserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds—

'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!'

"And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord
Bolingbroke—

'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
Oh! all accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?'

"Or turn," continued B——, with a slight hectic on his cheek and hiseye glistening, "to his list of early friends:

'But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays:
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.'"

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, hesaid, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such aman as this?"

"What say you to Dryden?"—"He rather made a show of himself, andcourted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-house, soas in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on thecontrary, reached the very beau ideal of what a poet's life shouldbe; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from thatwhich was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (andone would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) thathe was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his rewardon this side of the tomb, who realized in friends, fortune, the esteemof the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and whofound that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime whichthey would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. ReadGay's verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after histranslation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladlyjoin the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once moreland at Whitehall-stairs."—"Still," said Miss D——, "I would ratherhave seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in acoronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!"

E——, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room,whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person toinvoke from the dead. "Yes," said B——, "provided he would agree tolay aside his mask."

We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentionedas a candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition."Richardson?"—"By all means, but only to look at him through theglass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (themost extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an authorand his works), but not to let him come behind his counter lest heshould want you to turn customer, nor to go upstairs with him, lest heshould offer to read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison,which was originally written in eight and twenty volumes octavo, orget out the letters of his female correspondents, to prove that JosephAndrews was low."

There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that anyone expressed the least desire to see—Oliver Cromwell, with his fine,frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy;—and one enthusiast, JohnBunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed thatif he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that eachperson would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," acanopy as strange and stately as any in Homer.

Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with thegreatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F——. He presentlysuperseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but thenit was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in theplay and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What a sightfor sore eyes that would be! Who would not part with a year's incomeat least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it?Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactorythings, what a troop he must bring with him—the silver-tongued Barry,and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, ofwhom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he wasyoung! This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring ofart; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticismmingled with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, thatthough we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, thewritings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show whatpeople could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimonyto the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have ourmisgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than aBartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat andlaced co*cked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard withmy own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was evermoved by the true histrionic æstus, it was Garrick. When he followedthe Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors dobehind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, sofully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sightof his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord——'s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what wasbecome of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsivescreams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling onthe ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing aturkey-co*ck in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind,and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our partyonly two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemedas willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their oldfavourite.

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fancifulspeculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame tomake all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to theneglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporariesand rivals of Shakspeare. B—— said he had anticipated this objectionwhen he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out ofcaprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preferenceto the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St.Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; toDecker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; andeven to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimentingthe wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on thecontrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley's words, was "a vastspecies alone." Some one hinted at the circ*mstance of his being alord, which rather startled B——, but he said a ghost would perhapsdispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by histitle. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some wereafraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present todefend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud,"there is G—— can match him." At length, his romantic visit toDrummond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in hisfavour.

B—— inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I wouldchoose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[32] The name of the"Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example ofwaste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen.This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, whodeclared himself descended from that prodigy of learning andaccomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession asvouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.—Admirable Crichton!H—— laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should thinkhe has done for many years.

[Footnote 32: See Newgate Calendar for 1758.]

The last-named Mitre-courtier[33] then wished to know whether therewere any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply thewizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times deservingthe name—Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; andperhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusets man.[34] As to the French,who talked fluently of having created this science, there was not atitle in any of their writings, that was not to be found literally inthe authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might have a claim tocome in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] None of thesenames seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for thereappearance of those who might be thought best fitted by theabstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual anddisembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, werenearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A—— with an uneasyfidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke andDugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C. who observed, "If J—— washere, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound andredoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said thismight be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read theoriginal works, but I did not see how we could have any right to callup these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till wehad looked into their writings.

[Footnote 33: B—— at this time occupied chambers in Mitre court,
Fleet Street.]

[Footnote 34: Lord Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I knowwhere he should come in. It is not easy to make room for him and hisreputation together. This great and celebrated man in some of hisworks recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of amorning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimesenriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromaticspirit of his genius. His "Essays" and his "Advancement of Learning"are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The last, though itcontains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of human intellect,and a guide to all future inquirers.]

By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsicaldeliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile genus intheir shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidatesthat we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation,though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come and bring in hishand the duch*ess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addisonleft their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swiftcame in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room asabruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the oppositeside of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to payCharon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed backagain—and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an oldcompanion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say thathe had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show,only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain wherehe was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative—thehand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.

The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters.While we were debating whether we should demand speech with thesemasters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, itseemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seatedthemselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo withhis majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedesbefore him; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to theFornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm,golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's onthe table before him; Corregio had an angel at his side; Titian wasseated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido wasaccompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claudeheld a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led inby a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, andRembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains and jewels, which Sir Joshuaeyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a wordwas spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented thesame surface to the view. Not being bonâ-fide representations ofliving people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs anddumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loudnoise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, andGhirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desireto see their illustrious successors—

"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye!"

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, andmournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B——, "those are the very fellows Ishould like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see topaint when all was dark around them?"

"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J——, "to theLegend of Good Women?"—"Name, name, Mr. J——," cried H—— in aboisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please,without reserve or fear of molestation!" J—— was perplexed betweenso many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choiceexpired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and B—— impatiently declaredfor the duch*ess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned,than she carried the day from the duch*ess. We were the less solicitouson this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, asthere was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in allrespects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their lives!"I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos," said thatincomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind that we hadneglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of theChannel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the fatherof sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit),Molière and that illustrious group that are collected round him (inthe print of that subject to hear him read his comedy of the Tartuffeat the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St.Evremont, etc.).

"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rathersee than all these—Don Quixote!"

"Come, come!" said H——; "I thought we should have no heroes, real orfabulous. What say you, Mr. B——? Are you for eking out your shadowylist with such names as Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Tamerlane, or GhengisKhan?"—"Excuse me," said B——, "on the subject of characters inactive life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchetof my own, which I beg leave to reserve."—"No, no! come, out withyour worthies!"—"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?"H—— turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and fullof smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on allsides; and A—— thought that B—— had now fairly entangled himself."Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance,"that Guy Faux, that poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw andrags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see himsitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrelsof gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him toParadise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there isthat fellow G—— will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot,my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him, who, havingdipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwardsbetray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seenany picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the leastidea of it."—"You have said enough, Mr. B——, to justify yourchoice."

"Oh! ever right, Menenius,—ever right!"

"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this,"continued H——; but without mentioning a name that once put on asemblance of mortality. "If Shakspeare was to come into the room, weshould all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come intoit, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!"

As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn theconversation had taken, we rose up to go.[35] The morning broke withthat dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio musthave seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet againand renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night afterthat, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The sameevent, in truth, broke up our little Congress that broke up the greatone. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never beenresumed.

[Footnote 35: There are few things more contemptible than theconversation of mere men of the town. It is made up of thetechnicalities and cant of all professions, without the spirit orknowledge of any. It is flashy and vapid, or is like the rinsings ofdifferent liquors at a night-cellar instead of a bottle of fine oldport. It is without body or clearness, and a heap of affectation. Infact, I am very much of the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman whoowned that "he preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the mostbrilliant conversation it had ever fallen to his lot to hear!"]

Hazlitt.

ON A SUN-DIAL

Horas non numero nisi serenas—is the motto of a sun-dial nearVenice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in thethought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical."I count only the hours that are serene." What a bland andcare-dispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on thedial-plate as the sky lours, and time presents only a blank unless asits progress is marked by what is joyous, and all that is not happysinks into oblivion! What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind—totake no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smilesand neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright andgentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, andletting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten!How different from the common art of self-tormenting! For myself, as Irode along the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish,slimy waves, my sensations were far from comfortable; but the readingthis inscription on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restoredme to myself; and still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it has thepower of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction.I cannot help fancying it to be a legend of Popish superstition. Somemonk of the dark ages must have invented and bequeathed it to us, who,loitering in trim gardens and watching the silent march of time, ashis fruits ripened in the sun or his flowers scented the balmy air,felt a mild languor pervade his senses, and having little to do or tocare for, determined (in imitation of his sun-dial) to efface thatlittle from his thoughts or draw a veil over it, making of his lifeone long dream of quiet! Horas non numero nisi serenas—he mightrepeat, when the heavens were overcast and the gathering stormscattered the falling leaves, and turn to his books and wrap himselfin his golden studies! Out of some mood of mind, indolent, elegant,thoughtful, this exquisite device (speaking volumes) must haveoriginated.

Of the several modes of counting time, that by the sun-dial is perhapsthe most apposite and striking, if not the most convenient orcomprehensive. It does not obtrude its observations, though it "moralson the time," and, by its stationary character, forms a contrast tothe most fleeting of all essences. It stands sub dio—under themarble air, and there is some connexion between the image of infinityand eternity. I should also like to have a sunflower growing near itwith bees fluttering round.[36] [Footnote 36: Is this a verbalfallacy? Or in the close, retired, sheltered scene which I haveimagined to myself, is not the sun-flower a natural accompaniment ofthe sun-dial?] It should be of iron to denote duration, and have adull, leaden look. I hate a sun-dial made of wood, which is rathercalculated to show the variations of the seasons, than the progress oftime, slow, silent, imperceptible, chequered with light and shade. Ifour hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as littlenote of them, as the dial does of those that are clouded. It is theshadows thrown across, that gives us warning of their flight.Otherwise our impressions would take the same undistinguishable hue;we should scarce be conscious of our existence. Those who have hadnone of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have beenobliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to enliventhe prospect before them. Most of the methods for measuring the lapseof time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religiousrecluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at somepains to see how they got rid of it. The hour-glass is, I suspect, anolder invention; and it is certainly the most defective of all. Itscreeping sands are not indeed an unapt emblem of the minute, countlessportions of our existence; and the manner in which they graduallyslide through the hollow glass and diminish in number till not asingle one is left, also illustrates the way in which our years slipfrom us by stealth: but as a mechanical invention, it is rather ahindrance than a help, for it requires to have the time, of which itpretends to count the precious moments, taken up in attention toitself, and in seeing that when one end of the glass is empty, we turnit round, in order that it may go on again, or else all our labour islost, and we must wait for some other mode of ascertaining the timebefore we can recover our reckoning and proceed as before. Thephilosopher in his cell, the cottager at her spinning-wheel must,however, find an invaluable acquisition in this "companion of thelonely hour," as it has been called,[37] which not only serves to tellhow the time goes, but to fill up its vacancies. What a treasure mustnot the little box seem to hold, as if it were a sacred deposit of thevery grains and fleeting sands of life. What a business, in lieu ofother more important avocations, to see it out to the last sand, andthen to renew the process again on the instant, that there may not bethe least flaw or error in the account! What a strong sense must bebrought home to the mind of the value and irrecoverable nature of thetime that is fled; what a thrilling, incessant consciousness of theslippery tenure by which we hold what remains of it! Our veryexistence must seem crumbling to atoms, and running down (without amiraculous reprieve) to the last fragment. "Dust to dust and ashes toashes" is a text that might be fairly inscribed on an hour-glass: itis ordinarily associated with the scythe of Time and a Death's-head,as a Memento mori; and has, no doubt, furnished many a tacit hint tothe apprehensive and visionary enthusiast in favour of a resurrectionto another life!

[Footnote 37:

"Once more, companion of the lonely hour,
I'll turn thee up again."

Bloomfield's Poems—The Widow to her Hour-glass.]

The French give a different turn to things, less sombre and lessedifying. A common and also a very pleasing ornament to a clock, inParis, is a figure of Time seated in a boat which Cupid is rowingalong, with the motto, L'Amour fait passer le Tems—which the witsagain have travestied into Le Tems fait passer L'Amour. All this isingenious and well; but it wants sentiment. I like a people who havesomething that they love and something that they hate, and with whomeverything is not alike a matter of indifference or pour passer letems. The French attach no importance to anything, except for themoment; they are only thinking how they shall get rid of one sensationfor another; all their ideas are in transitu. Every thing isdetached, nothing is accumulated. It would be a million of yearsbefore a Frenchman would think of the Horas non numero nisi serenas.Its impassioned repose and ideal voluptuousness are as far fromtheir breasts as the poetry of that line in Shakspeare—"How sweet themoonlight sleeps upon that bank!" They never arrive at theclassical—or the romantic. They blow the bubbles of vanity, fashion,and pleasure; but they do not expand their perceptions intorefinement, or strengthen them into solidity. Where there is nothingfine in the ground-work of the imagination, nothing fine in thesuperstructure can be produced. They are light, airy, fanciful (togive them their due)—but when they attempt to be serious (beyond meregood sense) they are either dull or extravagant. When the volatilesalt has flown off, nothing but a caput mortuum remains. They haveinfinite crotchets and caprices with their clocks and watches, whichseem made for anything but to tell the hour—gold-repeaters, watcheswith metal covers, clocks with hands to count the seconds. There is noescaping from quackery and impertinence, even in our attempts tocalculate the waste of time. The years gallop fast enough for me,without remarking every moment as it flies; and farther, I must say Idislike a watch (whether of French or English manufacture) that comesto me like a footpad with its face muffled, and does not present itsclear, open aspect like a friend, and point with its finger to thetime of day. All this opening and shutting of dull, heavy cases (underpretence that the glass-lid is liable to be broken, or lets in thedust or air and obstructs the movement of the watch), is not tohusband time, but to give trouble. It is mere pomposity andself-importance, like consulting a mysterious oracle that one carriesabout with one in one's pocket, instead of asking a common question ofan acquaintance or companion. There are two clocks which strike thehour in the room where I am. This I do not like. In the first place, Ido not want to be reminded twice how the time goes (it is like thesecond tap of a saucy servant at your door when perhaps you have nowish to get up): in the next place, it is starting a difference ofopinion on the subject, and I am averse to every appearance ofwrangling and disputation. Time moves on the same, whatever disparitythere may be in our mode of keeping count of it, like true fame inspite of the cavils and contradictions of the critics. I am no friendto repeating watches. The only pleasant association I have with themis the account given by Rousseau of some French lady, who sat upreading the New Heloise when it first came out, and ordering hermaid to sound the repeater, found it was too late to go to bed, andcontinued reading on till morning. Yet how different is the interestexcited by this story from the account which Rousseau somewhere elsegives of his sitting up with his father reading romances, when a boy,till they were startled by the swallows twittering in their nests atday-break, and the father cried out, half angry and ashamed—"Allons,mons fils; je suis plus enfant que toi!" In general, I have heardrepeating watches sounded in stage-coaches at night, when somefellow-traveller suddenly awaking and wondering what was the hour,another has very deliberately taken out his watch, and pressing thespring, it has counted out the time; each petty stroke acting like asharp puncture on the ear, and informing me of the dreary hours I hadalready passed, and of the more dreary ones I had to wait tillmorning.

The great advantage, it is true, which clocks have over watches andother dumb reckoners of time is, that for the most part they strikethe hour—that they are as it were the mouth-pieces of time; that theynot only point it to the eye, but impress it on the ear; that they"lend it both an understanding and a tongue." Time thus speaks to usin an audible and warning voice. Objects of sight are easilydistinguished by the sense, and suggest useful reflections to themind; sounds, from their intermittent nature, and perhaps othercauses, appeal more to the imagination, and strike upon the heart. Butto do this, they must be unexpected and involuntary—there must be notrick in the case—they should not be squeezed out with a finger and athumb; there should be nothing optional, personal in their occurrence;they should be like stern, inflexible monitors, that nothing canprevent from discharging their duty. Surely, if there is anything withwhich we should not mix up our vanity and self-consequence, it is withTime, the most independent of all things. All the sublimity, all thesuperstition that hang upon this palpable mode of announcing itsflight, are chiefly attached to this circ*mstance. Time would lose itsabstracted character, if we kept it like a curiosity or ajack-in-a-box: its prophetic warnings would have no effect, if itobviously spoke only at our prompting, like a paltry ventriloquism.The clock that tells the coming, dreaded hour—the castle bell, that"with its brazen throat and iron tongue, sounds one unto the drowsyear of night"—the curfew, "swinging slow with sullen roar" o'erwizard stream or fountain, are like a voice from other worlds, bigwith unknown events. The last sound, which is still kept up as an oldcustom in many parts of England, is a great favourite with me. I usedto hear it when a boy. It tells a tale of other times. The days thatare past, the generations that are gone, the tangled forest glades andhamlets brown of my native country, the woodsman's art, the Normanwarrior armed for the battle or in his festive hall, the conqueror'siron rule and peasant's lamp extinguished, all start up at theclamorous peal, and fill my mind with fear and wonder. I confess,nothing at present interests me but what has been—the recollection ofthe impressions of my early life, or events long past, of which onlythe dim traces remain in a smouldering ruin or half-obsolete custom.That things should be that are now no more, creates in my mind themost unfeigned astonishment. I cannot solve the mystery of the past,nor exhaust my pleasure in it. The years, the generations to come, arenothing to me. We care no more about the world in the year 2300 thanwe do about one of the planets. Even George IV is better than the Earlof Windsor. We might as well make a voyage to the moon as think ofstealing a march upon Time with impunity. De non apparentibus et nonexistentibus eadem est ratio. Those who are to come after us and pushus from the stage seem like upstarts and pretenders, that may be saidto exist in vacuo, we know not upon what, except as they are blownup with vain and self conceit by their patrons among the moderns. Butthe ancients are true and bonâ-fide people, to whom we are bound byaggregate knowledge and filial ties, and in whom seen by the mellowlight of history we feel our own existence doubled and our prideconsoled, as we ruminate on the vestiges of the past. The public ingeneral, however, do not carry this speculative indifference about thefuture to what is to happen to themselves, or to the part they are toact in the busy scene. For my own part, I do; and the only wish I canform, or that ever prompts the passing sigh, would be to live some ofmy years over again—they would be those in which I enjoyed andsuffered most!

The ticking of a clock in the night has nothing very interesting norvery alarming in it, though superstition has magnified it into anomen. In a state of vigilance or debility, it preys upon the spiritslike the persecution of a teazing pertinacious insect; and hauntingthe imagination after it has ceased in reality, is converted into adeath-watch. Time is rendered vast by contemplating its minuteportions thus repeatedly and painfully urged upon its attention, asthe ocean in its immensity is composed of water-drops. A clockstriking with a clear and silver sound is a great relief in suchcirc*mstances, breaks the spell, and resembles a sylph-like andfriendly spirit in the room. Foreigners, with all their tricks andcontrivances upon clocks and time-pieces, are strangers to the soundof village-bells, though perhaps a people that can dance may dispensewith them. They impart a pensive, wayward pleasure to the mind, andare a kind of chronology of happy events, often serious in theretrospect—births, marriages, and so forth. Coleridge calls them "thepoor man's only music." A village-spire in England peeping from itscluster of trees is always associated in imagination with thischeerful accompaniment, and may be expected to pour its joyous tidingson the gale. In Catholic countries, you are stunned with theeverlasting tolling of bells to prayers or for the dead. In theApennines, and other wild and mountainous districts of Italy, thelittle chapel-bell with its simple tinkling sound has a romantic andcharming effect. The Monks in former times appear to have taken apride in the construction of bells as well as churches; and some ofthose of the great cathedrals abroad (as at Cologne and Rouen) may befairly said to be hoarse with counting the flight of ages. The chimesin Holland are a nuisance. They dance in the hours and the quarters.They leave no respite to the imagination. Before one set has doneringing in your ears, another begins. You do not know whether thehours move or stand still, go backwards or forwards, so fantasticaland perplexing are their accompaniments. Time is a more staidpersonage, and not so full of gambols. It puts you in mind of a tunewith variations, or of an embroidered dress. Surely, nothing is moresimple than time. His march is straightforward; but we should haveleisure allowed us to look back upon the distance we have come, andnot be counting his steps every moment. Time in Holland is a foolishold fellow with all the antics of a youth, who "goes to church in acoranto, and lights his pipe in a cinque-pace." The chimes with us, onthe contrary, as they come in every three or four hours, are likestages in the journey of the day. They give a fillip to the lazy,creeping hours, and relieve the lassitude of country-places. At noon,their desultory, trivial song is diffused through the hamlet with theodour of rashers of bacon; at the close of day they send the toil-wornsleepers to their beds. Their discontinuance would be a great loss tothe thinking or unthinking public. Mr. Wordsworth has painted theireffect on the mind when he makes his friend Matthew, in a fit ofinspired dotage,

"Sing those witty rhymes
About the crazy old church-clock
And the bewilder'd chimes."

The tolling of the bell for deaths and executions is a fearfulsummons, though, as it announces, not the advance of time but theapproach of fate, it happily makes no part of our subject. Otherwise,the "sound of the bell" for Macheath's execution in the "Beggar'sOpera," or for that of the Conspirators in "Venice Preserved," withthe roll of the drum at a soldier's funeral, and a digression to thatof my Uncle Toby, as it is so finely described by Sterne, wouldfurnish ample topics to descant upon. If I were a moralist, I mightdisapprove the ringing in the new and ringing out the old year.

'Why dance ye, mortals, o'er the grave of Time?'

St. Paul's bell tolls only for the death of our English kings, or adistinguished personage or two, with long intervals between.[38]

[Footnote 38: Rousseau has admirably described the effect of bells onthe imagination in a passage in the Confessions, beginning "Le sondes cloches m'a toujours singulièrement affecté," &c.]

Those who have no artificial means of ascertaining the progress oftime, are in general the most acute in discerning its immediate signs,and are most retentive of individual dates. The mechanical aids toknowledge are not sharpeners of the wits. The understanding of asavage is a kind of natural almanac, and more true in itsprognostication of the future. In his mind's eye he sees what hashappened or what is likely to happen to him, "as in a map the voyagerhis course." Those who read the times and seasons in the aspect of theheavens and the configurations of the stars, who count by moons andknow when the sun rises and sets, are by no means ignorant of theirown affairs or of the common concatenation of events. People in suchsituations have not their faculties distracted by any multiplicity ofinquiries beyond what befalls themselves, and the outward appearancesthat mark the change. There is, therefore, a simplicity and clearnessin the knowledge they possess, which often puzzles the more learned. Iam sometimes surprised at a shepherd-boy by the roadside, who seesnothing but the earth and sky, asking me the time of day—he ought toknow so much better than any one how far the sun is above the horizon.I suppose he wants to ask a question of a passenger, or to see if hehas a watch. Robinson Crusoe lost his reckoning in the monotony of hislife and that bewildering dream of solitude, and was fain to haverecourse to the notches in a piece of wood. What a diary was his! Andhow time must have spread its circuit round him, vast and pathless asthe ocean!

For myself, I have never had a watch nor any other mode of keepingtime in my possession, nor ever wish to learn how time goes. It is asign I have had little to do, few avocations, few engagements. When Iam in a town, I can hear the clock; and when I am in the country, Ican listen to the silence. What I like best is to lie whole morningson a sunny bank on Salisbury Plain, without any object before me,neither knowing nor caring how time passes, and thus "withlight-winged toys of feathered Idleness" to melt down hours tomoments. Perhaps some such thoughts as I have here set down floatbefore me like motes before my half-shut eyes, or some vivid image ofthe past by forcible contrast rushes by me—"Diana and her fawn, andall the glories of the antique world;" then I start away to preventthe iron from entering my soul, and let fall some tears into thatstream of time which separates me farther and farther from all I onceloved! At length I rouse myself from my reverie, and home to dinner,proud of killing time with thought, nay even without thinking.Somewhat of this idle humour I inherit from my father, though he hadnot the same freedom from ennui, for he was not a metaphysician; andthere were stops and vacant intervals in his being which he did notknow how to fill up. He used in these cases, and as an obviousresource, carefully to wind up his watch at night, and "withlack-lustre eye" more than once in the course of the day look to seewhat o'clock it was. Yet he had nothing else in his character incommon with the elder Mr. Shandy. Were I to attempt a sketch of him,for my own or the reader's satisfaction, it would be after thefollowing manner:——but now I recollect, I have done something of thekind once before, and were I to resume the subject here, some bat orowl of a critic, with spectacled gravity, might swear I had stolen thewhole of this Essay from myself—or (what is worse) from him! So I hadbetter let it go as it is.

Hazlitt.

OF THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH

No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of mybrother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth,which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one ofthe Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown—the other halfremains in store for us with all its countless treasures; for there isno line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We makethe coming age our own.——

"The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us."

Death, old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by us like theidle air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may stillbe liable to them—we "bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn allsuch sickly fancies. As in setting out on a delightful journey, westrain our eager gaze forward—

"Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail,"—

and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves aswe advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to ourinclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifyingthem. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and itseems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world,full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel inourselves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do notforesee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in thenatural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into thegrave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstractedness of ourfeelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and(our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us intoa belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lived connection withexistence, we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lastingunion—a honey-moon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation.As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our waywardfancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe aroundus—we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it,instead of which it only overflows the more—objects press around us,filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desiresthat wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts ofdeath. From that plenitude of our being, we cannot change all at onceto dust and ashes, we cannot imagine "this sensible, warm motion, tobecome a kneaded clod"—we are too much dazzled by the brightness ofthe waking dream around us to look into the darkness of the tomb. Weno more see our end than our beginning: the one is lost in oblivionand vacancy, as the other is hid from us by the crowd and hurry ofapproaching events. Or the grim shadow is seen lingering in thehorizon, which we are doomed never to overtake, or whose last, faint,glimmering outline touches upon Heaven and translates us to the skies!Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to detach ourthoughts from present objects and pursuits, even if we would. What isthere more opposed to health, than sickness; to strength and beauty,than decay and dissolution; to the active search of knowledge thanmere oblivion? Or is there none of the usual advantage to bar theapproach of Death, and mock his idle threats; Hope supplies theirplace, and draws a veil over the abrupt termination of all ourcherished schemes. While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, erethe "wine of life is drank up," we are like people intoxicated or in afever, who are hurried away by the violence of their own sensations:it is only as present objects begin to pall upon the sense, as we havebeen disappointed in our favourite pursuits, cut off from our closestties, that passion loosens its hold upon the breast, that we bydegrees become weaned from the world, and allow ourselves tocontemplate, "as in a glass, darkly," the possibility of parting withit for good. The example of others, the voice of experience, has noeffect upon us whatever. Casualties we must avoid: the slow anddeliberate advances of age we can play at hide-and-seek with. Wethink ourselves too lusty and too nimble for that blear-eyed decrepidold gentleman to catch us. Like the foolish fat scullion, in Sterne,when she hears that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is—"Soam not I!" The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence,rather seems to strengthen and enhance our possession and ourenjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves, or be moweddown like flowers by the scythe of Time: these are but tropes andfigures to the unreflecting ears and overweening presumption of youth.It is not till we see the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy, witheringaround us, and our own pleasures cut up by the roots, that we bringthe moral home to ourselves, that we abate something of the wantonextravagance of our pretensions, or that the emptiness and drearinessof the prospect before us reconciles us to the stillness of the grave!

"Life! thou strange thing, that hast a power to feel
Thou art, and to perceive that others are."[39]

[Footnote 39: Fawcett's Art of War, a poem, 1794.]

Well might the poet begin his indignant invective against an art,whose professed object is its destruction, with this animatedapostrophe to life. Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privilegesare most miraculous. Nor is it singular that when the splendid boon isfirst granted us, our gratitude, our admiration, and our delightshould prevent us from reflecting on our own nothingness, or fromthinking it will ever be recalled. Our first and strongest impressionsare taken from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we veryinnocently transfer its durability as well as magnificence toourselves. So newly found, we cannot make up our minds to parting withit yet and at least put off that consideration to an indefinite term.Like a clown at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and haveno thoughts of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know ourexistence only for external objects, and we measure it by them. We cannever be satisfied with gazing; and nature will still want us to lookon and applaud. Otherwise, the sumptuous entertainment, "the feast ofreason and the flow of soul," to which they were invited, seems littlebetter than a mockery and a cruel insult. We do not go from a playtill the scene is ended, and the lights are ready to be extinguished.But the fair face of things still shines on; shall we be called away,before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of whatis going on? Like children, our stepmother Nature holds us up to seethe raree-show of the universe; and then, as if life were a burthen tosupport, lets us instantly down again. Yet in that short interval,what "brave sublunary things" does not the spectacle unfold; like abubble, at one minute reflecting the universe, and the next, shook toair!—To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean,to walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures,to look down giddy precipices or over distant flowery vales, to seethe world spread out under one's finger in a map, to bring the starsnear, to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history,and witness the revolutions of empires and the succession ofgenerations, to hear of the glory of Sidon and Tyre, of Babylon andSusa, as of a faded pageant, and to say all these were, and are nownothing, to think that we exist in such a point of time, and in such acorner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the movingscene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, tohear

——"The stockdove plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale"——

to traverse desert wildernesses, to listen to the midnight choir, tovisit lighted halls, or plunge into the dungeon's gloom, or sit incrowded theatres and see life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold,pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, to study theworks of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worship fameand to dream of immortality, to have read Shakspeare and belong to thesame species as Sir Isaac Newton;[40] to be and to do all this, andthen in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one likea juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria; there is something revolting andincredible to sense in the transition, and no wonder that, aided byyouth and warm blood, and the flush of enthusiasm, the mind contrivesfor a long time to reject it with disdain and loathing as a monstrousand improbable fiction, like a monkey on a house-top, that is loath,amidst its fine discoveries and specious antics, to be tumbledhead-long into the street, and crushed to atoms, the sport andlaughter of the multitude!

[Footnote 40: Lady Wortley Montagu says, in one of her letters, that"she would much rather be a rich effendi, with all his ignorance,than Sir Isaac Newton, with all his knowledge." This was not perhapsan impolitic choice, as she had a better chance of becoming one thanthe other, there being many rich effendis to one Sir Isaac Newton. Thewish was not a very intellectual one. The same petulance of rank andsex breaks out everywhere in these "Letters". She is constantlyreducing the poets or philosophers who have the misfortune of heracquaintance, to the figure they might make at her Ladyship's levee ortoilette, not considering that the public mind does not sympathizewith this process of a fastidious imagination. In the same spirit, shedeclares of Pope and Swift, that "had it not been for thegood-nature of mankind, these two superior beings were entitled, bytheir birth and hereditary fortune, to be only a couple of link-boys."Gulliver's Travels, and the Rape of the Lock, go for nothing in thiscritical estimate, and the world raised the authors to the rank ofsuperior beings, in spite of their disadvantages of birth and fortune,out of pure good-nature! So, again, she says of Richardson, that hehad never got beyond the servants' hall, and was utterly unfit todescribe the manners of people of quality; till, in the capriciousworkings of her vanity, she persuades herself that Clarissa is verylike what she was at her age, and that Sir Thomas and Lady Grandisonstrongly resembled what she had heard of her mother and remembered ofher father. It is one of the beauties and advantages of literature,that it is the means of abstracting the mind from the narrowness oflocal and personal prejudices, and of enabling us to judge of truthand excellence by their inherent merits alone. Woe be to the pen thatwould undo this fine illusion (the only reality), and teach us toregulate our notions of genius and virtue by the circ*mstances inwhich they happen to be placed! You would not expect a person whom yousaw in a servants' hall, or behind a counter, to write Clarissa; butafter he had written the work, to pre-judge it from the situation ofthe writer, is an unpardonable piece of injustice and folly. His meritcould only be the greater from the contrast. If literature is anelegant accomplishment, which none but persons of birth and fashionshould be allowed to excel in, or to exercise with advantage to thepublic, let them by all means take upon them the task of enlighteningand refining mankind: if they decline this responsibility as too heavyfor their shoulders, let those who do the drudgery in their stead,however inadequately, for want of their polite example, receive themeed that is their due, and not to be treated as low pretenders whohave encroached on the province of their betters. Suppose Richardsonto have been acquainted with the great man's steward, or valet,instead of the great man himself, I will venture to say that there wasmore difference between him who lived in an ideal world, and had thegenius and felicity to open that world to others, and his friend thesteward, than between the lacquey and the mere lord, or between thosewho lived in different rooms of the same house, who dined on the sameluxuries at different tables, who rode outside or inside of the samecoach, and were proud of wearing or of bestowing the same tawdrylivery. If the lord is distinguished from his valet by any thing else,it is by education and talent, which he has in common with our author.But if the latter shows these in the highest degree, it is asked whatare his pretensions? Not birth or fortune, for neither of these wouldenable him to write a Clarissa. One man is born with a title andestate, another with genius. That is sufficient; and we have no rightto question the genius for want of gentility, unless the former ranin families, or could be bequeathed with a fortune, which is not thecase. Were it so, the flowers of literature, like jewels andembroidery, would be confined to the fashionable circles; and therewould be no pretenders to taste or elegance but those whose names werefound in the court list. No one objects to Claude's Landscapes as thework of a pastrycook, or withholds from Raphael the epithet ofdivine, because his parents were not rich. This impertinence isconfined to men of letters; the evidence of the senses baffles theenvy and foppery of mankind. No quarter ought to be given to thisaristocratic tone of criticism whenever it appears. People ofquality are not contented with carrying all the external advantagesfor their own share, but would persuade you that all the intellectualones are packed up in the same bundle. Lord Byron was a later instanceof this double and unwarrantable style of pretension—monstrumingens, biforme. He could not endure a lord who was not a wit, nor apoet who was not a lord. Nobody but himself answered to his ownstandard of perfection. Mr. Moore carries a proxy in his pocket fromsome noble persons to estimate literary merit by the same rule. LadyMary calls Fielding names, but she afterwards makes atonement by doingjustice to his frank, free, hearty nature, where she says "his spiritsgave him raptures with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he wasstarving in a garret, and his happy constitution made him forget everything when he was placed before a venison-pasty or over a flask ofchampagne." She does not want shrewdness and spirit when her petulanceand conceit do not get the better of her, and she has done ample andmerited execution on Lord Bolingbroke. She is, however, very angry atthe freedoms taken with the Great; smells a rat in thisindiscriminate scribbling, and the familiarity of writers with thereading public; and inspired by her Turkish costume, foretells aFrench or English revolution as the consequence of transferring thepatronage of letters from the quality to the mob, and of supposingthat ordinary writers or readers can have any notions in common withtheir superiors.]

The change, from the commencement to the close of life, appears like afable, after it has taken place; how should we treat it otherwise thanas a chimera before it has come to pass? There are some things thathappened so long ago, places or persons we have formerly seen, ofwhich such dim traces remain, we hardly know whether it was sleepingor waking they occurred; they are like dreams within the dream oflife, a mist, a film before the eye of memory, which, as we try torecall them more distinctly, elude our notice altogether. It is butnatural that the lone interval that we thus look back upon, shouldhave appeared long and endless in prospect. There are others sodistinct and fresh, they seem but of yesterday—their very vividnessmight be deemed a pledge of their permanence. Then, however far backour impressions may go, we find others still older (for our years aremultiplied in youth); descriptions of scenes that we had read, andpeople before our time, Priam and the Trojan war; and even then,Nestor was old and dwelt delighted on his youth, and spoke of therace, of heroes that were no more;—what wonder that, seeing this longline of being pictured in our minds, and reviving as it were in us, weshould give ourselves involuntary credit for an indeterminate periodof existence? In the Cathedral at Peterborough there is a monument toMary, Queen of Scots, at which I used to gaze when a boy, while theevents of the period, all that had happened since, passed in reviewbefore me. If all this mass of feeling and imagination could becrowded into a moment's compass, what might not the whole of life besupposed to contain? We are heirs of the past; we count upon thefuture as our natural reversion. Besides, there are some of our earlyimpressions so exquisitely tempered, it appears that they must alwayslast—nothing can add to or take away from their sweetness andpurity—the first breath of spring, the hyacinth dipped in the dew,the mild lustre of the evening-star, the rainbow after a storm—whilewe have the full enjoyment of these, we must be young; and what canever alter us in this respect? Truth, friendship, love, books, arealso proof against the canker of time; and while we live, but forthem, we can never grow old. We take out a new lease of existence fromthe objects on which we set our affections, and become abstracted,impassive, immortal in them. We cannot conceive how certain sentimentsshould ever decay or grow cold in our breasts; and, consequently, tomaintain them in their first youthful glow and vigour, the flame oflife must continue to burn as bright as ever, or rather, they are thefuel that feed the sacred lamp, that kindle "the purple light oflove," and spread a golden cloud around our heads! Again, we not onlyflourish and survive in our affections (in which we will not listen tothe possibility of a change, any more than we foresee the wrinkles onthe brow of a mistress), but we have a farther guarantee against thethoughts of death in our favourite studies and pursuits, and in theircontinual advance. Art we know is long; life, we feel, should be sotoo. We see no end of the difficulties we have to encounter:perfection is slow of attainment, and we must have time to accomplish*t in. Rubens complained that when he had just learnt his art, he wassnatched away from it: we trust we shall be more fortunate! A wrinklein an old head takes whole days to finish it properly: but to catch"the Raphael grace, the Guido air," no limit should be put to ourendeavours. What a prospect for the future! What a task we haveentered upon! and shall we be arrested in the middle of it? We do notreckon our time thus employed lost, or our pains thrown away, or ourprogress slow—we do not droop or grow tired, but "gain new vigour atour endless task;"—and shall Time grudge us the opportunity to finishwhat we have auspiciously begun, and have formed a sort of compactwith nature to achieve? The fame of the great names we look up to isalso imperishable; and shall not we, who contemplate it with suchintense yearnings, imbibe a portion of ethereal fire, the divinæparticula auræ, which nothing can extinguish? I remember to havelooked at a print of Rembrandt for hours together, without beingconscious of the flight of time, trying to resolve it into itscomponent parts, to connect its strong and sharp gradations, to learnthe secret of its reflected lights, and found neither satiety norpause in the prosecution of my studies. The print over which I wasporing would last long enough; why should the idea in my mind, whichwas finer, more impalpable, perish before it? At this, I redoubled theardour of my pursuit, and by the very subtlety and refinement of myinquiries, seemed to bespeak for them an exemption from corruption andthe rude grasp of Death.[41]

[Footnote 41: Is it not this that frequently keeps artists alive solong, viz. the constant occupation of their minds with vivid images,with little of the wear-and-tear of the body?]

Objects, on our first acquaintance with them, have that singleness andintegrity of impression that it seems as if nothing could destroy orobliterate them, so firmly are they stamped and rivetted on the brain.We repose on them with a sort of voluptuous indolence, in full faithand boundless confidence. We are absorbed in the present moment, orreturn to the same point—idling away a great deal of time in youth,thinking we have enough and to spare. There is often a local feelingin the air, which is as fixed as if it were of marble; we loiter indim cloisters, losing ourselves in thought and in their glimmeringarches; a winding road before us seems as long as the journey of life,and as full of events. Time and experience dissipate this illusion;and by reducing them to detail, circ*mscribe the limits of ourexpectations. It is only as the pageant of life passes by and themasques turn their backs upon us, that we see through the deception,or believe that the train will have an end. In many cases, the slowprogress and monotonous texture of our lives, before we mingle withthe world and are embroiled in its affairs, has a tendency to aid thesame feeling. We have a difficulty, when left to ourselves, andwithout the resource of books or some more lively pursuit, to "beguilethe slow and creeping hours of time," and argue that if it moves onalways at this tedious snail's-pace, it can never come to an end. Weare willing to skip over certain portions of it that separate us fromfavourite objects, that irritate ourselves at the unnecessary delay.The young are prodigal of life from a superabundance of it; the oldare tenacious on the same score, because they have little left, andcannot enjoy even what remains of it.

For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, and thatevent had considerable influence on my early feelings, as on those ofothers. Youth was then doubly such. It was the dawn of a new era, anew impulse had been given to men's minds, and the sun of Liberty roseupon the sun of Life in the same day, and both were proud to run theirrace together. Little did I dream, while my first hopes and wisheswent hand in hand with those of the human race, that long before myeyes should close, that dawn would be overcast, and set once more inthe night of despotism—"total eclipse!" Happy that I did not. I feltfor years, and during the best part of my existence, heart-whole inthat cause, and triumphed in the triumphs over the enemies of man! Atthat time, while the fairest aspirations of the human mind seemedabout to be realized, ere the image of man was defaced and his breastmangled in scorn, philosophy took a higher, poetry could afford adeeper range. At that time, to read the "Robbers," was indeeddelicious, and to hear

"From the dungeon of the tower time-rent,
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry,"

could be borne only amidst the fulness of hope, the crash of the fallof the strongholds of power, and the exulting sounds of the march ofhuman freedom. What feelings the death-scene in Don Carlos sent intothe soul! In that headlong career of lofty enthusiasm, and the joyousopening of the prospects of the world and our own, the thought ofdeath crossing it, smote doubly cold upon the mind; there was astifling sense of oppression and confinement, an impatience of ourpresent knowledge, a desire to grasp the whole of our existence in onestrong embrace, to sound the mystery of life and death, and in orderto put an end to the agony of doubt and dread, to burst through ourprison-house, and confront the King of Terrors in his grislypalace!… As I was writing out this passage, my miniature-picturewhen a child lay on the mantle-piece, and I took it out of the case tolook at it. I could perceive few traces of myself in it; but there wasthe same placid brow, the dimpled mouth, the same timid, inquisitiveglance as ever. But its careless smile did not seem to reproach mewith having become a recreant to the sentiments that were then sown inmy mind, or with having written a sentence that could call up a blushin this image of ingenuous youth!

"That time is past with all its giddy raptures." Since the future wasbarred to my progress, I have turned for consolation to the past,gathering up the fragments of my early recollections, and putting theminto a form that might live. It is thus, that when we find ourpersonal and substantial identity vanishing from us, we strive to gaina reflected and substituted one in our thoughts: we do not like toperish wholly, and wish to bequeath our names at least to posterity.As long as we can keep alive our cherished thoughts and nearestinterests in the minds of others, we do not appear to have retiredaltogether from the stage, we still occupy a place in the estimationof mankind, exercise a powerful influence over them, and it is onlyour bodies that are trampled into dust or dispersed to air. Ourdarling speculations still find favour and encouragement, and we makeas good a figure in the eyes of our descendants, nay, perhaps, abetter than we did in our life-time. This is one point gained; thedemands of our self-love are so far satisfied. Besides, if by theproofs of intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this world,by exemplary virtue or unblemished faith, we are taught to ensure aninterest in another and a higher state of being, and to anticipate atthe same time the applauses of men and angels.

"Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries;
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires."

As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time.Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misersin this respect. We try to arrest its few last tottering steps, and tomake it linger on the brink of the grave. We can never leave offwondering how that which has ever been should cease to be, and wouldstill live on, that we may wonder at our own shadow, and when "all thelife of life is flown," dwell on the retrospect of the past. This isaccompanied by a mechanical tenaciousness of whatever we possess, by adistrust and a sense of fallacious hollowness in all we see. Insteadof the full, pulpy feeling of youth, everything is flat and insipid.The world is a painted witch, that puts us off with false shows andtempting appearances. The ease, the jocund gaiety, the unsuspectingsecurity of youth are fled: nor can we, without flying in the face ofcommon sense,

"From the last dregs of life, hope to receive
What its first sprightly runnings could not give."

If we can slip out of the world without notice or mischance, cantamper with bodily infirmity, and frame our minds to the becomingcomposure of still-life, before we sink into total insensibility, itis as much as we ought to expect. We do not in the regular course ofnature die all at once: we have mouldered away gradually long before;faculty after faculty, attachment after attachment, we are torn fromourselves piece-meal while living; year after year takes somethingfrom us; and death only consigns the last remnant of what we were tothe grave. The revulsion is not so great, and a quiet euthanasia isa winding-up of the plot, that is not out of reason or nature.

That we should thus in a manner outlive ourselves, and dwindleimperceptibly into nothing, is not surprising, when even in our primethe strongest impressions leave so little traces of themselves behind,and the last object is driven out by the succeeding one. How littleeffect is produced on us at any time by the books we have read, thescenes we have witnessed, the sufferings we have gone through! Thinkonly of the variety of feelings we experience in reading aninteresting romance, or being present at a fine play—what beauty,what sublimity, what soothing, what heart-rending emotions! You wouldsuppose these would last for ever, or at least subdue the mind to acorrespondent tone and harmony—while we turn over the page, while thescene is passing before us, it seems as if nothing could ever aftershake our resolution, that "treason domestic, foreign levy, nothingcould touch us farther!" The first splash of mud we get, on enteringthe street, the first pettifogging shop-keeper that cheats us out oftwopence, and the whole vanishes clean out of our remembrance, and webecome the idle prey of the most petty and annoying circ*mstances. Themind soars by an effort to the grand and lofty: it is at home, in thegrovelling, the disagreeable, and the little. This happens in theheight and heyday of our existence, when novelty gives a strongerimpulse to the blood and takes a faster hold of the brain, (I haveknown the impression on coming out of a gallery of pictures then lasthalf a day)—as we grow old, we become more feeble and querulous,every object "reverbs its own hollowness," and both worlds are notenough to satisfy the peevish importunity and extravagant presumptionof our desires! There are a few superior, happy beings, who are bornwith a temper exempt from every trifling annoyance. This spirit sitsserene and smiling as in its native skies, and a divine harmony(whether heard or not) plays around them. This is to be at peace.Without this, it is in vain to fly into deserts, or to build ahermitage on the top of rocks, if regret and ill-humour follow usthere: and with this, it is needless to make the experiment. The onlytrue retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is therepose of the passions. To such persons it makes little differencewhether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, withgraceful resignation.

Hazlitt.

A VISION

A feeling of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont to takepossession of me alike in spring and in autumn. But in spring it isthe melancholy of hope: in autumn it is the melancholy of resignation.As I was journeying on foot through the Apennines, I fell in with apilgrim in whom the spring and the autumn and the melancholy of bothseemed to have combined. In his discourse there were the freshness andthe colours of April:

"Qual ramicel a ramo,
Tal da pensier pensiero
In lui germogliava."

But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethought me of the notunlovely decays, both of age and of the late season, in the statelyelm, after the clusters have been plucked from its entwining vines,and the vines are as bands of dried withies around its trunk andbranches. Even so there was a memory on his smooth and ample forehead,which blended with the dedication of his steady eyes, that stilllooked—I know not, whether upward, or far onward, or rather to theline of meeting where the sky rests upon the distance. But how may Iexpress—the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?—on the lustre of thepilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with theirslow and reluctant movement, whenever he turned them to any object onthe right hand or on the left? It seemed, methought, as if there layupon the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments now unfelt,but never forgotten. It was at once the melancholy of hope and ofresignation.

We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sudden tempest of windand rain forced us to seek protection in the vaulted doorway of a lonechapelry: and we sat face to face, each on the stone bench alongsidethe low, weather-stained wall, and as close as possible to the massydoor.

After a pause of silence: "Even thus," said he, "like two strangersthat have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not seldom dodespair and hope meet for the first time in the porch of death!" "Allextremes meet," I answered; "but yours was a strange and visionarythought." "The better then doth it beseem both the place and me," hereplied. "From a visionary wilt thou hear a vision? Mark that vividflash through this torrent of rain! Fire and water. Even here thyadage holds true, and its truth is the moral of my vision." Ientreated him to proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yetaverting his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his words:till listening to the wind that echoed within the hollow edifice, andto the rain without,

"Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound,
The clash hard by and the murmur all round,"

he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his own purpose, andamid the gloom of the storm and in the duskiness of that place he satlike an emblem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like an aged mourner onthe sodded grave of an only one, who is watching the waned moon andsorroweth not. Starting at length from his brief trance ofabstraction, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed hisdiscourse, and commenced his parable:

"During one of those short furloughs from the service of the body,which the soul may sometimes obtain even in this, its militant state,I found myself in a vast plain, which I immediately knew to be theValley of Life. It possessed an astonishing diversity of soils: andhere was a sunny spot, and there a dark one, forming just such amixture of sunshine and shade as we may have observed on themountain's side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds arescattered over heaven. Almost in the very entrance of the valley stooda large and gloomy pile, into which I seemed constrained to enter.Every part of the building was crowded with tawdry ornaments andfantastic deformity. On every window was portrayed, in glaring andinelegant colours, some horrible tale or preternatural incident, sothat not a ray of light could enter, untinged by the medium throughwhich it passed. The body of the building was full of people, some ofthem dancing in and out, in unintelligible figures, with strangeceremonies and antic merriment, while others seemed convulsed withhorror, or pining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, Iobserved a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes, who appearednow to marshal the various groups and to direct their movements; andnow, with menacing countenances, to drag some reluctant victim to avast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the sametime an immense cage, and the form of a human Colossus.

"I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things might mean; whenlo! one of the directors came up to me, and with a stern andreproachful look bade me uncover my head; for that the place, intowhich I had entered, was the temple of the only true religion, in theholier recesses of which the great goddess personally resided. Himselftoo he bade me reverence, as the consecrated minister of her rites.Awe-struck by the name of religion, I bowed before the priest, andhumbly and earnestly intreated him to conduct me into her presence. Heassented. Offerings he took from me, with mystic sprinklings of waterand with salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he exorcisedme; and then led me through many a dark and winding alley, thedew-damps of which chilled my flesh, and the hollow echoes under myfeet, mingled, methought, with moanings, affrighted me. At length weentered a large hall where not even a single lamp glimmered. It wasmade half visible by the wan phosphoric rays which proceeded frominscriptions on the walls, in letters of the same pale and sepulchrallight. I could read them, methought; but though each one of the wordstaken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I took them insentences, they were riddles and incomprehensible. As I stoodmeditating on these hard sayings, my guide thus addressed me: 'Thefallible becomes infallible, and the infallible remains fallible. Readand believe: these are mysteries!' In the middle of the vast hall thegoddess was placed. Her features, blended with darkness, rose out tomy view, terrible, yet vacant. No definite thought, no distinct imagewas afforded me: all was uneasy and obscure feeling. I prostratedmyself before her, and then retired with my guide, soul-withered, andwondering, and dissatisfied.

"As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deep buzz as ofdiscontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing orsteady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like,above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed by meditativethought, and a much larger number who were enraged by the severity andinsolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected inone tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry of 'This is theTemple of Superstition!' after much contumely, and turmoil, and cruelmal-treatment on all sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought,joined them.

"We speeded from the temple with hasty steps, and had now nearly goneround half the valley, when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyondthe stature of mortals, and with a something more than human in hercountenance and mien, which yet could by mortals be only felt, notconveyed by words or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection,animated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them; and hope, withoutit* uncertainty, and a something more than all these, which Iunderstood not; but which yet seemed to blend all these into a divineunity of expression. Her garments were white and matronly, and of thesimplest texture. We inquired her name. My name, she replied, isReligion.

"The more numerous part of our company, affrighted by the very sound,and sore from recent impostures or sorceries, hurried onwards andexamined no farther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition ofher form and manner to those of the living Idol, whom we had sorecently abjured, agreed to follow her, though with cautiouscirc*mspection. She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley,from the top of which we could command the whole plain, and observethe relation of the different parts, of each to the other, and of eachto the whole, and of all to each. She then gave us an optic glasswhich assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and enabledus to see far beyond the limits of the Valley of Life; though our eyeeven thus assisted permitted us only to behold a light and a glory,but what we could not descry, save only that it was, and that it wasmost glorious.

"And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I had overtaken andrejoined the more numerous party, who had abruptly left us, indignantat the very name of religion. They journeyed on, goading each otherwith remembrances of past oppressions, and never looking back, till inthe eagerness to recede from the Temple of Superstition they hadrounded the whole circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us themouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and almostperpendicular rock, the interior side of which, unknown to them, andunsuspected, formed the extreme and backward wall of the temple. Animpatient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was theonly perforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cave sat twofigures; the first, by her dress and gestures, I knew to beSensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour, andthe brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared himself to be themonster Blasphemy. He uttered big words, and yet ever and anon Iobserved that he turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Someremained in the opening of the cave, with the one or the other of itsguardians. The rest, and I among them, pressed on, till we reached anample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of theplace was unnaturally cold.

"In the furthest distance of the chamber sat an old dim-eyed man,poring with a microscope over the torso of a statue, which had neitherbase, nor feet, nor head; but on its breast was carved, Nature! Tothis he continually applied his glass, and seemed enraptured with thevarious inequalities which it rendered visible on the seeminglypolished surface of the marble. Yet evermore was this delight andtriumph followed by expressions of hatred, and vehement railingagainst a Being who yet, he assured us, had no existence. This mysterysuddenly recalled to me what I had read in the holiest recess of theTemple of Superstition. The old man spoke in divers tongues, andcontinued to utter other and most strange mysteries. Among the rest hetalked much and vehemently concerning an infinite series of causes andeffects, which he explained to be—a string of blind men, the last ofwhom caught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of the next,and so on till they were all out of sight; and that they all walkedinfallibly straight, without making one false step, though all werealike blind. Methought I borrowed courage from surprise, and askedhim—Who then is at the head to guide them? He looked at me withineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry suspicion, and thenreplied, 'No one;—the string of blind men went on for ever withoutany beginning: for although one blind man could not move withoutstumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight.' I burstinto laughter, which instantly turned to terror—for as he startedforward in rage, I caught a glance of him from behind; and lo! Ibeheld a monster biform and Janus-headed, in the hinder face and shapeof which I instantly recognised the dread countenance ofSuperstition—and in the terror I awoke."

Coleridge.

UPON EPITAPHS

It needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument,upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished thatcertain external signs should point out the places where their Deadare interred. Among savage Tribes unacquainted with Letters, this hasmostly been done either by rude stones placed near the Graves, or byMounds of earth raised over them. This custom proceeded obviously froma twofold desire; first, to guard the remains of the deceased fromirreverent approach or from savage violation: and, secondly, topreserve their memory. "Never any," says Camden, "neglected burial butsome savage Nations; as the Bactrians, which cast their dead to thedogs; some varlet Philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to bedevoured of fishes; some dissolute Courtiers, as Mæcenas, who was wontto say, Non tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos.

"I'm careless of a Grave:—Nature her dead will save."

As soon as Nations had learned the use of letters, Epitaphs wereinscribed upon these Monuments; in order that their intention might bemore surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived Monuments andEpitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolvethemselves into one. The invention of Epitaphs, Weever, in hisDiscourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, "proceeded from thepresage or fore-feeling of Immortality, implanted in all mennaturally, and is referred to the Scholars of Linus the Theban Poet,who flourished about the year of the World two thousand seven hundred;who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, indoleful verses, then called of him OElina, afterwards Epitaphia, forthat they were first sung at burials, after engraved upon theSepulchres."

And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of Immortalityin the human soul, Man could never have had awakened in him the desireto live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere love, or the yearningof Kind towards Kind, could not have produced it. The Dog or Horseperishes in the field, or in the stall, by the side of his companions,and is incapable of anticipating the sorrow with which his surroundingAssociates shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannotpre-conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and thereforecannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrancebehind him. Add to the principle of love, which exists in the inferioranimals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone; will theconjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it is anecessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not I think as a directresult, but only to be come at through an intermediate thought, viz.That of an intimation or assurance within us, that some part of ournature is imperishable. At least the precedence, in order of birth, ofone feeling to the other, is unquestionable. If we look back upon thedays of childhood, we shall find that the time is not in remembrancewhen, with respect to our own individual Being, the mind was withoutthis assurance; whereas the wish to be remembered by our Friends orKindred after Death, or even in Absence, is, as we shall discover, asensation that does not form itself till the social feelings havebeen developed, and the Reason has connected itself with a wide rangeof objects. Forlorn, and cut off from communication with the best partof his nature, must that Man be, who should derive the sense ofimmortality, as it exists in the mind of a Child, from the sameunthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal Spirits with which the Lambin the meadow, or any other irrational Creature, is endowed; whoshould ascribe it, in short, to blank ignorance in the Child; to aninability arising from the imperfect state of his faculties to come,in any point of his being, into contact with a notion of Death; or toan unreflecting acquiescence in what had been instilled into him! Hassuch an unfolder of the mysteries of Nature, though he may haveforgotten his former self, ever noticed the early, obstinate, andunappeasable inquisitiveness of Children upon the subject oforigination? This single fact proves outwardly the monstrousness ofthose suppositions: for, if we had no direct external testimony thatthe minds of very young Children meditate feelingly upon Death andImmortality, these inquiries, which we all know they are perpetuallymaking concerning the whence, do necessarily include correspondenthabits of interrogation concerning the whither. Origin and tendencyare notions inseparably co-relative. Never did a Child stand by theside of a running Stream, pondering within himself what power was thefeeder of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources thebody of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelledto follow this question by another: "towards what abyss is it inprogress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?" And thespirit of the answer must have been, though the word might be Sea orOcean, accompanied perhaps with an image gathered from a Map, or fromthe real object in Nature—these might have been the letter, but thespirit of the answer must have been as inevitably,—a receptaclewithout bounds or dimensions;—nothing less than infinity. We may,then, be justified in asserting, that the sense of Immortality, if nota co-existent and twin birth with Reason, is among the earliest of herOffspring: and we may further assert, that from these conjoined, andunder their countenance, the human affections are gradually formed andopened out. This is not the place to enter into the recesses of theseinvestigations; but the subject requires me here to make a plainavowal, that, for my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that thesympathies of love towards each other, which grow with our growth,could ever attain any new strength, or even preserve the old, after wehad received from the outward senses the impression of Death, and werein the habit of having that impression daily renewed and itsaccompanying feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we love;if the same were not counteracted by those communications with ourinternal Being, which are anterior to all these experiences, and withwhich revelation coincides, and has through that coincidence alone(for otherwise it could not possess it) a power to affect us. Iconfess, with me the conviction is absolute, that, if the impressionand sense of Death were not thus counterbalanced, such a hollownesswould pervade the whole system of things, such a want ofcorrespondence and consistency, a disproportion so astounding betwixtmeans and ends, that there could be no repose, no joy. Were we to growup unfostered by this genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit,so penetrating and powerful, that there could be no motions of thelife of love; and infinitely less could we have any wish to beremembered after we had passed away from a world in which each man hadmoved about like a shadow.—If, then, in a Creature endowed with thefaculties of foresight and reason, the social affections could nothave unfolded themselves uncountenanced by the faith that Man is animmortal being; and if, consequently, neither could the individualdying have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his fellows,nor on their side could they have felt a wish to preserve for futuretimes vestiges of the departed; it follows, as a final inference, thatwithout the belief in Immortality, wherein these several desiresoriginate, neither monuments nor epitaphs, in affectionate orlaudatory commemoration of the Deceased, could have existed in theworld.

Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange Country, found theCorse of an unknown person, lying by the Sea-side; he buried it, andwas honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that Act. Anotherancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body,regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, "see theShell of the flown Bird!" But it is not to be supposed that the moraland tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements ofthought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while hissoul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the otherhand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human Body was of no morevalue than the worthless Shell from which the living fowl haddeparted, would not, in a different mood of mind, have been affectedby those earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poetto the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latterwe may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability ofcommuning with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to humanNature, he would have cared no more for the Corse of the Stranger thanfor the dead body of a Seal or Porpoise which might have been cast upby the Waves. We respect the corporeal frame of Man, not merelybecause it is the habitation of a rational, but of an immortal Soul.Each of these Sages was in Sympathy with the best feelings of ourNature; feelings which, though they seem opposite to each other, haveanother and a finer connection than that of contrast.—It is aconnection formed through the subtle progress by which, both in thenatural and the moral world, qualities pass insensibly into theircontraries, and things revolve upon each other. As, in sailing uponthe orb of this Planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sunsets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomedto behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyagetowards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning,leads finally to the quarter where the Sun is last seen when hedeparts from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in thedirection of mortality, advances to the Country of everlasting Life;and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those cheerfultracts, till she is brought back, for her advantage and benefit, tothe land of transitory things—of sorrow and of tears.

On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and feelingsof the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast, does the Authorof that species of composition, the Laws of which it is our presentpurpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to thetwofold desire of guarding the Remains of the deceased and preservingtheir memory, it may be said that a sepulchral Monument is a tributeto a Man as a human Being; and that an Epitaph, (in the ordinarymeaning attached to the word) includes this general feeling andsomething more; and is a record to preserve the memory of the dead, asa tribute due to his individual worth, for a satisfaction to thesorrowing hearts of the Survivors, and for the common benefit of theliving: which record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner,but, where it can, in close connection with the bodily remains of thedeceased: and these, it may be added, among the modern Nations ofEurope are deposited within, or contiguous to their places of worship.In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to bury the deadbeyond the Walls of Towns and Cities; and among the Greeks and Romansthey were frequently interred by the waysides.

I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulgewith me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attendedsuch a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which theMonuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding imagesof Nature—from the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream runningperhaps within sight or hearing, from the beaten road stretching itsweary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these objects havepresented to the mind of the Traveller leaning upon one of the Tombs,or reposing in the coolness of its shade, whether he had halted fromweariness or in compliance with the invitation, "Pause, Traveller!" sooften found upon the Monuments. And to its Epitaph also must have beensupplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediateimpressions, lively and affecting analogies of Life as aJourney—Death as a Sleep overcoming the tired Wayfarer—of Misfortuneas a Storm that falls suddenly upon him—of Beauty as a Flower thatpasseth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered—ofVirtue that standeth firm as a Rock against the beating Waves;—ofHope "undermined insensibly like the Poplar by the side of the Riverthat has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a Pine-tree by thestroke of lightning upon the Mountain-top—of admonitions andheart-stirring remembrances, like a refreshing Breeze that comeswithout warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected Fountain.These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to thelanguage of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by thebenignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.—We, in moderntimes, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a smalldegree counterbalanced to the Inhabitants of large Towns and Cities,by the custom of depositing the Dead within, or contiguous to, theirplaces of worship; however splendid or imposing may be the appearanceof those Edifices, or however interesting or salutary therecollections associated with them. Even were it not true that Tombslose their monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the Notice of Menoccupied with the cares of the World, and too often sullied anddefiled by those cares, yet still, when Death is in our thoughts,nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences ofNature, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay,which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious andcontemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a manonly compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which ourMonuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almostgrassless Church-yard of a large Town, with the still seclusion of aTurkish Cemetery, in some remote place; and yet further sanctified bythe Grove of Cypress in which it is embosomed. Thoughts in the sametemper as these have already been expressed with true sensibility byan ingenious Poet of the present day. The subject of his Poem is "AllSaints Church, Derby": he has been deploring the forbidding andunseemly appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish, that inpast times the practice had been adopted of interring the Inhabitantsof large Towns in the Country.—

Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot,
Where healing Nature her benignant look
Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when,
With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole,
She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man,
Her noblest work (so Israel's virgins erst,
With annual moan upon the mountains wept
Their fairest gone), there in that rural scene,
So placid, so congenial to the wish
The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within
The silent grave, I would have strayed:

* * * * *

—wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven
Lay on the humbler graves around, what time
The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds,
Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse,
'Twere brooding on the Dead inhumed beneath.
There while with him, the holy man of Uz,
O'er human destiny I sympathized,
Counting the long, long periods prophecy
Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives
Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring
Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove,
Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer
The Patriarch mourning over a world destroyed:
And I would bless her visit; for to me
'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links
As one, the works of Nature and the word
Of God.—

JOHN EDWARDS.

A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of Nature, mayindeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a Town of crowdedPopulation; and Sepulture therein combines many of the best tendencieswhich belong to the mode practised by the Ancients, with otherspeculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheerfulness, which attendthe celebration of the Sabbath-day in rural places, are profitablychastised by the sight of the Graves of Kindred and Friends, gatheredtogether in that general Home towards which the thoughtful yet happySpectators themselves are journeying. Hence a Parish Church, in thestillness of the Country, is a visible centre of a community of theliving and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred thenearest concerns of both.

As, then, both in Cities and in Villages, the Dead are deposited inclose connection with our places of worship, with us the compositionof an Epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the Nations ofAntiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the humanmind; upon departed Worth—upon personal or social Sorrow andAdmiration—upon Religion, individual and social—upon Time, and uponeternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure acomposition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing thatshall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle anEpitaph to praise, more than this is necessary. It ought to containsome Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part ofour Nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however generalor even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will readthe words with pleasure and gratitude. A Husband bewails a Wife; aParent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost Child; a Sonutters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed Father orMother; a Friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording thecompanionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the Tenant of theGrave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and apious admonition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christianconfidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand Church-yards;and it does not often happen that any thing, in a greater degreediscriminate or appropriate to the Dead or to the Living, is to befound in them. This want of discrimination has been ascribed by Dr.Johnson, in his Essay upon the Epitaphs of Pope, to two causes; first,the scantiness of the Objects of human praise; and, secondly, the wantof variety in the Characters of Men; or, to use his own words, "to thefact, that the greater part of Mankind have no character at all." Suchlanguage may be holden without blame among the generalities of commonconversation; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist speakingseriously upon a serious Subject. The objects of admiration inHuman-nature are not scanty, but abundant; and every Man has aCharacter of his own, to the eye that has skill to perceive it. Thereal cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchralmemorials is this: That to analyse the Characters of others,especially of those whom we love, is not a common or naturalemployment of Men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly tounderstand the constitution of the Minds of those who have soothed,who have cheered, who have supported us: with whom we have been longand daily pleased or delighted. The affections are their ownjustification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactoryevidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends orkindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thoughtof placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each otherin the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptationto detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue isdiscriminated in them from an excellence known by the same generalname as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do weincline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow,Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings whichincite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, byrecords placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalizingReceptacle of the Dead.

The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, ina tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language ofhumanity as connected with the subject of Death—the source from whichan Epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die arethe two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolutecoincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as toentitle an Epitaph to high praise; yet it cannot lay claim to thehighest unless other excellencies be superadded. Passing through allintermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what theseexcellencies are, and wherein consists the perfection of this speciesof composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of thecommon or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by adistinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of theIndividual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to bepreserved; at least of his character as, after Death, it appeared tothose who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought tobe quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts,actions, images,—circ*mstances of age, occupation, manner of life,prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he hadbeen subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized intoone harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper,restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and whatthe Man was whom he is called to think upon with interest. A distinctconception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather thanexplicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an Epitaphis not an Anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he isnot even a Painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entiretranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by theside of the Grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he lovesand admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, theimage of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character ofa deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no—nor ought to beseen, otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminousmist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed,but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appearmore dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall wesay, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and thataccordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?—It istruth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are notapparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at through thismedium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view, whichbefore had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is truthhallowed by love—the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and theaffections of the Living?—This may easily be brought to the test. Letone, whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discoverwhat was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of hisdeath, and what a change is wrought in a moment!—Enmity melts away;and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity,vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a harmony of loveand beauty succeeds. Bring such a Man to the Tombstone on which shallbe inscribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the spirit whichwe have recommended. Would he turn from it as from an idle tale!No—the thoughtful look, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear,would testify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; andthat on the Writer's mind had remained an impression which was a trueabstract of the character of the deceased; that his gifts and graceswere remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to beremembered. The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man,contemplated by the side of the Grave where his body is mouldering,ought to appear, and be felt as something midway between what he wason Earth walking about with his living frailties, and what he may bepresumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven.

It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of theWorth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Anyfurther detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if thisbe done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitablyfrustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to thisconclusion,—either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribedto him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, andmust therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him,were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the actof composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding havingbeen so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of theMourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether thefault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, theMemorial is unaffecting and profitless.

Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue ittoo far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so muchdisposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, whereinall Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universalFather is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers allHuman Beings to itself, and "equalizes the lofty and the low." Wesuffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious forone another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and thevirtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, aspatience, meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, arein an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then,contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor letthe sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of oppositequalities or minute distinctions in individual character; which ifthey do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined,resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they aretrue and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, asit is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of humannature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. Butan Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it isexposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant; it iscondescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its storyand admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, andindolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired; the stoopingold Man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;—the Childis proud that he can read it—and the Stranger is introduced by itsmediation to the company of a Friend: it is concerning all, and forall:—in the Churchyard it is open to the day; the sun looks down uponthe stone, and the rains of Heaven beat against it.

Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy is bound in this casemore than in any other, to give proof that he himself has been moved,it is to be remembered, that to raise a Monument is a sober and areflective act; that the inscription which it bears is intended to bepermanent, and for universal perusal; and that, for this reason, thethoughts and feelings expressed should be permanent also—liberatedfrom that weakness and anguish of sorrow which is in naturetransitory, and which with instinctive decency retires from notice.The passions should be subdued, the emotions controlled; strongindeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemlinessrequires this, and truth requires it also: for how can the Narratorotherwise be trusted? Moreover, a Grave is a tranquillizing object:resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as thewild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, orgathering round the monument by which it is defended. The very formand substance of the monument which has received the inscription, andthe appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow andlaborious hand they must have been engraven, might seem to reproachthe Author who had given way upon this occasion to transports of mind,or to quick turns of conflicting passion; though the same mightconstitute the life and beauty of a funeral Oration or elegiac Poem.

These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps unconsciously, havebeen one of the main causes why Epitaphs so often personate theDeceased, and represent him as speaking from his own Tombstone. Thedeparted Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains aregone; that a state of rest is come; and he conjures you to weep forhim no longer. He admonishes with the voice of one experienced in thevanity of those affections which are confined to earthly objects, andgives a verdict like a superior Being, performing the office of aJudge, who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose decisioncannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death disarmed of its sting, andaffliction unsubstantialized. By this tender fiction, the Survivorsbind themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention ofthe imagination in order that the reason may speak her own languageearlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This shadowyinterposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of the Livingand the Dead by their appropriate affections. And I may observe, thathere we have an additional proof of the propriety with whichsepulchral inscriptions were referred to the consciousness ofImmortality as their primal source.

I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an Epitaph should be castin this mould preferably to the still more common one, in which whatis said comes from the Survivors directly; but rather to point out hownatural those feelings are which have induced men, in all states andranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. And this I havedone chiefly in order that the laws, which ought to govern thecomposition of the other, may be better understood. This latter mode,namely, that in which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seemsto me upon the whole greatly preferable: as it admits a wider range ofnotices; and, above all, because, excluding the fiction which is thegroundwork of the other, it rests upon a more solid basis.

Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect Epitaph; but itmust be observed that one is meant which will best answer thegeneral ends of that species of composition. According to the coursepointed out, the worth of private life, through all varieties ofsituation and character, will be most honourably and profitablypreserved in memory. Nor would the model recommended less suit publicMen, in all instances save of those persons who by the greatness oftheir services in the employments of Peace or War, or by thesurpassing excellence of their works in Art, Literature, or Science,have made themselves not only universally known, but have filled theheart of their Country with everlasting gratitude. Yet I must herepause to correct myself. In describing the general tenour of thoughtwhich Epitaphs ought to hold, I have omitted to say, that, if it bethe actions of a Man, or even some one conspicuous or beneficialact of local or general utility, which have distinguished him, andexcited a desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, oughtthe attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act; andsuch sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it.Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.—The mightybenefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the immediateSurvivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to latestPosterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches, in such aplace; nor of delineations of character to individualize them. This isalready done by their Works, in the Memories of Men. Their naked namesand a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic Gratitude, patrioticLove, or human Admiration; or the utterance of some elementaryPrinciple most essential in the constitution of true Virtue; or anintuition, communicated in adequate words, of the sublimity ofintellectual Power,—these are the only tribute which can here bepaid—the only offering that upon such an Altar would not be unworthy!

What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a starry-pointing pyramid?
Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long Monument,
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

Wordsworth.

JEEMS THE DOORKEEPER

When my father was in Broughton Place Church, we had a doorkeepercalled Jeems, and a formidable little man and doorkeeper he was; ofunknown age and name, for he existed to us, and indeed still exists tome—though he has been in his grave these sixteen years—as Jeems,absolute and per se, no more needing a surname than did or doAbraham or Isaac, Samson or Nebuchadnezzar. We young people of thecongregation believed that he was out in the '45, and had his drumshot through and quenched at Culloden; and as for any indication onhis huge and grey visage, of his ever having been young, he mightsafely have been Bottom the Weaver in A Midsummer Night's Dream,or that excellent, ingenious, and "wise-hearted" Bezaleel, the son ofUri, whom Jeems regarded as one of the greatest of men and ofweavers, and whose "ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, andpurple, and scarlet, each of them with fifty loops on the edge of theselvedge in the coupling, with their fifty taches of gold," he, inconfidential moments, gave it to be understood were the sacredtriumphs of his craft; for, as you may infer, my friend was a man ofthe treddles and the shuttle, as well as the more renowned grandson ofHur.

Jeems's face was so extensive, and met you so formidably and atonce, that it mainly composed his whole; and such a face! Sydney Smithused to say of a certain quarrelsome man, "His very face is a breachof the peace." Had he seen our friend's, he would have said he was theimperative mood on two (very small) legs, out on business in a bluegreatcoat. It was in the nose and the keen small eye that his strengthlay. Such a nose of power, so undeniable, I never saw, except in whatwas said to be a bust from the antique, of Rhadamanthus, thewell-known Justice-Clerk of the Pagan Court of Session! Indeed, when Iwas in the Rector's class, and watched Jeems turning interlopers outof the church seats, by merely presenting before them this tremendousorgan, it struck me that if Rhadamanthus had still been here, and outof employment, he would have taken kindly to Jeems's work,—and thatpossibly he was that potentate in a U. P. disguise.

Nature having fashioned the huge face, and laid out much material andidea upon it, had finished off the rest of Jeems somewhat scrimply,as if she had run out of means; his legs especially were of theshortest, and, as his usual dress was a very long blue greatcoat, madefor a much taller man, its tails resting upon the ground, and itslarge hind buttons in a totally preposterous position, gave him thelook of being planted, or rather after the manner of Milton's beastsat the creation, in the act of emerging painfully from his motherearth.

Now, you may think this was a very ludicrous old object. If you hadseen him, you would not have said so; and not only was he a man ofweight and authority,—he was likewise a genuine, indeed a deeplyspiritual Christian, well read in his Bible, in his own heart, and inhuman nature and life, knowing both its warp and woof; more peremptoryin making himself obey his Master, than in getting himself obeyed, andthis is saying a good deal; and, like all complete men, he had agenuine love and gift of humour,[42] kindly and uncouth, lurking inthose small, deep-set grey eyes, shrewd and keen, which, like twosharpest of shooters, enfiladed that massive and redoubtable bulwark,the nose.

[Footnote 42: On one occasion a descendant of Nabal having put a crownpiece into "the plate" instead of a penny, and staring at its whiteand precious face, asked to have it back, and was refused—"In once,in for ever." "A weel, a weel," grunted he, "I'll get credit for it inheaven." "Na, na," said Jeems, "ye'll get credit only for thepenny!"]

One day two strangers made themselves over to Jeems to be furnishedwith seats. Motioning them to follow, he walked majestically to thefarthest in corner, where he had decreed they should sit. The couplefound seats near the door, and stepped into them, leaving Jeems tomarch through the passages alone, the whole congregation watching himwith some relish and alarm. He gets to his destination, opens thedoor, and stands aside; nobody appears. He looks sharply round, andthen gives a look of general wrath "at lairge." No one doubted hisvictory. His nose and eye fell, or seemed to fall, on the twoculprits, and pulled them out instantly, hurrying them to theirappointed place; Jeems snibbed them slowly in, and gave them aparting look they were not likely to misunderstand or forget.

At that time the crowds and the imperfect ventilation made fainting acommon occurrence in Broughton Place, especially among "thae younghizzies," as Jeems called the servant girls. He generally came tome, "the young Doctor," on these occasions with a look of greatrelish. I had indoctrinated him in the philosophy of syncopes,especially as to the propriety of laying the "hizzies" quite flat onthe floor of the lobby, with the head as low as the rest of the body;and as many of these cases were owing to what Jeems called "thatbitter yerkin" of their boddices, he and I had much satisfaction inrelieving them, and giving them a moral lesson, by cutting theirstay-laces, which ran before the knife, and cracked "like abowstring," as my coadjutor said. One day a young lady was our care.She was lying out, and slowly coming to. Jeems, with that hugeterrific visage, came round to me with his open gully in his hand,whispering, "Wull oo ripp 'er up noo?" It happened not to be a casefor ripping up. The gully was a great sanitary institution, and made adecided inroad upon the yerking system—Jeems having, thanks tothis and Dr. Coombe, every year fewer opportunities of displaying andenjoying its powers.

He was sober in other things besides drink, could be generous onoccasion, but was careful of his siller; sensitive to fierceness("we're uncommon zeelyous the day," was a favourite phrase when anychurch matter was stirring) for the honour of his church and minister,and to his too often worthless neighbours a perpetual moral protestand lesson—a living epistle. He dwelt at the head of big Lochend'sClose in the Canongate, at the top of a long stair—ninety-six steps,as I well know—where he had dwelt, all by himself, forfive-and-thirty years, and where, in the midst of all sorts offlittings and changes, not a day opened or closed without thewell-known sound of Jeems at his prayers,—his "exercise,"—at "theBooks." His clear, fearless, honest voice in psalm and chapter, andstrong prayer, came sounding through that wide "land," like that ofone crying in the wilderness.

Jeems and I got great friends; he called me John, as if he was mygrandfather; and though as plain in speech as in feature, he was neverrude. I owe him much in many ways. His absolute downrightness andyaefauldness; his energetic, unflinching fulfilment of his work; hisrugged, sudden tenderness; his look of sturdy age, as the thicksilver-white hair lay on his serious and weatherworn face, likemoonlight on a stout old tower; his quaint Old Testament exegetics,his lonely and contented life, his simple godliness,—it was no smallprivilege to see much of all this.

But I must stop. I forget that you didn't know him; that he is notyour Jeems. If it had been so, you would not soon have wearied oftelling or of being told of the life and conversation of this "fellbody." He was not communicative about his early life. He wouldsometimes speak to me about "her," as if I knew who and where shewas, and always with a gentleness and solemnity unlike his usual gruffways. I found out that he had been married when young, and that "she"(he never named her) and their child died on the same day,—the day ofits birth. The only indication of married life in his room, was an oldand strong cradle, which he had cut down so as to rock no more, andwhich he made the depository of his books—a queer collection.

I have said that he had what he called, with a grave smile, familyworship, morning and evening, never failing. He not only sang hispsalm, but gave out or chanted the line in great style; and onseeing me one morning surprised at this, he said, "Ye see John, oo,"meaning himself and his wife, "began that way." He had a firm, truevoice, and a genuine though roughish gift of singing, and beingmethodical in all things, he did what I never heard of in any oneelse,—he had seven fixed tunes, one of which he sang on its own setday. Sabbath morning it was French, which he went through with greatbirr. Monday, Scarborough, which, he said, was like my fathercantering. Tuesday, Coleshill, that soft exquisite air,—monotonousand melancholy, soothing and vague, like the sea. This day, Tuesday,was the day of the week on which his wife and child died, and healways sang more verses then than on any other. Wednesday was Irish;Thursday, Old Hundred; Friday, Bangor; and Saturday, Blackburn,that humdrummest of tunes, "as long, and lank, and lean, as is theribbed sea-sand." He could not defend it, but had some secret reasonfor sticking to it. As to the evenings, they were just the same tunesin reversed order, only that on Tuesday night he sang Coleshillagain, thus dropping Blackburn for evening work. The children couldtell the day of the week by Jeems's tune, and would have been asmuch astonished at hearing Bangor on Monday, as at finding St.Giles's half-way down the Canongate.

I frequently breakfasted with him. He made capital porridge, and Iwish I could get such butter-milk, or at least have such a relish forit, as in those days. Jeems is away—gone over to the majority; and Ihope I may never forget to be grateful to the dear and queer old man.I think I see and hear him saying his grace over our bickers withtheir brats on, then taking his two books out of the cradle andreading, not without a certain homely majesty, the first verse of the99th Psalm,

"Th' eternal Lord doth reign as king,
Let all the people quake;
He sits between the cherubims,
Let th' earth be mov'd and shake;"

then launching out into the noble depths of Irish. His chapters werelong, and his prayers short, very scriptural, but by no meansstereotyped, and wonderfully real, immediate, as if he was near Himwhom he addressed. Any one hearing the sound and not the words, wouldsay, "That man is speaking to some one who is with him—who ispresent,"—as he often said to me, "There's nae glide dune, John, tillye get to close grups."

Now, I dare say you are marvelling—first, Why I brought this grim,old Rhadamanthus, Belzaleel, U. P. Naso of a doorkeeper up before you;and secondly, How I am to get him down decorously in that ancientblue greatcoat, and get at my own proper text.

And first of the first. I thought it would do you young men—thehope of the world—no harm to let your affections go out toward thisdear, old-world specimen of homespun worth. And as to the second, Iam going to make it my excuse for what is to come. One day soon afterI knew him, when I thought he was in a soft, confidential mood, Isaid: "Jeems, what kind of weaver are you?" "I'm in the fancicalline, maister John," said he somewhat stiffly; "I like itsleecence." So exit Jeems—impiger, iracundus, acer—torvusvisu—placide quiescat!

Now, my dear friends, I am in the fancical line as well as Jeems,and in virtue of my leecence, I begin my exegetical remarks on thepursuit of truth. By the bye, I should have told Sir Henry that it wastruth, not knowledge, I was to be after. Now all knowledge should betrue, but it isn't; much of what is called knowledge is very littleworth even when true, and much of the best truth is not in a strictsense knowable,—rather it is felt and believed.

Exegetical, you know, is the grand and fashionable word now-a-days forexplanatory; it means bringing out of a passage all that is in it, andnothing more. For my part, being in Jeems's line, I am not soparticular as to the nothing more. We fancical men are much given tomake somethings of nothings; indeed, the noble Italians, callimagination and poetic fancy the little more; its very function isto embellish and intensify the actual and the common. Now you must notlaugh at me, or it, when I announce the passage from which I mean topreach upon the pursuit of truth, and the possession of wisdom:—

"On Tintock tap there is a Mist,
And in the Mist there is a Kist,
And in the Kist there is a Cap;
Tak' up the Cap and sup the drap,
And set the Cap on Tintock tap."

And as to what Sir Henry[43] would call the context, we are saved alltrouble, there being none, the passage being self-contained, and asdestitute of relations as Melchisedec.

[Footnote 43: This was read to Sir Henry W. Moncreiff's Young Men's
Association, November 1862.]

Tintock, you all know, or should know, is a big porphyritic hill inLanarkshire, standing alone, and dominating like a king over the UpperWard. Then we all understand what a mist is; and it is worthremembering that as it is more difficult to penetrate, to illuminate,and to see through mist than darkness, so it is easier to enlightenand overcome ignorance, than error, confusion, and mental mist. Then akist is Scotch for chest, and a cap the same for cup, and drapfor drop. Well, then, I draw out of these queer old lines—

First, That to gain real knowledge, to get it at firsthand, you mustgo up the Hill Difficulty—some Tintock, something you see fromafar—and you must climb; you must energize, as Sir William Hamiltonand Dr. Chalmers said and did; you must turn your back upon the plain,and you must mainly go alone, and on your own legs. Two boys may starttogether on going up Tinto, and meet at the top; but the journeys areseparate, each takes his own line.

Secondly, You start for your Tintock top with a given object, to getinto the mist and get the drop, and you do this chiefly because youhave the truth-hunting instinct; you long to know what is hiddenthere, for there is a wild and urgent charm in the unknown; and youwant to realize for yourself what others, it may have been ages ago,tell they have found there.

Thirdly, There is no road up; no omnibus to the top of Tinto; youmust zigzag it in your own way, and as I have already said, most partof it alone.

Fourthly, This climbing, this exaltation, and buckling to of themind, of itself does you good;[44] it is capital exercise, and youfind out many a thing by the way. Your lungs play freely; your mouthfills with the sweet waters of keen action; the hill tries your windand mettle, supples and hardens your joints and limbs; quickens andrejoices, while it tests your heart.

[Footnote 44: "In this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose ourgame, the chase is certainly of service."—BURKE.]

Fifthly, You have many a fall, many a false step; you slip back, youtumble into a moss-hagg; you stumble over the baffling stones; youbreak your shins and lose your temper, and the finding of it makes youkeep it better the next time; you get more patient, and yet moreeager, and not unoften you come to a stand-still; run yourself upagainst, or to the edge of, some impossible precipice, some insolubleproblem, and have to turn for your life; and you may find yourselfover head in a treacherous wellee, whose soft inviting cushion ofgreen has decoyed many a one before you.

Sixthly, You are for ever mistaking the top; thinking you are at it,when, behold! there it is, as if farther off than ever, and you mayhave to humble yourself in a hidden valley before reascending; and soon you go, at times flinging yourself down on the elastic heather,stretched panting with your face to the sky, or gazing far awayathwart the widening horizon.

Seventhly, As you get up, you may see how the world below lessensand reveals itself, comes up to you as a whole, with its justproportions and relations; how small the village you live in looks,and the house in which you were born; how the plan of the place comesout; there is the quiet churchyard, and a lamb is nibbling at thatinfant's grave; there, close to the little church, your mother reststill the great day; and there far off you may trace the river windingthrough the plain, coming like human life, from darkness todarkness,—from its source in some wild, upland solitude to itseternity, the sea. But you have rested long enough, so, up and away!take the hill once again! Every effort is a victory and joy—new skilland power and relish—takes you farther from the world below, nearerthe clouds and heavens; and you may note that the more you move uptowards the pure blue depths of the sky—the more lucid and the moreunsearchable—the farther off, the more withdrawn into their own clearinfinity do they seem. Well, then, you get to the upper story, and youfind it less difficult, less steep than lower down; often so plain andlevel that you can run off in an ecstasy to the crowning cairn, to thesacred mist—within whose cloudy shrine rests the unknown secret; somegreat truth of God and of your own soul; something that is not to begotten for gold down on the plain, but may be taken here; somethingthat no man can give or take away; something that you must work forand learn yourself, and which, once yours, is safe beyond the chancesof time.

Eighthly, You enter that luminous cloud, stooping and as a littlechild—as, indeed, all the best kingdoms are entered—and pressing on,you come in the shadowy light to the long-dreamt-of ark,—the chest.It is shut, it is locked; but if you are the man I take you to be, youhave the key, put it gently in, steadily, and home. But what is thekey? It is the love of truth; neither more nor less; no other keyopens it; no false one, however cunning, can pick that lock; noassault of hammer, however stout, can force it open. But with its ownkey a little child may open it, often does open it, it goes sosweetly, so with a will. You lift the lid; you are all alone; thecloud is round you with a sort of tender light of its own, shuttingout the outer world, filling you with an eerie joy, as if alone andyet not alone. You see the cup within, and in it the one crystalline,unimaginable, inestimable drop; glowing and tremulous, as if alive.You take up the cup, you sup the drop; it enters into, and becomes ofthe essence of yourself; and so, in humble gratitude and love, "insober certainty of waking bliss," you gently replace the cup. It willgather again,—it is for ever gathering; no man, woman, or child everopened that chest, and found no drop in the cup. It might not be thevery drop expected; it will serve their purpose none the worse, oftenmuch the better.

And now, bending down, you shut the lid, which you hear locking itselfafresh against all but the sacred key. You leave the now hallowedmist. You look out on the old familiar world again, which somehowlooks both new and old. You descend, making your observations overagain, throwing the light of the present on the past; and past andpresent set against the boundless future. You hear coming up to youthe homely sounds—the sheepdog's bark, "the co*ck's shrillclarion"—from the farm at the hill-foot; you hear the ring of theblacksmith's study, you see the smoke of his forge; your mother'sgrave has the long shadows of evening lying across it, the sunlightfalling on the letters of her name, and on the number of her years;the lamb is asleep in the bield of the infant's grave. Speedily youare at your own door. You enter with wearied feet, and thankful heart;you shut the door, and you kneel down and pray to your Father inheaven, the Father of lights, your reconciled Father, the God andFather of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and our God and Father inand through him. And as you lie down on your own delightful bed,before you fall asleep, you think over again your ascent of the HillDifficulty,—its baffling heights, its reaches of dreary moorland, itsshifting gravel, its precipices, its quagmires, its little wells ofliving waters near the top, and all its "dread magnificence;" itscalm, restful summit, the hush of silence there, the all-aloneness ofthe place and hour; its peace, its sacredness, its divineness. You seeagain the mist, the ark, the cup, the gleaming drop, and recalling thesight of the world below, the earth and all its fulness, you say toyourself,—

"These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens."

And finding the burden too heavy even for these glorious lines, youtake refuge in the Psalms—

"Praise ye the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps;
Fire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars;
Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:
Kings of the earth, and all people; princes and all judges of the
earth:
Both young men and maidens; old men and children:
Let them praise the name of the Lord:
For his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and
heaven.
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!"

I need hardly draw the moral of this, our somewhat fancicalexercitation and exegesis. You can all make it out, such as it is. Itis the toil, and the joy, and the victory in the search of truth; notthe taking on trust, or learning by rote, not by heart, what other mencount or call true; but the vital appropriation, the assimilation oftruth to ourselves, and of ourselves to truth. All truth is of value,but one truth differs from another in weight and in brightness, inworth; and you need not me to tell you that spiritual and eternaltruth, the truth as it is in Jesus, is the best. And don't think thatyour own hand has gotten you the victory, and that you had no unseen,and it may be unfelt and unacknowledged hand guiding you up the hill.Unless the Lord had been at and on your side, all your labour wouldhave been in vain, and worse. No two things are more inscrutable orless uncertain than man's spontaneity and man's helplessness,—Freedomand Grace as the two poles. It is His doing that you are led to theright hill and the right road, for there are other Tintocks, withother kists, and other drops. Work out, therefore, your own knowledgewith fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both towill and to do, and to know of His good pleasure. There is noexplaining and there is no disbelieving this.

And now, before bidding you good-bye, did you ever think of thespiritual meaning of the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar offire by night, as connected with our knowledge and our ignorance, ourlight and darkness, our gladness and our sorrow? The everyday use ofthis divine alternation to the wandering children of Israel, is plainenough. Darkness is best seen against light, and light againstdarkness; and its use, in a deeper sense of keeping for ever beforethem the immediate presence of God in the midst of them, is not lessplain; but I sometimes think, that we who also are still in thewilderness, and coming up from our Egypt and its fleshpots, and on ourway let us hope, through God's grace, to the celestial Canaan, maydraw from these old-world signs and wonders, that, in the mid-day ofknowledge, with daylight all about us, there is, if one could but lookfor it, that perpetual pillar of cloud—that sacred darkness whichhaunts all human knowledge, often the most at its highest noon; that"look that threatens the profane;" that something, and above all, thatsense of Some One,—that Holy One, who inhabits eternity and itspraises, who makes darkness His secret place, His pavilion roundabout, darkness and thick clouds of the sky.

And again, that in the deepest, thickest night of doubt, of fear, ofsorrow, of despair; that then, and all the most then—if we will butlook in the right airt, and with the seeing eye and theunderstanding heart—there may be seen that Pillar of fire, of lightand of heat, to guide and quicken and cheer; knowledge and love, thateverlasting love which we know to be the Lord's. And how much betteroff are we than the chosen people; their pillars were on earth, divinein their essence, but subject doubtless to earthly perturbations andinterferences; but our guiding light is in the heavens, towards whichwe take earnest heed that we are journeying.

"Once on the raging seas I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark;
The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed
The wind that toss'd my foundering bark.

Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem,
When suddenly a star arose,
It was the Star of Bethlehem!

It was my guide, my light, my all,
It bade my dark foreboding cease;
And through the storm and danger's thrall
It led me to the port in peace.

Now safely moored, my perils o'er,
I'll sing first in night's diadem,
For ever and for evermore
The Star, the Star of Bethlehem!"

John Brown.

ON LIFE

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, isan astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us thewonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of itstransient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What arechanges of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions whichsupported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious andof political systems to life? What are the revolutions of the globewhich we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it iscomposed, compared with life? What is the universe of stars, and suns,of which this inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and theirdestiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not,because it is so miraculous. It is well that we are thus shielded bythe familiarity of what is at once so certain and so unfathomable,from an astonishment which would otherwise absorb and overawe thefunctions of that which is its object.

If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived inhis mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and planets, they notexisting, and had painted to us in words, or upon canvas, thespectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, and illustratedit by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or hadhe imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas, andthe rivers; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety of the formsand masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours which attendthe setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the atmosphere, turbidor serene, these things not before existing, truly we should have beenastonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said ofsuch a man, "Non merita nome di creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta."But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to beconscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be thedistinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person. Themultitude of men care not for them. It is thus with Life—that whichincludes all.

What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or without our will,and we employ words to express them. We are born, and our birth isunremembered, and our infancy remembered but in fragments; we live on,and in living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it tothink that words can penetrate the mystery of our being! Rightly usedthey may make evident our ignorance to ourselves, and this is much.For what are we? Whence do we come? and whither do we go? Is birth thecommencement, is death the conclusion of our being? What is birth anddeath?

The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life,which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that whichthe habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished inus. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene ofthings. I confess that I am one of those who am unable to refuse myassent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert thatnothing exists but as it is perceived.

It is a decision against which all our persuasions struggle, and wemust be long convicted before we can be convinced that the soliduniverse of external things is "such stuff as dreams are made of." Theshocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind and matter, itsfatal consequences in morals, and their violent dogmatism concerningthe source of all things, had early conducted me to materialism. Thismaterialism is a seducing system to young and superficial minds. Itallows its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking. But Iwas discontented with such a view of things as it afforded; man is abeing of high aspirations, "looking both before and after," whose"thoughts wander through eternity," disclaiming alliance withtransience and decay; incapable of imagining to himself annihilation;existing but in the future and the past; being, not what he is, butwhat he has been and shall be. Whatever may be his true and finaldestination, there is a spirit within him at enmity with nothingnessand dissolution. This is the character of all life and being. Each isat once the centre and the circumference; the point to which allthings are referred, and the line in which all things are contained.Such contemplations as these, materialism and the popular philosophyof mind and matter alike forbid; they are only consistent with theintellectual system.

It is absurd to enter into a long recapitulation of argumentssufficiently familiar to those inquiring minds, whom alone a writer onabstruse subjects can be conceived to address. Perhaps the most clearand vigorous statement of the intellectual system is to be found inSir William Drummond's Academical Questions. After such an exposition,it would be idle to translate into other words what could only loseits energy and fitness by the change. Examined point by point, andword by word, the most discriminating intellects have been able todiscern no train of thoughts in the process of reasoning, which doesnot conduct inevitably to the conclusion which has been stated.

What follows from the admission? It establishes no new truth, it givesus no additional insight into our hidden nature, neither its actionnor itself. Philosophy, impatient as it may be to build, has much workyet remaining, as pioneer for the overgrowth of ages. It makes onestep towards this object; it destroys error, and the roots of error.It leaves, what it is too often the duty of the reformer in politicaland ethical questions to leave, a vacancy. It reduces the mind to thatfreedom in which it would have acted, but for the misuse of words andsigns, the instruments of its own creation. By signs, I would beunderstood in a wide sense, including what is properly meant by thatterm, and what I peculiarly mean. In this latter sense, almost allfamiliar objects are signs, standing, not for themselves, but forothers in their capacity of suggesting one thought which shall lead toa train of thoughts. Our whole life is thus an education of error.

Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a distinct andintense apprehension had we of the world and of ourselves! Many of thecirc*mstances of social life were then important to us which are nowno longer so. But that is not the point of comparison on which I meanto insist. We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt,from ourselves. They seemed as it were to constitute one mass. Thereare some persons who, in this respect, are always children. Those whoare subject to the state called reverie, feel as if their nature weredissolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the surroundinguniverse were absorbed into their being. They are conscious of nodistinction. And these are states which precede, or accompany, orfollow an unusually intense and vivid apprehension of life. As mengrow up this power commonly decays, and they become mechanical andhabitual agents. Thus feelings and then reasonings are the combinedresult of a multitude of entangled thoughts, and of a series of whatare called impressions, planted by reiteration.

The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of theintellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it isperceived. The difference is merely nominal between those two classesof thought, which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas andof external objects. Pursuing the same thread of reasoning, theexistence of distinct individual minds, similar to that which isemployed in now questioning its own nature, is likewise found to be adelusion. The words I, you, they, are not signs of any actualdifference subsisting between the assemblage of thoughts thusindicated, but are merely marks employed to denote the differentmodifications of the one mind.

Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the monstrouspresumption that I, the person who now write and think, am that onemind. I am but a portion of it. The words I, and you, and theyare grammatical devices invented simply for arrangement, and totallydevoid of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. Itis difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle a conceptionas that to which the Intellectual Philosophy has conducted us. We areon that verge where words abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzyto look down the dark abyss of how little we know.

The relations of things remain unchanged, by whatever system. By theword things is to be understood any object of thought, that is anythought upon which any other thought is employed, with an apprehensionof distinction. The relations of these remain unchanged; and such isthe material of our knowledge.

What is the cause of life? that is, how was it produced, or whatagencies distinct from life have acted or act upon life? All recordedgenerations of mankind have wearily busied themselves in inventinganswers to this question; and the result has been,—Religion. Yet,that the basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philosophyalleges, mind, is sufficiently evident. Mind, as far as we have anyexperience of its properties, and beyond that experience how vain isargument! cannot create, it can only perceive. It is said also to bethe cause. But cause is only a word expressing a certain state of thehuman mind with regard to the manner in which two thoughts areapprehended to be related to each other. If any one desires to knowhow unsatisfactorily the popular philosophy employs itself upon thisgreat question, they need only impartially reflect upon the manner inwhich thoughts develop themselves in their minds. It is infinitelyimprobable that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similarto mind.

Shelley.

WALKING STEWART

Mr. Stewart the traveller, commonly called "Walking Stewart," was aman of very extraordinary genius. He has generally been treated bythose who have spoken of him in print as a madman. But this is amistake; and must have been founded chiefly on the titles of hisbooks. He was a man of fervid mind and of sublime aspirations; but hewas no madman; or, if he was, then I say that it is so far desirableto be a madman. In 1798 or 1799, when I must have been about thirteenyears old, Walking Stewart was in Bath—where my family at that timeresided. He frequented the pump-room, and I believe all publicplaces—walking up and down, and dispersing his philosophic opinionsto the right and the left, like a Grecian philosopher. The first timeI saw him was at a concert in the Upper Rooms; he was pointed out tome by one of my party as a very eccentric man who had walked over thehabitable globe. I remember that Madame Mara was at that momentsinging; and Walking Stewart, who was a true lover of music (as Iafterwards came to know), was hanging upon her notes like a bee upon ajessamine flower. His countenance was striking, and expressed theunion of benignity with philosophic habits of thought. In such healthhad his pedestrian exercises preserved him, connected with hisabstemious mode of living, that though he must at that time have beenconsiderably above forty, he did not look older than twenty-eight; atleast the face which remained upon my recollection for some years wasthat of a young man. Nearly ten years afterwards I became acquaintedwith him. During the interval I had picked up one of his works inBristol,—viz. his Travels to discover the Source of Moral Motion,the second volume of which is entitled The Apocalypse of Nature. Ihad been greatly impressed by the sound and original views which inthe first volume he had taken of the national characters throughoutEurope. In particular he was the first, and so far as I know the onlywriter who had noticed the profound error of ascribing a phlegmaticcharacter to the English nation. "English phlegm" is the constantexpression of authors when contrasting the English with the French.Now the truth is, that, beyond that of all other nations, it has asubstratum of profound passion; and, if we are to recur to the olddoctrine of temperaments, the English character must be classed notunder the phlegmatic but under the melancholic temperament; andthe French under the sanguine. The character of a nation may bejudged of in this particular by examining its idiomatic language. TheFrench, in whom the lower forms of passion are constantly bubbling upfrom the shallow and superficial character of their feelings, haveappropriated all the phrases of passion to the service of trivial andordinary life; and hence they have no language of passion for theservice of poetry or of occasions really demanding it; for it has beenalready enfeebled by continual association with cases of anunimpassioned order. But a character of deeper passion has a perpetualstandard in itself, by which as by an instinct it tries all cases, andrejects the language of passion as disproportionate and ludicrouswhere it is not fully justified. "Ah Heavens!" or "Oh my God!" areexclamations with us so exclusively reserved for cases of profoundinterest,—that on hearing a woman even (i.e. a person of the sexmost easily excited) utter such words, we look round expecting to seeher child in some situation of danger. But, in France, "Ciel!" and "Ohmon Dieu!" are uttered by every woman if a mouse does but run acrossthe floor. The ignorant and the thoughtless however will continue toclass the English character under the phlegmatic temperament, whilstthe philosopher will perceive that it is the exact polar antithesis toa phlegmatic character. In this conclusion, though otherwise expressedand illustrated, Walking Stewart's view of the English character willbe found to terminate; and his opinion is especially valuable—firstand chiefly, because he was a philosopher; secondly, because hisacquaintance with man civilized and uncivilized, under all nationaldistinctions, was absolutely unrivalled. Meantime, this and others ofhis opinions were expressed in language that if literally construedwould often appear insane or absurd. The truth is, his longintercourse with foreign nations had given something of a hybridtincture to his diction; in some of his works for instance he uses theFrench word hélas! uniformly for the English alas! and apparentlywith no consciousness of his mistake. He had also this singularityabout him—that he was everlastingly metaphysicizing againstmetaphysics. To me, who was buried in metaphysical reveries from myearliest days, this was not likely to be an attraction; any more thanthe vicious structure of his diction was likely to please myscholarlike taste. All grounds of disgust, however, gave way before mysense of his powerful merits; and, as I have said, I sought hisacquaintance. Coming up to London from Oxford about 1807 or 1808 Imade enquiries about him; and found that he usually read the papers ata coffee-room in Piccadilly; understanding that he was poor, it struckme that he might not wish to receive visits at his lodgings, andtherefore I sought him at the coffee-room. Here I took the liberty ofintroducing myself to him. He received me courteously, and invited meto his rooms—which at that time were in Sherrard-street,Golden-square—a street already memorable to me. I was much struckwith the eloquence of his conversation; and afterwards I found thatMr. Wordsworth, himself the most eloquent of men in conversation, hadbeen equally struck when he had met him at Paris between the years1790 and 1792, during the early storms of the French revolution. InSherrard-street I visited him repeatedly, and took notes of theconversations I had with him on various subjects. These I must havesomewhere or other; and I wish I could introduce them here, as theywould interest the reader. Occasionally in these conversations, as inhis books, he introduced a few notices of his private history; inparticular I remember his telling me that in the East Indies he hadbeen a prisoner of Hyder's; that he had escaped with some difficulty;and that, in the service of one of the native princes as secretary orinterpreter, he had accumulated a small fortune. This must have beentoo small, I fear, at that time to allow him even a philosopher'scomforts; for some part of it, invested in the French funds, had beenconfiscated. I was grieved to see a man of so much ability, ofgentlemanly manners, and refined habits, and with the infirmity ofdeafness, suffering under such obvious privations; and I once took theliberty, on a fit occasion presenting itself, of requesting that hewould allow me to send him some books which he had been casuallyregretting that he did not possess; for I was at that time in thehey-day of my worldly prosperity. This offer, however, he declinedwith firmness and dignity, though not unkindly. And I now mention it,because I have seen him charged in print with a selfish regard to hisown pecuniary interest. On the contrary, he appeared to me a veryliberal and generous man; and I well remember that, whilst he refusedto accept of anything from me, he compelled me to receive as presentsall the books which he published during my acquaintance with him; twoof these, corrected with his own hand, viz. the Lyre of Apollo andthe Sophiometer, I have lately found amongst other books left inLondon; and others he forwarded to me in Westmoreland. In 1809 I sawhim often; in the Spring of that year, I happened to be in London; andMr. Wordsworth's tract on the Convention of Cintra being at that timein the printer's hands, I superintended the publication of it; and, atMr. Wordsworth's request, I added a long note on Spanish affairs whichis printed in the Appendix. The opinions I expressed in this note onthe Spanish character at that time much calumniated, on the retreat toCorunna then fresh in the public mind, above all, the contempt Iexpressed for the superstition in respect to the French militaryprowess which was then universal and at its height, and which gave wayin fact only to the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, fell in, as ithappened, with Mr. Stewart's political creed in those points where atthat time it met with most opposition. In 1812 it was I think that Isaw him for the last time; and by the way, on the day of my partingwith him, had an amusing proof in my own experience of that sort ofubiquity ascribed to him by a witty writer in the London Magazine: Imet him and shook hands with him under Somerset-house, telling himthat I should leave town that evening for Westmoreland. Thence I wentby the very shortest road (i.e. through Moor-street, Soho—for I amlearned in many quarters of London) towards a point which necessarilyled me through Tottenham-court-road; I stopped nowhere, and walkedfast; yet so it was that in Tottenham-court-road I was not overtakenby (that was comprehensible), but overtook Walking Stewart.Certainly, as the above writer alleges, there must have been threeWalking Stewarts in London. He seemed no ways surprised at thishimself, but explained to me that somewhere or other in theneighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road there was a little theatre, atwhich there was dancing and occasionally good singing, between whichand a neighbouring coffee-house he sometimes divided his evenings.Singing, it seems, he could hear in spite of his deafness. In thisstreet I took my final leave of him; it turned out such; and,anticipating at the time that it would be so, I looked after his whitehat at the moment it was disappearing, and exclaimed—"Farewell, thouhalf-crazy and most eloquent man! I shall never see thy face again." Idid not intend, at that moment, to visit London again for some years;as it happened, I was there for a short time in 1814; and then Iheard, to my great satisfaction that Walking Stewart had recovered aconsiderable sum (about £14,000 I believe) from the East IndiaCompany; and from the abstract given in the London Magazine of theMemoir by his relation I have since learned that he applied this moneymost wisely to the purchase of an annuity, and that he "persisted inliving" too long for the peace of an annuity office. So fare allcompanies East and West, and all annuity offices, that stand opposedin interest to philosophers! In 1814, however, to my great regret, Idid not see him; for I was then taking a great deal of opium, andnever could contrive to issue to the light of day soon enough for amorning call upon a philosopher of such early hours; and in theevening I concluded he would be generally abroad, from what he hadformerly communicated to me of his own habits. It seems, however, thathe afterwards held converzations at his own rooms; and did not stirout to theatres quite so much. From a brother of mine, who at one timeoccupied rooms in the same house with him, I learned that in otherrespects he did not deviate in his prosperity from the philosophictenor of his former life. He abated nothing of his peripateticexercises; and repaired duly in the morning, as he had done in formeryears, to St. James's Park,—where he sate in contemplative easeamongst the cows, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing hisphilosophic reveries. He had also purchased an organ, or more thanone, with which he solaced his solitude and beguiled himself of uneasythoughts, if he ever had any.

The works of Walking Stewart must be read with some indulgence; thetitles are generally too lofty and pretending and somewhatextravagant; the composition is lax and unprecise, as I have beforesaid; and the doctrines are occasionally very bold, incautiouslystated, and too hardy and high-toned for the nervous effeminacy ofmany modern moralists. But Walking Stewart was a man who thought noblyof human nature; he wrote therefore at times in the spirit and withthe indignation of an ancient prophet against the oppressors anddestroyers of the time. In particular I remember that in one or moreof the pamphlets which I received from him at Grasmere he expressedhimself in such terms on the subject of Tyrannicide (distinguishingthe cases in which it was and was not lawful) as seemed to Mr.Wordsworth and myself every way worthy of a philosopher; but, from theway in which that subject was treated in the House of Commons, whereit was at that time occasionally introduced, it was plain that hisdoctrine was not fitted for the luxuries and relaxed morals of theage. Like all men who think nobly of human nature, Walking Stewartthought of it hopefully. In some respects his hopes were wiselygrounded; in others they rested too much upon certain metaphysicalspeculations which are untenable, and which satisfied himself onlybecause his researches in that track had been purely self-originatedand self-disciplined. He relied upon his own native strength of mind;but in questions, which the wisdom and philosophy of every agebuilding successively upon each other have not been able to settle, nomind however strong is entitled to build wholly upon itself. In manythings he shocked the religious sense—especially as it exists inunphilosophic minds: he held a sort of rude and unscientificSpinosism; and he expressed it coarsely and in the way most likely togive offence. And indeed there can be no stronger proof of the utterobscurity in which his works have slumbered than that they should allhave escaped prosecution. He also allowed himself to look too lightlyand indulgently on the afflicting spectacle of female prostitution asit exists in London and in all great cities. This was the only pointon which I was disposed to quarrel with him; for I could not but viewit as a greater reproach to human nature than the slave-trade or anysight of wretchedness that the sun looks down upon. I often told himso; and that I was at a loss to guess how a philosopher could allowhimself to view it simply as part of the equipage of civil life, andas reasonably making part of the establishment and furniture of agreat city as police-offices, lamplighting, or newspapers. Waiving,however, this one instance of something like compliance with thebrutal spirit of the world, on all other subjects he was eminentlyunworldly, child-like, simple-minded, and upright. He would flatter noman; even when addressing nations, it is almost laughable to see howinvariably he prefaces his counsels with such plain truths uttered ina manner so offensive as must have defeated his purpose if it hadotherwise any chance of being accomplished. For instance, inaddressing America, he begins thus: "People of America! since yourseparation from the mother-country your moral character hasdegenerated in the energy of thought and sense; produced by theabsence of your association and intercourse with British officers andmerchants; you have no moral discernment to distinguish between theprotective power of England and the destructive power of France." Andhis letter to the Irish nation opens in this agreeable andconciliatory manner—"People of Ireland! I address you as a truephilosopher of nature, foreseeing the perpetual misery yourirreflective character and total absence of moral discernment arepreparing for," &c. The second sentence begins thus:—"You aresacrilegiously arresting the arm of your parent kingdom fighting thecause of man and nature, when the triumph of the fiend of Frenchpolice terror would be your own instant extirpation." And the lettercloses thus:—"I see but one awful alternative—that Ireland will be aperpetual moral volcano, threatening the destruction of the world, ifthe education and instruction of thought and sense shall not be ableto generate the faculty of moral discernment among a very numerousclass of the population, who detest the civic calm as sailors thenatural calm—and make civic rights on which they cannot reason apretext for feuds which they delight in." As he spoke freely andboldly to others, so he spoke loftily of himself; at p. 313 of "TheHarp of Apollo," on making a comparison of himself with Socrates (inwhich he naturally gives the preference to himself,) he styles "TheHarp," &c., "this unparalleled work of human energy." At p. 315, hecalls it "this stupendous work;" and lower down on the same page hesays—"I was turned out of school at the age of fifteen for a dunce orblockhead, because I would not stuff into my memory all the nonsenseof erudition and learning; and if future ages should discover theunparalleled energies of genius in this work, it will prove my mostimportant doctrine—that the powers of the human mind must bedeveloped in the education of thought and sense in the study of moralopinion, not arts and science." Again, at p. 225 of his Sophiometer,he says:—"The paramount thought that dwells in my mind incessantly isa question I put to myself—whether, in the event of my personaldissolution by death, I have communicated all the discoveries myunique mind possesses in the great master-science of man and nature."In the next page he determines that he has, with the exception ofone truth,—viz. "the latent energy, physical and moral, of humannature as existing in the British people." But here he was surelyaccusing himself without ground; for to my knowledge he has not failedin any one of his numerous works to insist upon this theme at least abillion of times. Another instance of his magnificent self-estimationis—that in the title pages of several of his works he announceshimself as "John Stewart, the only man of nature[45] that everappeared in the world."

[Footnote 45: In Bath he was surnamed "the Child of Nature;"—whicharose from his contrasting on every occasion the existing man of ourpresent experience with the ideal or Stewartian man that might beexpected to emerge in some myriads of ages, to which latter man hegave the name of the Child of Nature.]

By this time I am afraid the reader begins to suspect that he wascrazy; and certainly, when I consider every thing, he must have beencrazy when the wind was at N.N.E.; for who but Walking Stewart everdated his books by a computation drawn—not from the creation, notfrom the flood, not from Nabonassar, or ab urbe conditâ, not fromthe Hegira—but from themselves, from their own day of publication, asconstituting the one great æra in the history of man by the side ofwhich all other æras were frivolous and impertinent? Thus, in a workof his given to me in 1812 and probably published in that year, I findhim incidentally recording of himself that he was at that time"arrived at the age of sixty-three, with a firm state of healthacquired by temperance, and a peace of mind almost independent of thevices of mankind—because my knowledge of life has enabled me to placemy happiness beyond the reach or contact of other men's follies andpassions, by avoiding all family connexions and all ambitious pursuitsof profit, fame, or power." On reading this passage I was anxious toascertain its date; but this, on turning to the title-page, I foundthus mysteriously expressed: "In the 7000th year of AstronomicalHistory, and the first day of Intellectual Life or Moral World, fromthe æra of this work." Another slight indication of craziness appearedin a notion which obstinately haunted his mind that all the kings andrulers of the earth would confederate in every age against his works,and would hunt them out for extermination as keenly as Herod did theinnocents in Bethlehem. On this consideration, fearing that they mightbe intercepted by the long arms of these wicked princes before theycould reach that remote Stewartian man or his precursor to whom theywere mainly addressed, he recommended to all those who might beimpressed with a sense of their importance to bury a copy or copies ofeach work properly secured from damp, &c. at a depth of seven or eightfeet below the surface of the earth; and on their death-beds tocommunicate the knowledge of this fact to some confidential friends,who in their turn were to send down the tradition to some discreetpersons of the next generation; and thus, if the truth was not to bedispersed for many ages, yet the knowledge that here and there thetruth lay buried on this and that continent, in secret spots on MountCaucasus—in the sands of Biledulgerid—and in hiding-places amongstthe forests of America, and was to rise again in some distant age andto vegetate and fructify for the universal benefit of man,—thisknowledge at least was to be whispered down from generation togeneration; and, in defiance of a myriad of kings crusading againsthim, Walking Stewart was to stretch out the influence of his writingsthrough a long series of [Greek: lampadophoroi] to that child ofnature whom he saw dimly through a vista of many centuries. If thiswere madness, it seemed to me a somewhat sublime madness; and Iassured him of my co-operation against the kings, promising that Iwould bury "The Harp of Apollo" in my own orchard in Grasmere at thefoot of Mount Fairfield; that I would bury "The Apocalypse of Nature"in one of the coves of Helvellyn, and several other places best knownto myself. He accepted my offer with gratitude; but he then made knownto me that he relied on my assistance for a still more importantservice—which was this: in the lapse of that vast number of ageswhich would probably intervene between the present period and theperiod at which his works would have reached their destination, hefeared that the English language might itself have mouldered away."No!" I said, "that was not probable; considering its extensivediffusion, and that it was now transplanted into all the continents ofour planet, I would back the English language against any other onearth." His own persuasion, however, was that the Latin was destinedto survive all other languages; it was to be the eternal as well asthe universal language; and his desire was that I would translate hisworks, or some part of them into that language.[46] This I promised;and I seriously designed at some leisure hour to translate into Latina selection of passages which should embody an abstract of hisphilosophy. This would have been doing a service to all those whomight wish to see a digest of his peculiar opinions cleared from theperplexities of his peculiar diction and brought into a narrow compassfrom the great number of volumes through which they are at presentdispersed. However, like many another plan of mine, it wentunexecuted.

[Footnote 46: I was not aware until the moment of writing this passagethat Walking Stewart had publicly made this request three years aftermaking it to myself: opening the Harp of Apollo, I have just nowaccidentally stumbled on the following passage, "This stupendous workis destined, I fear, to meet a worse fate than the Aloe, which as soonas it blossoms loses its stalk. This first blossom of reason isthreatened with the loss of both its stalk and its soil; for, if therevolutionary tyrant should triumph, he would destroy all the Englishbooks and energies of thought. I conjure my readers to translate thiswork into Latin, and to bury it in the ground, communicating on theirdeath-beds only its place of concealment to men of nature."

From the title page of this work, by the way, I learn that the "7000thyear of Astronomical History" is taken from the Chinese tables, andcoincides (as I had supposed) with the year 1812 of our computation.]

On the whole, if Walking Stewart were at all crazy, he was so in a waywhich did not affect his natural genius and eloquence—but ratherexalted them. The old maxim, indeed, that "Great wits to madness sureare near allied," the maxim of Dryden and the popular maxim, I haveheard disputed by Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth, who maintain thatmad people are the dullest and most wearisome of all people. As abody, I believe they are so. But I must dissent from the authority ofMessrs. Coleridge and Wordsworth so far as to distinguish. Wheremadness is connected, as it often is, with some miserable derangementof the stomach, liver, &c. and attacks the principle of pleasurablelife, which is manifestly seated in the central organs of the body(i.e. in the stomach and the apparatus connected with it), there itcannot but lead to perpetual suffering and distraction of thought; andthere the patient will be often tedious and incoherent. People whohave not suffered from any great disturbance in those organs arelittle aware how indispensable to the process of thinking are themomentary influxes of pleasurable feeling from the regular goings onof life in its primary functions; in fact, until the pleasure iswithdrawn or obscured, most people are not aware that they have anypleasure from the due action of the great central machinery of thesystem; proceeding in uninterrupted continuance, the pleasure as muchescapes the consciousness as the act of respiration; a child, in thehappiest state of its existence, does not know that it is happy. Andgenerally whatsoever is the level state of the hourly feeling is neverput down by the unthinking (i.e. by 99 out of 100) to the account ofhappiness; it is never put down with the positive sign, as equal to +x; but simply as = 0. And men first become aware that it was apositive quantity, when they have lost it (i.e. fallen into - x).Meantime the genial pleasure from the vital processes, though notrepresented to the consciousness, is immanent in everyact—impulse—motion—word—and thought; and a philosopher sees thatthe idiots are in a state of pleasure, though they cannot see itthemselves. Now I say that, where this principle of pleasure is notattached, madness is often little more than an enthusiasm highlyexalted; the animal spirits are exuberant and in excess; and themadman becomes, if he be otherwise a man of ability and information,all the better as a companion. I have met with several such madmen;and I appeal to my brilliant friend, Professor W——, who is not a manto tolerate dulness in any quarter, and is himself the ideal of adelightful companion, whether he ever met a more amusing person thanthat madman who took a post-chaise with us from —— to Carlisle, longyears ago, when he and I were hastening with the speed of fugitivefelons to catch the Edinburgh mail. His fancy and his extravagance,and his furious attacks on Sir Isaac Newton, like Plato's suppers,refreshed us not only for that day but whenever they recurred to us;and we were both grieved when we heard some time afterwards from aCambridge man that he had met our clever friend in a stage coach underthe care of a brutal keeper.—Such a madness, if any, was the madnessof Walking Stewart; his health was perfect; his spirits as light andebullient as the spirits of a bird in springtime; and his mindunagitated by painful thoughts, and at peace with itself. Hence, if hewas not an amusing companion, it was because the philosophic directionof his thoughts made him something more. Of anecdotes and matters offact he was not communicative; of all that he had seen in the vastcompass of his travels he never availed himself in conversation. I donot remember at this moment that he ever once alluded to his owntravels in his intercourse with me except for the purpose of weighingdown by a statement grounded on his own great personal experience anopposite statement of many hasty and misjudging travellers which hethought injurious to human nature; the statement was this, that in allhis countless rencontres with uncivilized tribes he had never met withany so ferocious and brutal as to attack an unarmed and defencelessman who was able to make them understand that he threw himself upontheir hospitality and forbearance.

On the whole, Walking Stewart was a sublime visionary; he had seen andsuffered much amongst men; yet not too much, or so as to dull thegenial tone of his sympathy with the sufferings of others. His mindwas a mirror of the sentient universe.—The whole mighty vision thathad fleeted before his eyes in this world,—the armies of Hyder-Aliand his son with oriental and barbaric pageantry,—the civic grandeurof England, the great deserts of Asia and America,—the vast capitalsof Europe,—London with its eternal agitations, the ceaseless ebb andflow of its "mighty heart,"—Paris shaken by the fierce torments ofrevolutionary convulsions, the silence of Lapland, and the solitaryforests of Canada, with the swarming life of the torrid zone, togetherwith innumerable recollections of individual joy and sorrow, that hehad participated by sympathy—lay like a map beneath him, as ifeternally co-present to his view; so that, in the contemplation of theprodigious whole, he had no leisure to separate the parts, or occupyhis mind with details. Hence came the monotony which the frivolous andthe desultory would have found in his conversation. I however, who amperhaps the person best qualified to speak of him, must pronounce himto have been a man of great genius; and, with reference to hisconversation, of great eloquence. That these were not better known andacknowledged was owing to two disadvantages; one grounded in hisimperfect education, the other in the peculiar structure of his mind.The first was this: like the late Mr. Shelley he had a fine vagueenthusiasm and lofty aspirations in connexion with human naturegenerally and its hopes; and like him he strove to give steadiness, auniform direction, and an intelligible purpose to these feelings, byfitting to them a scheme of philosophical opinions. But unfortunatelythe philosophic system of both was so far from supporting their ownviews and the cravings of their own enthusiasm, that, as in somepoints it was baseless, incoherent, or unintelligible, so in others ittended to moral results, from which, if they had foreseen them, theywould have been themselves the first to shrink as contradictory to thevery purposes in which their system had originated. Hence, inmaintaining their own system they both found themselves painfullyentangled at times with tenets pernicious and degrading to humannature. These were the inevitable consequences of the [Greek: protonpseudos] in their speculations; but were naturally charged upon themby those who looked carelessly into their books as opinions which notonly for the sake of consistency they thought themselves bound toendure, but to which they gave the full weight of their sanction andpatronage as to so many moving principles in their system. The otherdisadvantage under which Walking Stewart laboured was this: he was aman of genius, but not a man of talents; at least his genius was outof all proportion to his talents, and wanted an organ as it were formanifesting itself; so that his most original thoughts were deliveredin a crude state—imperfect, obscure, half developed, and notproducible to a popular audience. He was aware of this himself; and,though he claims everywhere the faculty of profound intuition intohuman nature, yet with equal candour he accuses himself of asininestupidity, dulness, and want of talent. He was a disproportionedintellect, and so far a monster; and he must be added to the long listof original-minded men who have been looked down upon with pity andcontempt by common-place men of talent, whose powers of mind—though athousand times inferior—were yet more manageable, and ran in channelsmore suited to common uses and common understandings.

N.B. About the year 1812 I remember seeing in many of the print-shopsa whole-length sketch in water-colours of Walking Stewart in hiscustomary dress and attitude. This, as the only memorial (I presume)in that shape of a man whose memory I love, I should be very glad topossess; and therefore I take the liberty of publicly requesting as aparticular favour from any reader of this article, who may chance toremember such a sketch in any collection of prints offered for sale,that he would cause it to be sent to the Editor of the LONDONMAGAZINE, who will pay for it.

De Quincey.

ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one pointin Macbeth: it was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds tothe murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which Inever could account: the effect was—that it reflected back upon themurder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity: yet, howeverobstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to comprehend this,for many years I never could see why it should produce such aneffect.——

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay anyattention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to anyother faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful andindispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the mostto be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust tonothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophicpurposes. Of this, out of ten thousand instances that I might produce,I will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever, who is not previouslyprepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective, to draw in therudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon the laws ofthat science—as for instance, to represent the effect of two wallsstanding at right angles to each other, or the appearance of thehouses on each side of a street, as seen by a person looking down thestreet from one extremity. Now in all cases, unless the person hashappened to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce theseeffects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximationto it. Yet why?—For he has actually seen the effect every day of hislife. The reason is—that he allows his understanding to overrule hiseyes. His understanding, which includes no intuitive knowledge of thelaws of vision, can furnish him with no reason why a line which isknown and can be proved to be a horizontal line, should not appear ahorizontal line: a line, that made any angle with the perpendicularless than a right angle, would seem to him to indicate that his houseswere all tumbling down together. Accordingly he makes the line of hishouses a horizontal line, and fails of course to produce the effectdemanded. Here then is one instance out of many, in which not only theunderstanding is allowed to overrule the eyes, but where theunderstanding is positively allowed to obliterate the eyes as it were:for not only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding inopposition to that of his eyes, but (which is monstrous!) the idiot isnot aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not know thathe has seen (and therefore quoad his consciousness has not seen)that which he has seen every day of his life. But to return fromthis digression,—my understanding could furnish no reason why theknocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect direct orreflected: in fact, my understanding said positively that it couldnot produce any effect. But I knew better: I felt that it did: and Iwaited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enableme to solve it.—At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams made his début onthe stage of Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleledmurders which have procured for him such a brilliant and undyingreputation. On which murders, by the way, I must observe, that in onerespect they have had an ill effect, by making the connoisseur inmurder very fastidious in his taste, and dissatisfied with any thingthat has been since done in that line. All other murders look pale bythe deep crimson of his: and, as an amateur once said to me in aquerulous tone, "There has been absolutely nothing doing since histime, or nothing that's worth speaking of." But this is wrong: for itis unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists, and born withthe genius of Mr. Williams.—Now it will be remembered that in thefirst of these murders (that of the Marrs) the same incident (of aknocking at the door soon after the work of extermination wascomplete) did actually occur which the genius of Shakspeare hadinvented: and all good judges and the most eminent dilettantiacknowledged the felicity of Shakspeare's suggestion as soon as it wasactually realized. Here then was a fresh proof that I had been rightin relying on my own feeling in opposition to my understanding; andagain I set myself to study the problem: at length I solved it to myown satisfaction; and my solution is this. Murder in ordinary cases,where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the murderedperson, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; and for thisreason—that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural butignoble instinct by which we cleave to life; an instinct which, asbeing indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is thesame in kind (though different in degree) amongst all livingcreatures; this instinct therefore, because it annihilates alldistinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the level of "thepoor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human nature in its mostabject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suitthe purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw theinterest on the murderer: our sympathy must be with him; (of courseI mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter intohis feelings, and are made to understand them,—not a sympathy[47] ofpity or approbation:) in the murdered person all strife of thought,all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by oneoverwhelming panic: the fear of instant death smites him "with itspetrific mace." [Footnote 47: It seems almost ludicrous to guard andexplain my use of a word in a situation where it should naturallyexplain itself. But it has become necessary to do so, in consequenceof the unscholarlike use of the word sympathy, at present so general,by which, instead of taking it in its proper use, as the act ofreproducing in our minds the feelings of another, whether for hatred,indignation, love, pity, or approbation, it is made a mere synonyme ofthe word pity; and hence, instead of saying, "sympathy withanother," many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of "sympathyfor another."] But in the murderer, such a murderer as a poet willcondescend to, there must be raging some great storm ofpassion,—jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred,—which will create ahell within him; and into this hell we are to look. In Macbeth, forthe sake of gratifying his own enormous and teeming faculty ofcreation, Shakspeare has introduced two murderers: and, as usual inhis hands, they are remarkably discriminated: but though in Macbeththe strife of mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit notso awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her,—yet,as both were finally involved in the guilt of murder, the murderousmind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both. This was to beexpressed; and on its own account, as well as to make it a moreproportionable antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim,"the gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound "the deep damnationof his taking off," this was to be expressed with peculiar energy. Wewere to be made to feel that the human nature, i.e. the divinenature of love and mercy, spread through the hearts of all creatures,and seldom utterly withdrawn from man,—was gone, vanished, extinct;and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this effectis marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and soliloquiesthemselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient underconsideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the reader'sattention. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter, orsister, in a fainting fit, he may chance to have observed that themost affecting moment in such a spectacle, is that in which a sighand a stirring announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, ifthe reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on the day whensome great national idol was carried in funeral pomp to his grave, andchancing to walk near to the course through which it passed, has feltpowerfully in the silence and desertion of the streets and in thestagnation of ordinary business, the deep interest which at thatmoment was possessing the heart of man,—if all at once he should hearthe death-like stillness broken up by the sound of wheels rattlingaway from the scene, and making known that the transitory vision wasdissolved, he will be aware that at no moment was his sense of thecomplete suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full andaffecting as at that moment when the suspension ceases, and thegoings-on of human life are suddenly resumed. All action in anydirection is best expounded, measured, and made apprehensible, byreaction. Now apply this to the case in Macbeth. Here, as I have said,the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heartwas to be expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in;and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things, humanpurposes, human desires. They are transfigured: Lady Macbeth is"unsexed;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman; both areconformed to the image of devils; and the world of devils is suddenlyrevealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable? In orderthat a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear.The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated—cut off by animmeasurable gulph from the ordinary tide and succession of humanaffairs—locked up and sequestered in some deep recess: we must bemade sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenlyarrested—laid asleep—tranced—racked into a dread armistice: timemust be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and allmust pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthlypassion. Hence it is that when the deed is done—when the work ofdarkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like apageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and itmakes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human hasmade its reflux upon the fiendish: the pulses of life are beginning tobeat again: and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world inwhich we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awfulparenthesis that had suspended them.

Oh! mighty poet!—Thy works are not as those of other men, simply andmerely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature,like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,—like frost andsnow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studiedwith entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faiththat in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing uselessor inert—but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the morewe shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement wherethe careless eye had seen nothing but accident!

N.B. In the above specimen of psychological criticism, I havepurposely omitted to notice another use of the knocking at the gate,viz. the opposition and contrast which it produces in the porter'scomments to the scenes immediately preceding; because this use istolerably obvious to all who are accustomed to reflect on what theyread.

De Quincey.

THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON

Damascus, first-born of cities, Om el Denia,[48] mother ofgenerations, that wast before Abraham, that wast before the Pyramids!what sounds are those that, from a postern gate, looking eastwardsover secret paths that wind away to the far distant desert, break thesolemn silence of an oriental night? Whose voice is that which callsupon the spearmen, keeping watch for ever in the turret surmountingthe gate, to receive him back into his Syrian home? Thou knowest him,Damascus, and hast known him in seasons of trouble as one learned inthe afflictions of man; wise alike to take counsel for the sufferingspirit or for the suffering body. The voice that breaks upon the nightis the voice of a great evangelist—one of the four; and he is also agreat physician. This do the watchmen at the gate thankfullyacknowledge, and joyfully they give him entrance. His sandals arewhite with dust; for he has been roaming for weeks beyond the desert,under the guidance of Arabs, on missions of hopeful benignity toPalmyra;[49] and in spirit he is weary of all things, exceptfaithlessness to God, and burning love to man.

[Footnote 48: 'Om el Denia':—Mother of the World is the Arabictitle of Damascus. That it was before Abraham—i.e., already an oldestablishment much more than a thousand years before the siege ofTroy, and than two thousand years before our Christian era—may beinferred from Gen. xv. 2; and by the general consent of all easternraces, Damascus is accredited as taking precedency in age of allcities to the west of the Indus.]

[Footnote 49: Palmyra had not yet reached its meridian splendour ofGrecian development, as afterwards near the age of Aurelian, but itwas already a noble city.]

Eastern cities are asleep betimes; and sounds few or none fretted thequiet of all around him, as the evangelist paced onward to themarket-place; but there another scene awaited him. On the right hand,in an upper chamber, with lattices widely expanded, sat a festalcompany of youths, revelling under a noonday blaze of light, fromcressets and from bright tripods that burned fragrant woods—alljoining in choral songs, all crowned with odorous wreaths from Daphneand the banks of the Orontes. Them the evangelist heeded not; but faraway upon the left, close upon a sheltered nook, lighted up by asolitary vase of iron fretwork filled with cedar boughs, and hoistedhigh upon a spear, behold there sat a woman of loveliness sotranscendent, that, when suddenly revealed, as now, out of deepestdarkness, she appalled men as a mockery, or a birth of the air. Wasshe born of woman? Was it perhaps the angel—so the evangelist arguedwith himself—that met him in the desert after sunset, andstrengthened him by secret talk? The evangelist went up, and touchedher forehead; and when he found that she was indeed human, andguessed, from the station which she had chosen, that she waited forsome one amongst this dissolute crew as her companion, he groanedheavily in spirit, and said, half to himself, but half to her, "Wertthou, poor ruined flower, adorned so divinely at thy birth—glorifiedin such excess that not Solomon in all his pomp—no, nor even thelilies of the field—can approach thy gifts—only that thou shouldestgrieve the holy spirit of God?" The woman trembled exceedingly, andsaid, "Rabbi, what should I do? For behold! all men forsake me." Theevangelist mused a little, and then secretly to himself he said, "Nowwill I search this woman's heart—whether in very truth it inclinethitself to God, and hath strayed only before fiery compulsion." Turningtherefore to the woman, the Prophet[50] said, "Listen: I am themessenger of Him whom thou hast not known; of Him that made Lebanonand the cedars of Lebanon; that made the sea, and the heavens, and thehost of the stars; that made the light; that made the darkness; thatblew the spirit of life into the nostrils of man. His messenger I am:and from Him all power is given me to bind and to loose, to build andto pull down. Ask, therefore, whatsoever thou wilt—great orsmall—and through me thou shalt receive it from God. But, my child,ask not amiss. For God is able out of thy own evil asking to weavesnares for thy footing. And oftentimes to the lambs whom He loves, Hegives by seeming to refuse; gives in some better sense, or" (and hisvoice swelled into the power of anthems) "in some far happier world.Now, therefore, my daughter, be wise on thy own behalf; and say whatit is that I shall ask for thee from God." But the Daughter of Lebanonneeded not his caution; for immediately dropping on one knee to God'sambassador, whilst the full radiance from the cedar torch fell uponthe glory of a penitential eye, she raised her clasped hands insupplication, and said, in answer to the evangelist asking for asecond time what gift he should call down upon her from Heaven, "Lord,that thou wouldest put me back into my father's house." And theevangelist, because he was human, dropped a tear as he stooped to kissher forehead, saying, "Daughter, thy prayer is heard in heaven; and Itell thee that the daylight shall not come and go for thirty times,not for the thirtieth time shall the sun drop behind Lebanon, before Iwill put thee back into thy father's house."

[Footnote 50: "The Prophet":—Though a Prophet was not thereforeand in virtue of that character an Evangelist, yet every Evangelistwas necessarily in the scriptural sense a Prophet. For let it beremembered that a Prophet did not mean a _Pre_dicter, or _Fore_showerof events, except derivatively and inferentially. What was a Prophetin the uniform scriptural sense? He was a man, who drew aside thecurtain from the secret counsels of Heaven. He declared, or madepublic, the previously hidden truths of God: and because future eventsmight chance to involve divine truth, therefore a revealer of futureevents might happen so far to be a Prophet. Yet still small was thatpart of a Prophet's functions which concerned the foreshowing ofevents; and not necessarily any part.]

Thus the lovely lady came into the guardianship of the evangelist. Shesought not to varnish her history, or to palliate her owntransgressions. In so far as she had offended at all, her case wasthat of millions in every generation. Her father was a prince inLebanon, proud, unforgiving, austere. The wrongs done to his daughterby her dishonourable lover, because done under favour of opportunitiescreated by her confidence in his integrity, her father persisted inresenting as wrong's done by this injured daughter herself; and,refusing to her all protection, drove her, whilst yet confessedlyinnocent, into criminal compliances under sudden necessities ofseeking daily bread from her own uninstructed efforts. Great was thewrong she suffered both from father and lover; great was theretribution. She lost a churlish father and a wicked lover; she gainedan apostolic guardian. She lost a princely station in Lebanon; shegained an early heritage in heaven. For this heritage is hers withinthirty days, if she will not defeat it herself. And, whilst thestealthy motion of time travelled towards this thirtieth day, behold!a burning fever desolated Damascus, which also laid its arrest uponthe Daughter of Lebanon, yet gently, and so that hardly for an hourdid it withdraw her from the heavenly teachings of the evangelist. Andthus daily the doubt was strengthened—would the holy apostle suddenlytouch her with his hand, and say, "Woman, be thou whole!" or would hepresent her on the thirtieth day as a pure bride to Christ? Butperfect freedom belongs to Christian service, and she only must makethe election.

Up rose the sun on the thirtieth morning in all his pomp, but suddenlywas darkened by driving storms. Not until noon was the heavenly orbagain revealed; then the glorious light was again unmasked, and againthe Syrian valleys rejoiced. This was the hour already appointed forthe baptism of the new Christian daughter. Heaven and earth shedgratulation on the happy festival; and, when all was finished, underan awning raised above the level roof of her dwelling-house, theregenerate daughter of Lebanon, looking over the rose-gardens ofDamascus, with amplest prospect of her native hills, lay in blissfultrance, making proclamation, by her white baptismal robes, ofrecovered innocence and of reconciliation with God. And, when the sunwas declining to the west, the evangelist, who had sat from noon bythe bedside of his spiritual daughter, rose solemnly, and said, "Ladyof Lebanon, the day is already come, and the hour is coming, in whichmy covenant must be fulfilled with thee. Wilt thou, therefore, beingnow wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new Father, to give byseeming to refuse; to give in some better sense, or in some farhappier world?" But the Daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at these words;she yearned after her native hills; not for themselves, but becausethere it was that she had left that sweet twin-born sister with whomfrom infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst the everlastingcedars. And again the evangelist sat down by her bedside; while she byintervals communed with him, and by intervals slept gently under theoppression of her fever. But, as evening drew nearer, and it wantednow but a brief space to the going down of the sun, once again, andwith deeper solemnity, the evangelist rose to his feet, and said, "Odaughter! this is the thirtieth day, and the sun is drawing near tohis rest; brief, therefore, is the time within which I must fulfil theword that God spoke to thee by me." Then, because light clouds ofdelirium were playing about her brain, he raised his pastoral staff,and pointing it to her temples, rebuked the clouds, and bade that nomore they should trouble her vision, or stand between her and theforests of Lebanon. And the delirious clouds parted asunder, breakingaway to the right and to the left. But upon the forests of Lebanonthere hung a mighty mass of overshadowing vapours, bequeathed by themorning's storm. And a second time the evangelist raised his pastoralstaff, and, pointing it to the gloomy vapours, rebuked them, and badethat no more they should stand between his daughter and her father'shouse, and immediately the dark vapours broke away from Lebanon to theright and to the left; and the farewell radiance of the sun lighted upall the paths that ran between the everlasting cedars and her father'spalace. But vainly the lady of Lebanon searched every path with hereyes for memorials of her sister. And the evangelist, pitying hersorrow, turned away her eyes to the clear blue sky, which thedeparting vapours had exposed. And he showed her the peace that wasthere. And then he said, "O daughter! this also is but a mask." Andimmediately for the third time he raised his pastoral staff, and,pointing it to the fair blue sky, he rebuked it, and bade that no moreit should stand between her and the vision of God. Immediately theblue sky parted to the right and to the left, laying bare the infiniterevelations that can be made visible only to dying eyes. And theDaughter of Lebanon said to the evangelist, "O father! what armies arethese that I see mustering within the infinite chasm?" And theevangelist replied, "These are the armies of Christ, and they aremustering to receive some dear human blossom, some first-fruits ofChristian faith, that shall rise this night to Christ from Damascus."Suddenly, as thus the child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty vision,she saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in gratulationto herself, the one countenance for which she hungered and thirsted.The twin sister, that should have waited for her in Lebanon, had diedof grief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in raptureshe soared upwards from her couch; immediately in weakness she fellback; and being caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms aroundhis neck; whilst he breathed into her ear his final whisper, "Wiltthou now suffer that God should give by seeming to refuse?"—"Ohyes—yes—yes," was the fervent answer from the Daughter of Lebanon.Immediately the evangelist gave the signal to the heavens, and theheavens gave the signal to the sun; and in one minute after theDaughter of Lebanon had fallen back a marble corpse amongst her whitebaptismal robes, the solar orb dropped behind Lebanon; and theevangelist, with eyes glorified by mortal and immortal tears, renderedthanks to God that had thus accomplished the word which he spokethrough himself to the Magdalen of Lebanon—that not for the thirtiethtime should the sun go down behind her native hills, before he had puther back into her Father's house.

De Quincey.

GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS

An Italian author—Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit—has written a poem uponinsects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome andabominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and thatthey were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the north maydispute this piece of theology; but on the other hand, it is clear asthe snow on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity ofshaving; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious bower, she didnot step upon ice three inches thick.

Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning.You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing isdone. This may be very true; just as a boy at school has only to takea flogging, and the thing is over. But we have not at all made up ourminds upon it; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss thematter, candidly, before we get up. This at least is not idling,though it may be lying. It affords an excellent answer to those, whoask how lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning being,—arational creature. How? Why with the argument calmly at work in one'shead, and the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh—it is a fine way ofspending a sensible, impartial half-hour.

If these people would be more charitable, they would get on with theirargument better. But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert sodogmatically, that one could wish to have them stand round one's bedof a bitter morning, and lie before their faces. They ought to hearboth sides of the bed, the inside and out. If they cannot entertainthemselves with their own thoughts for half an hour or so, it is notthe fault of those who can. If their will is never pulled aside by theenticing arms of imagination, so much the luckier for thestage-coachman.

Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides the greater or lessprivileges to be allowed a man in proportion to his ability of keepingearly hours, the work given his faculties, etc., will at least concedetheir due merits to such representations as the following. In thefirst place, says the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm allnight, and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to awarm-blooded animal. To get out of this state into the cold, besidesthe inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the transition, is sounnatural to such a creature, that the poets, refining upon thetortures of the damned, make one of their greatest agonies consist inbeing suddenly transported from heat to cold,—from fire to ice. Theyare "haled" out of their "beds," says Milton, by "harpy-footedfuries,"—fellows who come to call them. On my first movement towardsthe anticipation of getting up, I find that such parts of the sheetsand bolster, as are exposed to the air of the room, are stone-cold. Onopening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breathrolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottagechimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and seethe window all frozen over. Think of that. Then the servant comes in."It is very cold this morning, is it not?"—"Very cold, Sir."—"Verycold indeed, isn't it?"—"Very cold indeed, Sir."—"More than usuallyso, isn't it, even for this weather?" (Here the servant's wit andgood-nature are put to a considerable test, and the inquirer lies onthorns for the answer.) "Why, Sir … I think it is." (Goodcreature! There is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.)"I must rise, however—get me some warm water."—Here comes a fineinterval between the departure of the servant and the arrival of thehot water; during which, of course, it is of "no use" to get up. Thehot water comes. "Is it quite hot?"—"Yes, Sir."—"Perhaps too hot forshaving: I must wait a little?"—"No, Sir; it will just do." (There isan over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, alittle troublesome.) "Oh—the shirt—you must air my cleanshirt;—linen gets very damp this weather."—"Yes, Sir." Here anotherdelicious five minutes. A knock at the door. "Oh, the shirt—verywell. My stockings—I think the stockings had better be airedtoo."—"Very well, Sir."—Here another interval. At length everythingis ready, except myself. I now, continues our incumbent (a happy word,by the bye, for a country vicar)—I now cannot help thinking a gooddeal—who can?—upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving:it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)—so effeminate (here Irecoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)—Nowonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against thedegenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visagewith a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed theluxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving theflowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture—at MichaelAngelo's—at Titian's—at Shakespeare's—at Fletcher's—atSpenser's—at Chaucer's—at Alfred's—at Plato's—I could name a greatman for every tick of my watch.—Look at the Turks, a grave and otiosepeople.—Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan.—Think ofWortley Montagu, the worthy son of his mother, a man above theprejudice of his time.—Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one isashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance areso much finer than our own.—Lastly, think of the razor itself—howtotally opposed to every sensation of bed—how cold, how edgy, howhard! how utterly different from anything like the warm and circlingamplitude, which

Sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, aquivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he thatsays there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate,that he has no merit in opposing it.

Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons—

Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake?

used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive ingetting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he couldalso imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must beallowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion theargument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn outof his bed by three and four pence; but this will not suffice for astudent. A proud man may say, "What shall I think of myself, if Idon't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive thisprodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. Themechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall thebarometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter ofdiscussion even on the score of health and longevity. He will ask usfor our proofs and precedents of the ill effects of lying later incold weather; and sophisticate much on the advantages of an eventemperature of body; of the natural propensity (pretty universal) tohave one's way; and of the animals that roll themselves up, and sleepall the winter. As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest lifeis of necessity the best; and whether Holborn is the handsomest streetin London.

We only know of one confounding, not to say confounded argument, fitto overturn the huge luxury, the "enormous bliss"—of the vice inquestion. A lier in bed may be allowed to profess a disinterestedindifference for his health or longevity; but while he is showing thereasonableness of consulting his own or one person's comfort, he mustadmit the proportionate claim of more than one; and the best way todeal with him is this, especially for a lady; for we earnestlyrecommend the use of that sex on such occasions, if not somewhatover-persuasive; since extremes have an awkward knack of meeting.First then, admit all the ingeniousness of what he says, telling himthat the bar has been deprived of an excellent lawyer. Then look athim in the most good-natured manner in the world, with a mixture ofassent and appeal in your countenance, and tell him that you arewaiting breakfast for him; that you never like to breakfast withouthim; that you really want it too; that the servants want theirs; thatyou shall not know how to get the house into order, unless he rises;and that you are sure he would do things twenty times worse, even thangetting out of his warm bed, to put them all into good humour and astate of comfort. Then, after having said this, throw in thecomparatively indifferent matter, to him, about his health; but tellhim that it is no indifferent matter to you; that the sight of hisillness makes more people suffer than one; but that if, nevertheless,he really does feel so very sleepy and so very much refreshed by——Yet stay; we hardly know whether the frailty of a—— Yes, yes; saythat too, especially if you say it with sincerity; for if the weaknessof human nature on the one hand and the vis inertiæ on the other,should lead him to take advantage of it once or twice, good-humour andsincerity form an irresistible junction at last; and are still betterand warmer things than pillows and blankets.

Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in, as occasion requires.You may tell a lover, for instance, that lying in bed makes peoplecorpulent; a father, that you wish him to complete the fine manlyexample he sets his children; a lady, that she will injure her bloomor her shape, which M. or W. admires so much; and a student or artist,that he is always so glad to have done a good day's work, in his bestmanner.

Reader. And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do you behave yourself inthis respect?

Indic. Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course; like all advisers.

Reader. Nay, I allow that your mode of argument does not look quiteso suspicious as the old way of sermonising and severity, but I havemy doubts, especially from that laugh of yours. If I should look into-morrow morning—

Indic. Ah, Madam, the look in of a face like yours does anythingwith me. It shall fetch me up at nine, if you please—six, I meantto say.

Leigh Hunt.

THE OLD GENTLEMAN

Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must be eithera widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former. We do not mention hisprecise age, which would be invidious:—nor whether he wears his ownhair or a wig; which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it isa compromise between the more modern scratch and the departed glory ofthe toupee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favouritegrandson, who used to get on the chair behind him, and pull the silverhairs out, ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hairdresser,hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes care togive the bald place as much powder as the covered; in order that hemay convey to the sensorium within a pleasing indistinctness of idearespecting the exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean andneat; and, in warm weather, is proud of opening his waistcoat half-waydown, and letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to show hishardiness as well as taste. His watch and shirt-buttons are of thebest; and he does not care if he has two rings on a finger. If hiswatch ever failed him at the club or coffee-house, he would take awalk every day to the nearest clock of good character, purely to keepit right. He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it outof fashion with his elderly juniors. He has a small co*cked hat forgala days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one,when made a bow to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for theneck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book. Thepocket-book, among other things, contains a receipt for a cough, andsome verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovelyduch*ess of A., beginning—

"When beauteous Mira walks the plain."

He intends this for a common-place book which he keeps, consisting ofpassages in verse and prose, cut out of newspapers and magazines, andpasted in columns; some of them rather gay. His principal other booksare Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost; the Spectator, theHistory of England, the Works of Lady M. W. Montagu, Pope andChurchill; Middleton's Geography; the Gentleman's Magazine; Sir JohnSinclair on Longevity; several plays with portraits in character;Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, PoeticalAmusem*nts at Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts; Junius asoriginally published; a few pamphlets on the American War and LordGeorge Gordon, etc., and one on the French Revolution. In hissitting-rooms are some engravings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua; anengraved portrait of the Marquis of Granby; ditto of M. le Comte deGrasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny;and a portrait of himself, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's portraitis in his chamber, looking upon his bed. She is a little girl,stepping forward with a smile, and a pointed toe, as if going todance. He lost her when she was sixty.

The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to live atleast twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for breakfast, inspite of what is said against its nervous effects; having beensatisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. Johnson's criticism onHanway, and a great liking for tea previously. His china cups andsaucers have been broken since his wife's death, all but one, which isreligiously kept for his use. He passes his morning in walking orriding, looking in at auctions, looking after his India bonds or somesuch money securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by hisexcellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a new old print for hisportfolio. He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see themtill after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish orso; the fishmonger soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with aprofound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner.

His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the accustomedhour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. IfWilliam did not bring it, the fish would be sure to be stale, and theflesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures on a little, takescheese with it. You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of hissenses, as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes port; andif he has drunk more than usual, and in a more private place, may beinduced by some respectful inquiries respecting the old style ofmusic, to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as—

"Chloe, by that borrowed kiss,"

or

"Come, gentle god of soft repose,"

or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning—

"At Upton on the hill,
There lived a happy pair."

Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room: but hewill canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or discuss theweather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits of "my lordNorth" or "my lord Rockingham;" for he rarely says simply, lord; it isgenerally "my lord," trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If aloneafter dinner, his great delight is the newspaper; which he prepares toread by wiping his spectacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes,and drawing the candle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixthis ocular aim and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm'slength, and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open,takes cognizance of the day's information. If he leaves off, it isonly when the door is opened by a new-comer, or when he suspectssomebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On theseoccasions he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes.

In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the theatre, orof having a game of cards. If he enjoys the latter at his own house orlodgings, he likes to play with some friends whom he has known formany years; but an elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet andscientific; and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters;who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser, but towin money at cards is like proving his victory by getting the baggage;and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his not being able tobeat him at rackets. He breaks up early, whether at home or abroad.

At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit. He comes early, if hecan do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently waitingfor the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands placidly lying oneover the other on the top of his stick. He generously admires some ofthe best performers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick,Woodward, and Clive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that thelittle boy should see.

He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes it stillless than he did years back, and cannot bear it in comparison withRanelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, flaring, and jaded. "Ah!"says he, with a sort of triumphant sigh, "Ranelagh was a noble place!Such taste, such elegance, such beauty! There was the duch*ess of A.,the finest woman in England, Sir; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine creature;and Lady Susan what's her name, that had that unfortunate affair withSir Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans."

The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers ready forhim at the fire, when he comes home. He is also extremely choice inhis snuff, and delights to get a fresh boxful in Tavistock-street, inhis way to the theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. He callsfavourite young ladies by their Christian names, however slightlyacquainted with them; and has a privilege also of saluting all brides,mothers, and indeed every species of lady, on the least holidayoccasion. If the husband for instance has met with a piece of luck, heinstantly moves forward, and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. Thewife then says, "My niece, Sir, from the country;" and he kisses theniece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says,"My cousin Harriet, Sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He "neverrecollects such weather," except during the "Great Frost," or when herode down with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows young again inhis little grandchildren, especially the one which he thinks most likehimself; which is the handsomest. Yet he likes the best perhaps theone most resembling his wife; and will sit with him on his lap,holding his hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together. Heplays most tricks with the former, and makes him sneeze. He askslittle boys in general who was the father of Zebedee's children. Ifhis grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them; and makes themblush by telling the master or the upper-scholars, that they are fineboys, and of a precocious genius. He is much struck when an oldacquaintance dies, but adds that he lived too fast; and that poor Bobwas a sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, Sir; mightily set upon ashort life and a merry one."

When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and saylittle or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (thehousekeeper)—"She'll talk."

Leigh Hunt.

THE OLD LADY

If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of hercondition and time of life are so much the more apparent. Shegenerally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rustling as shemoves about the silence of her room; and she wears a nice cap with alace border, that comes under the chin. In a placket at her side is anold enamelled watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet,for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and trim thanotherwise, as she had a fine one when young; and she is not sorry ifyou see a pair of her stockings on a table, that you may be aware ofthe neatness of her leg and foot. Contented with these and otherevident indications of a good shape, and letting her young friendsunderstand that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wearspockets, and uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, andany heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as thechange of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment,consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, aspectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, asmelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple,which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, to give to somelittle child that has well behaved itself. She generally occupies tworooms, in the neatest condition possible. In the chamber is a bed witha white coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and withcurtains of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of largeplants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are moreshepherds and shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all incoloured ware: the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of ribbonsat his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand, andwith the other at his breast, turning his toes out and lookingtenderly at the shepherdess: the woman holding a crook also, andmodestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a veryslender waist, with petticoat and hips to counteract, and thepetticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show thetrimness of her ankles. But these patterns, of course, are various.The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with asnow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various boxes, mostlyjapan; and the set of drawers are exquisite things for a little girlto rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,—containing ribbons andlaces of various kinds; linen smelling of lavender, of the flowers ofwhich there is always dust in the corners; a heap of pocket-books fora series of years; and pieces of dress long gone by, such ashead-fronts, stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with enormousheels. The stock of letters are under especial lock and key. So muchfor the bedroom. In the sitting-room is rather a spare assortment ofshining old mahogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, withchintz draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, withChinese figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces perkingsideways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is toomuch for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantelpiece, in acoat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly insertedin the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall, is a piece ofembroidered literature, framed and glazed, containing some moraldistich or maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with two trees ofparrots below, in their proper colours; the whole concluding with an AB C and numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, expressing itto be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest of the furniture consists ofa looking-glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for thefeet, a mat for the little dog, and a small set of shelves, in whichare the "Spectator" and "Guardian," the "Turkish Spy," a Bible andPrayer Book, Young's "Night Thoughts" with a piece of lace in it toflatten, Mrs. Rowe's "Devout Exercises of the Heart," Mrs. Glasse's"Cookery," and perhaps "Sir Charles Grandison," and "Clarissa." "JohnBuncle" is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. The clock ison the landing-place between the two room doors, where it ticksaudibly but quietly; and the landing-place, as well as the stairs, iscarpeted to a nicety. The house is most in character, and properlycoeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, withwainscot rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Beforethe windows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Ladyreceives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game ofcards: or you may see her going out on the same kind of visit herself,with a light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivoryhandle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love to her andcaptious antipathy to strangers. Her grandchildren dislike him onholidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures to give him a sly kickunder the table. When she returns at night, she appears, if theweather happens to be doubtful, in a calash; and her servant inpattens, follows half behind and half at her side, with a lantern.

Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergyman a niceman. The Duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great man; butshe has a secret preference for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks theyoung women of the present day too forward, and the men not respectfulenough; but hopes her grandchildren will be better; though she differswith her daughter in several points respecting their management. Shesets little value on the new accomplishments; is a great thoughdelicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery;and if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breedingof the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir CharlesGrandison, whom she almost considers as a real person. She likes awalk of a summer's evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, etc.,and sometimes goes through the churchyard, where her other childrenand her husband lie buried, serious, but not melancholy. She has hadthree great epochs in her life:—her marriage—her having been atcourt, to see the King and Queen and Royal Family—and a compliment onher figure she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom shedescribes as a sad, loose man, but engaging. His plainness she thinksmuch exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it isstill the court; but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last timebut one that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg; and mostprobably for the last time of all, to see the Princess Charlotte andPrince Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned with the sameadmiration as ever for the fine comely appearance of the Duke of Yorkand the rest of the family, and great delight at having had a nearview of the Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and liftedmittens, clasping them as passionately as she can together, andcalling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, a fineroyal young creature, and "Daughter of England."

Leigh Hunt.

THE MAID-SERVANT[51]

Must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, thebutler, or her cousin, or has otherwise settled into a characterdistinct from her original one, so as to become what is properlycalled the domestic. The Maid-servant, in her apparel, is eitherslovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all timessnug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the lattercase, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, anda neck-handkerchief pinned cornerwise behind. If you want a pin, shejust feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays andholidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockingsfor white, puts on a gown of better texture and fine pattern, sets hercap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for ahigh-body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There issomething very warm and latent in the handkerchief—something easy,vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her likea case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. Shelooks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see herchucked out of doors into a cart, with as little remorse as a coupleof sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as thehandkerchief, and is to the other what the young lady is to theservant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in Sir RichardSteele; the other of Fanny in "Joseph Andrews."

[Footnote 51: In some respects, particularly of costume, this portraitmust be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty years ago.]

But to return. The general furniture of her ordinary room, thekitchen, is not so much her own as her Master's and Mistress's, andneed not be described: but in a drawer of the dresser or the table, incompany with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of herproperty, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissors, a thread-case,a piece of wax much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of"Pamela," and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as "George Barnwell," orMrs. Behn's "Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking-glass in thewindow. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may finda good looking-glass on the table, and in the window a Bible, a comb,and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, themighty mystery,—the box,—containing, among other things, herclothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for thepenny; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet; the "Whole Nature ofDreams Laid Open," together with the "Fortune-teller" and the "Accountof the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;" the "Story of the Beautiful Zoa" "who wascast away on a desart island, showing how," etc.; some half-crowns ina purse, including pieces of country-money, with the good Countess ofCoventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver pennywrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her beforeshe came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten or beenforgotten by her, she is not sure which;—two little enamel boxes,with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "aTrifle from Margate;" and lastly, various letters, square and ragged,and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little lettersfor capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school,is directed "Miss."

In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her youngmistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, andoccasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character andcondition overcome all sophistications of this sort: her shape,fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; andexercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause hertemper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger isover-saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, orwhen some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirtyshoes,—or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does shemuch like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; andsometimes she catches herself saying, "Drat that butcher," butimmediately adds, "God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with theircompliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. Themilkman bespeaks her good-humour for the day with "Come, prettymaids:"—then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, etc., allwith their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes tothe shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string fromits roller with more than the ordinary whirl, and tosses his parcelinto a tie.

Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, andgrumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnectedwith her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up thearea-steps or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see atroop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out ofa chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house,when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginaryobstacles between. If the Maid-servant is wise, the best part of herwork is done by dinner-time; and nothing else is necessary to giveperfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when shecalls it "a bit o' dinner." There is the same sort of eloquence in herother phrase, "a cup o' tea;" but the old ones, and the washerwomen,beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the otherservants to hot co*ckles, or What-are-my-thoughts-like, and tells Mr.John to "have done then;" or if there is a ball given that night, theythrow open the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by.In smaller houses, she receives the visits of her aforesaid cousin;and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks ofher young master or mistress and Mr. Ivins (Evans); or else she callsto mind her own friends in the country; where she thinks the cows and"all that" beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, shesnuffs the candle with her scissors; or if she has eaten more heartilythan usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinksthat tender hearts were born to be unhappy.

Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad,to be anything but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The Maid-servant,the sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy aholiday beyond all the rest of the world;—and all for the samereason,—because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit ofbeing with persons of circ*mstances or thoughts above them, give themall, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of themoney-getters is a vegetable compared with them. The Maid-servant whenshe first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is allpleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play or themusic, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching ofapples and gingerbread, which she and her party commence almost assoon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy,because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general;and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in thelove-scenes. Her favourite play is "Alexander the Great, or the RivalQueens." Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves tolook at the pictures in the windows, and the fine things labelled withthose corpulent numerals of "only 7_s._"—"only 6_s._ 6_d._" She hasalso, unless born and bred in London, been to see my Lord Mayor, thefine people coming out of Court, and the "beasties" in the Tower; andat all events she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which shecomes away, equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing atthe clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most.One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through anendless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, andwonders. Here she is invited in by courteous and well-dressed people,as if she were a mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, wherethe operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white,calls her Ma'am; and says to John by her side, in spite of his lacedhat, "Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady."

Ah! may her "cousin" turn out as true as he says he is; or may she gethome soon enough and smiling enough to be as happy again next time.

Leigh Hunt.

CHARACTERISTICS

The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is thePhysician's Aphorism; and applicable in a far wider sense than hegives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral, intellectual,political, poetical, than in merely corporeal therapeutics; thatwherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can benamed vital are at work, herein lies the test of their working rightor working wrong.

In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the firstcondition of complete health is, that each organ perform its functionunconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separateexistence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain,then already has one of those unfortunate "false centres ofsensibility" established itself, already is derangement there. Theperfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collective bodilyactivities seem one; and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves,but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that hissystem is in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit;but the true Peptician was that Countryman who answered that, "for hispart, he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement is always silent,or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. Solong as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pourforth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody andunison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestialmusic and diapason,—which also, like that other music of the spheres,even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption andwithout imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus too, insome languages, is the state of health well denoted by a termexpressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say thatwe are whole.

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with thatfelicity of "having no system;" nevertheless, most of us, looking backon young years, may remember seasons of a light, aërial translucencyand elasticity and perfect freedom; the body had not yet become theprison-house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement, like acreature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knewnot that we had limbs, we only lifted, hurled and leapt: through eyeand ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings fromwithout, and from within issued clear victorious force; we stood as inthe centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in harmony with it all;unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, "too happy because we did not know ourblessedness." In those days, health and sickness were foreigntraditions that did not concern us; our whole being was as yet One,the whole man like an incorporated Will. Such, were Rest orever-successful Labour the human lot, might our life continue to be: apure, perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of perfect white light,rendering all things visible, but itself unseen, even because it wasof that perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction had yet brokenit into colours. The beginning of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, ifwe consider well, as it must have originated in the feeling ofsomething being wrong, so it is and continues to be but Division,Dismemberment, and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of oldwritten, the Tree of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bearsfruits of good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had beenno Anatomy and no Metaphysics.

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, "Life itself is a disease; aworking incited by suffering;" action from passion! The memory of thatfirst state of Freedom and paradisaic Unconsciousness has faded awayinto an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious of manythings: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even doour best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and atrare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest the fiercejar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what we will, there isno disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still the wish of Nature on ourbehalf; in all vital action, her manifest purpose and effort is, thatwe should be unconscious of it, and, like the peptic Countryman, neverknow that we "have a system." For indeed vital action everywhere isemphatically a means, not an end; Life is not given us for the meresake of Living, but always with an ulterior external Aim: neither isit on the process, on the means, but rather on the result, thatNature, in any of her doings, is wont to entrust us with insight andvolition. Boundless as is the domain of man, it is but a smallfractional proportion of it that he rules with Consciousness and byForethought: what he can contrive, nay what he can altogether know andcomprehend, is essentially the mechanical, small; the great is ever,in one sense or other, the vital; it is essentially the mysterious,and only the surface of it can be understood. But Nature, it mightseem, strives, like a kind mother, to hide from us even this, that sheis a mystery: she will have us rest on her beautiful and awful bosomas if it were our secure home; on the bottomless boundless Deep,whereon all human things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will haveus walk and build, as if the film which supported us there (which anyscratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder, any sputter of apistol-shot instantaneously burn up) were no film, but a solidrock-foundation. Forever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable Death,man can forget that he is born to die; of his Life, which, strictlymeditated, contains in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he canconceive lightly, as of a simple implement wherewith to do day-labourand earn wages. So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all highestArt, which only apes her from afar, body forth the Finite from theInfinite; and guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more byendowing him with vision, than, at the right place, with blindness!Under all her works, chiefly under her noblest work, Life, lies abasis of Darkness, which she benignantly conceals; in Life too, theroots and inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to theregions of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence, andonly the fair stem with its leaves and flowers, shone on by the fairsun, shall disclose itself, and joyfully grow.

However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly askingWhy and How, in things where our answer must needs prove, in greatpart, an echo of the question, let us be content to remark farther, inthe merely historical way, how that Aphorism of the bodily Physicianholds good in quite other departments. Of the Soul, with heractivities, we shall find it no less true than of the Body: nay, crythe Spiritualists, is not that very division of the unity, Man, into adualism of Soul and Body, itself the symptom of disease; as, perhaps,your frightful theory of Materialism, of his being but a Body, andtherefore, at least, once more a unity, may be the paroxysm which wascritical, and the beginning of cure! But omitting this, we observe,with confidence enough, that the truly strong mind, view it asIntellect, as Morality, or under any other aspect, is nowise the mindacquainted with its strength; that here as before the sign of healthis Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our outward world, what ismechanical lies open to us: not what is dynamical and has vitality. Ofour Thinking, we might say, it is but the mere upper surface that weshape into articulate Thoughts;—underneath the region of argument andconscious discourse, lies the region of meditation; here, in its quietmysterious depths, dwells what vital force is in us; here, if aught isto be created, and not merely manufactured and communicated, must thework go on. Manufacture is intelligible, but trivial; Creation isgreat, and cannot be understood. Thus if the Debater and Demonstrator,whom we may rank as the lowest of true thinkers, knows what he hasdone, and how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the highest,knows not; must speak of Inspiration, and in one or the other dialect,call his work the gift of a divinity.

But on the whole, "genius is ever a secret to itself;" of this oldtruth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes noairs for writing Hamlet and the Tempest, understands not that itis anything surprising: Milton, again, is more conscious of hisfaculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On the other hand, whatcackling and strutting must we not often hear and see, when, in someshape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article, this orthe other well-fledged goose has produced its goose-egg, of quitemeasurable value, were it the pink of its whole kind; and wonders whyall mortals do not wonder!

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at WalterShandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could nevertheless argue;and not knowing the name of any dialectic tool, handled them all toperfection. Is it the skilfullest anatomist that cuts the best figureat Sadler's Wells? Or does the boxer hit better for knowing that hehas a flexor longus and a flexor brevis? But indeed, as in thehigher case of the Poet, so here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer,the true force is an unconscious one. The healthy Understanding, weshould say, is not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive; forthe end of Understanding is not to prove and find reasons, but to knowand believe. Of logic, and its limits, and uses and abuses, there weremuch to be said and examined; one fact, however, which chieflyconcerns us here, has long been familiar: that the man of logic andthe man of insight; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or even Knower,are quite separable,—indeed, for most part, quite separatecharacters. In practical matters, for example, has it not becomealmost proverbial that the man of logic cannot prosper? This is hewhom business-people call Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger;his vital intellectual force lies dormant or extinct, his wholeforce is mechanical, conscious: of such a one it is foreseen that,when once confronted with the infinite complexities of the real world,his little compact theorem of the world will be found wanting; thatunless he can throw it overboard, and become a new creature, he willnecessarily founder. Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the mostineffectual of all characters, generally speaking, is your dialecticman-at-arms; were he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, andperfect master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him! Considerthe old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards Truth: thefaithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often greatnatural vigour; only no progress: nothing but antic feats of one limbpoised against the other; there they balanced, somersetted and madepostures; at best gyrated swiftly, with some pleasure, like SpinningDervishes, and ended where they began. So is it, so will it always be,with all System-makers and builders of logical card-castles; of whichclass a certain remnant must, in every age, as they do in our own,survive and build. Logic is good, but it is not the best. TheIrrefragable Doctor, with his chains of induction, his corollaries,dilemmas and other cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will castyou a beautiful horoscope, and speak reasonable things; neverthelessyour stolen jewel, which you wanted him to find you, is notforthcoming. Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is,of a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty splitasunder, and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with allhis logical tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it onall hands too hard for him.

Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as indeedeverywhere in that superiority of what is called the Natural over theArtificial, we find a similar illustration. The Orator persuades andcarries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove thathe ought to have persuaded and carried all with him: the one is in astate of healthy unconsciousness, as if he "had no system;" the other,in virtue of regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels at best that "hissystem is in high order." So stands it, in short, with all the formsof Intellect, whether as directed to the finding of truth, or to thefit imparting thereof: to Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of Insight,which is the basis of both these; always the characteristic of rightperformance is a certain spontaneity, an unconsciousness; "the healthyknow not of their health, but only the sick." So that the old preceptof the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his ambitious disciple,might contain in it a most fundamental truth, applicable to us all,and in much else than Literature: "Whenever you have written anysentence that looks particularly excellent, be sure to blot it out."In like manner, under milder phraseology, and with a meaning purposelymuch wider, a living Thinker has taught us: "Of the Wrong we arealways conscious, of the Right never."

But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the Intellectualpower of man, much more is it with regard to Conduct, and the power,manifested chiefly therein, which we name Moral. "Let not thy lefthand know what thy right hand doeth:" whisper not to thy own heart,How worthy is this action; for then it is already becoming worthless.The good man is he who works continually in welldoing; to whomwelldoing is as his natural existence, awakening no astonishment,requiring no commentary; but there, like a thing of course, and as ifit could not but be so. Self-contemplation, on the other hand, isinfallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it not the sign ofcure. An unhealthy Virtue is one that consumes itself to leanness inrepenting and anxiety; or, still worse, that inflates itself intodropsical boastfulness and vain-glory: either way, there is aself-seeking; an unprofitable looking behind us to measure the way wehave made: whereas the sole concern is to walk continually forward,and make more way. If in any sphere of man's life, then in the Moralsphere, as the inmost and most vital of all, it is good that there bewholeness; that there be unconsciousness, which is the evidence ofthis. Let the free, reasonable Will, which dwells in us, as in ourHoly of Holies, be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as is itsright and its effort: the perfect obedience will be the silent one.Such perhaps were the sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual,but the half of a truth: To say that we have a clear conscience, is toutter a solecism; had we never sinned, we should have had noconscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebratedby songs of triumph.

This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; yet everthe goal towards which our actual state of being strives; which it isthe more perfect the nearer it can approach. Nor, in our actual world,where Labour must often prove _in_effectual, and thus in all sensesLight alternate with Darkness, and the nature of an ideal Morality bemuch modified, is the case, thus far, materially different. It is afact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso isacquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivateacquaintance with. Above all, the public acknowledgment of suchacquaintance, indicating that it has reached quite an intimatefooting, bodes ill. Already, to the popular judgment, he who talksmuch about Virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspect; it isshrewdly guessed that where there is a great preaching, there will belittle almsgiving. Or again, on a wider scale, we can remark that agesof Heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy; Virtue, when it can bephilosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and beginningto decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of ChivalrousValour shrinks together, and perks itself up into shrivelled Points ofHonour; humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind dwindle into punctiliousPoliteness, "avoiding meats;" "paying tithe of mint and anise,neglecting the weightier matters of the law." Goodness, which was arule to itself, must now appeal to Precept, and seek strength fromSanctions; the Freewill no longer reigns unquestioned and by divineright, but like a mere earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewardsand Punishments: or rather, let us say, the Freewill, so far as maybe, has abdicated and withdrawn into the dark, and a spectralnightmare of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that mysteriousSelf-impulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired, and in all sensespartaking of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in a finitedialect, and answering, as it needs must, by silence,—is conceived asnon-extant, and only the outward Mechanism of it remains acknowledged:of Volition, except as the synonym of Desire, we hear nothing; of"Motives," without any Mover, more than enough.

So too, when the generous Affections have become well-nigh paralytic,we have the reign of Sentimentality. The greatness, theprofitableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental nature ofhigh feeling, and the luxury of doing good; charity, love,self-forgetfulness, devotedness and all manner of godlikemagnanimity,—are everywhere insisted on, and pressingly inculcated inspeech and writing, in prose and verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim"Benevolence" to all the four winds, and have TRUTH engraved on theirwatch-seals: unhappily with little or no effect. Were the limbs inright walking order, why so much demonstrating of motion? Thebarrenest of all mortals is the Sentimentalist. Granting even that hewere sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us, or without firstdeceiving himself, what good is in him? Does he not lie there as aperpetual lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarianimpotence? His is emphatically a Virtue that has become, through everyfibre, conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it weremade of glass, and durst not touch or be touched: in the shape ofwork, it can do nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing andcaudling, keeps itself alive. As the last stage of all, when Virtue,properly so called, has ceased to be practised, and become extinct,and a mere remembrance, we have the era of Sophists, descanting of itsexistence, proving it, denying it, mechanically "accounting" forit;—as dissectors and demonstrators cannot operate till once the bodybe dead.

Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which indeed is buta lower phasis thereof, "ever a secret to itself." The healthy moralnature loves Goodness, and without wonder wholly lives in it: theunhealthy makes love to it, and would fain get to live in it; or,finding such courtship fruitless, turns round, and not withoutcontempt abandons it. These curious relations of the Voluntary andConscious to the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the small proportionwhich, in all departments of our life, the former bears to thelatter,—might lead us into deep questions of Psychology andPhysiology: such, however, belong not to our present object. Enough,if the fact itself become apparent, that Nature so meant it with us;that in this wise we are made. We may now say, that view man'sindividual Existence under what aspect we will, under the highestspiritual, as under the merely animal aspect, everywhere the grandvital energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen unconscious one;or, in the words of our old Aphorism, "the healthy know not of theirhealth, but only the sick."

* * * * *

To understand man, however, we must look beyond the individual man andhis actions or interests, and view him in combination with hisfellows. It is in Society that man first feels what he is; firstbecomes what he can be. In Society an altogether new set of spiritualactivities are evolved in him, and the old immeasurably quickened andstrengthened. Society is the genial element wherein his nature firstlives and grows; the solitary man were but a small portion of himself,and must continue forever folded in, stunted and only half alive."Already," says a deep Thinker, with more meaning than will discloseitself at once, "my opinion, my conviction, gains infinitely instrength and sureness, the moment a second mind has adopted it." Such,even in its simplest form, is association; so wondrous the communionof soul with soul as directed to the mere act of Knowing! In otherhigher acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in that portion ofour being which we name the Moral: for properly, indeed, all communionis of a moral sort, whereof such intellectual communion (in the act ofknowing) is itself an example. But with regard to Morals strictly socalled, it is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins;here at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every side, asin living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man to himself, towhat is Highest in himself, make but the First Table of the Law: tothe First Table is now superadded a Second, with the Duties of Man tohis Neighbour; whereby also the significance of the First now assumesits true importance. Man has joined himself with man; soul acts andreacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union establishesitself; Life, in all its elements, has become intensated, consecrated.The lightning-spark of Thought, generated, or say ratherheaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens its express likeness inanother mind, in a thousand other minds, and all blaze up together incombined fire; reverberated from mind to mind, fed also with freshfuel in each, it acquires incalculable new light as Thought,incalculable new heat as converted into Action. By and by, a commonstore of Thought can accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlastingpossession: Literature, whether as preserved in the memory of Bards,in Runes and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of written orprinted paper, comes into existence, and begins to play its wondrouspart. Polities are formed; the weak submitting to the strong; with awilling loyalty, giving obedience that he may receive guidance: or sayrather, in honour of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the wise;for so it is in all even the rudest communities, man never yieldshimself wholly to brute Force, but always to moral Greatness; thus theuniversal title of respect, from the Oriental Sheik, from theSachem of the Red Indians, down to our English Sir, implies onlythat he whom we mean to honour is our senior. Last, as the crown andall-supporting keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The devoutmeditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like atransient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, acquires certainty,continuance, when it is shared-in by his brother men. "Where two orthree are gathered together" in the name of the Highest, then firstdoes the Highest, as it is written, "appear among them to bless them;"then first does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way fromEarth to Heaven; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's-ladder, theheavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings and unspeakablegifts for men. Such is Society, the vital articulation of manyindividuals into a new collective individual: greatly the mostimportant of man's attainments on this earth; that in which, and byvirtue of which, all his other attainments and attempts find theirarena, and have their value. Considered well, Society is the standingwonder of our existence; a true region of the Supernatural; as itwere, a second all-embracing Life, wherein our first individual Lifebecomes doubly and trebly alive, and whatever of Infinitude was in usbodies itself forth, and becomes visible and active.

To figure Society as endowed with life is scarcely a metaphor; butrather the statement of a fact by such imperfect methods as languageaffords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, Nature's highest workwith man, wherein man's volition plays an indispensable yet sosubordinate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so mysteriously andindissolubly out of the infinite Dynamical, like Body out ofSpirit,—is truly enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears thedistinguishing character of life. In the same style also, we can saythat Society has its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth,manhood, decrepitude, dissolution and new-birth; in one or other ofwhich stages we may, in all times, and all places where men inhabit,discern it; and do ourselves, in this time and place, whether ascoöperating or as contending, as healthy members or as diseased ones,to our joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question, What is theactual condition of Society? has in these days unhappily becomeimportant enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that question; butfor the majority of thinking men a true answer to it, such is thestate of matters, appears almost as the one thing needful. Meanwhile,as the true answer, that is to say, the complete and fundamentalanswer and settlement, often as it has been demanded, is nowhereforthcoming, and indeed by its nature is impossible, any honestapproximation towards such is not without value. The feeblest light,or even so much as a more precise recognition of the darkness, whichis the first step to attainment of light, will be welcome.

This once understood, let it not seem idle if we remark that here tooour old Aphorism holds; that again in the Body Politic, as in theanimal body, the sign of right performance is Unconsciousness. Suchindeed is virtually the meaning of that phrase, "artificial state ofsociety," as contrasted with the natural state, and indicatingsomething so inferior to it. For, in all vital things, men distinguishan Artificial and a Natural; founding on some dim perception orsentiment of the very truth we here insist on: the artificial is theconscious, mechanical; the natural is the unconscious, dynamical.Thus, as we have an artificial Poetry, and prize only the natural; solikewise we have an artificial Morality, an artificial Wisdom, anartificial Society. The artificial Society is precisely one that knowsits own structure, its own internal functions; not in watching, not inknowing which, but in working outwardly to the fulfilment of its aim,does the wellbeing of a Society consist. Every Society, every Polity,has a spiritual principle; is the embodiment, tentative and more orless complete, of an Idea: all its tendencies of endeavour,specialties of custom, its laws, politics and whole procedure (as theglance of some Montesquieu, across innumerable superficialentanglements, can partly decipher), are prescribed by an Idea, andflow naturally from it, as movements from the living source of motion.This Idea, be it of devotion to a man or class of men, to a creed, toan institution, or even, as in more ancient times, to a piece of land,is ever a true Loyalty; has in it something of a religious, paramount,quite infinite character; it is properly the Soul of the State, itsLife; mysterious as other forms of Life, and like these workingsecretly, and in a depth beyond that of consciousness.

Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages of a Roman Republic thatTreatises of the Commonwealth are written: while the Decii are rushingwith devoted bodies on the enemies of Rome, what need of preachingPatriotism? The virtue of Patriotism has already sunk from itspristine all-transcendant condition, before it has received a name. Solong as the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it cares not todabble in anatomy. Why teach obedience to the Sovereign; why so muchas admire it, or separately recognise it, while a divine idea ofObedience perennially inspires all men? Loyalty, like Patriotism, ofwhich it is a form, was not praised till it had begun to decline; thePreux Chevaliers first became rightly admirable, when "dying fortheir king" had ceased to be a habit with chevaliers. For if themystic significance of the State, let this be what it may, dwellsvitally in every heart, encircles every life as with a second higherlife, how should it stand self-questioning? It must rush outward, andexpress itself by works. Besides, if perfect, it is there as bynecessity, and does not excite inquiry: it is also by nature infinite,has no limits; therefore can be circ*mscribed by no conditions anddefinitions; cannot be reasoned of; except musically, or in thelanguage of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of.

In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at heart. Notindeed without suffering enough; not without perplexities, difficultyon every side: for such is the appointment of man; his highest andsole blessedness is, that he toil, and know what to toil at: not inease, but in united victorious labour, which is at once evil and thevictory over evil, does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no deeperthan such superficial perplexities of the early Time, historians havetaught us that it was all one mass of contradiction and disease; andin the antique Republic, or feudal Monarchy, have seen only theconfused chaotic quarry, not the robust labourer, or the statelyedifice he was building of it. If Society, in such ages, had itsdifficulty, it had also its strength: if sorrowful masses of rubbishso encumbered it, the tough sinews to hurl them aside, withindomitable heart, were not wanting. Society went along withoutcomplaint; did not stop to scrutinise itself, to say, How well Iperform, or, Alas, how ill! Men did not yet feel themselves to be "theenvy of surrounding nations;" and were enviable on that very account.Society was what we can call whole, in both senses of the word. Theindividual man was in himself a whole, or complete union; and couldcombine with his fellows as the living member of a greater whole. Forall men, through their life, were animated by one great Idea; thus allefforts pointed one way, everywhere there was wholeness. Opinion andAction had not yet become disunited; but the former could stillproduce the latter, or attempt to produce it; as the stamp does itsimpression while the wax is not hardened. Thought, and the voice ofthought were also a unison; thus, instead of Speculation, we hadPoetry; Literature, in its rude utterance, was as yet a heroic Song,perhaps too a devotional Anthem. Religion was everywhere; Philosophylay hid under it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as in thelife-centre of all, lay the true health and oneness. Only at a laterera must Religion split itself into Philosophies; and thereby, thevital union of Thought being lost, disunion and mutual collision inall provinces of Speech and Action more and more prevail. For if thePoet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired thinker may benamed, is the sign of vigour and well-being; so likewise is theLogician, or uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, probably ofdecrepitude and decay. Thus, not to mention other instances, one ofthem much nearer hand,—so soon as Prophecy among the Hebrews hadceased, then did the reign of Argumentation begin; and the ancientTheocracy, in its Sadducecisms and Phariseeisms, and vain jangling ofsects and doctors, give token that the soul of it had fled, and thatthe body itself, by natural dissolution, "with the old forces stillat work, but working in reverse order," was on the road to finaldisappearance.

* * * * *

We might pursue this question into innumerable other ramifications;and everywhere, under new shapes, find the same truth, which we hereso imperfectly enunciate, disclosed; that throughout the whole worldof man, in all manifestations and performances of his nature, outwardand inward, personal and social, the Perfect, the Great is a mysteryto itself, knows not itself; whatsoever does know itself is alreadylittle, and more or less imperfect. Or otherwise, we may say,Unconsciousness belongs to pure unmixed life; Consciousness to adiseased mixture and conflict of life and death: Unconsciousness isthe sign of creation; Consciousness, at best, that of manufacture. Sodeep, in this existence of ours, is the significance of Mystery. Wellmight the Ancients make Silence a god; for it is the element of allgodhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness; at once the sourceand the ocean wherein all such begins and ends. In the same sense too,have Poets sung "Hymns to the Night;" as if Night were nobler thanDay; as if Day were but a small motley-coloured veil spreadtransiently over the infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform andhide from us its purely transparent, eternal deeps. So likewise havethey spoken and sung as if Silence were the grand epitome and completesum-total of all Harmony; and Death, what mortals call Death, properlythe beginning of Life. Under such figures, since except in figuresthere is no speaking of the Invisible, have men endeavoured to expressa great Truth;—a Truth, in our Times, as nearly as is perhapspossible, forgotten by the most; which nevertheless continues forevertrue, forever all-important, and will one day, under new figures, beagain brought home to the bosoms of all.

But indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest mind has still someintimation of the greatness there is in Mystery. If Silence was made agod of by the Ancients, he still continues a government-clerk among usModerns. To all quacks, moreover, of what sort soever, the effect ofMystery is well known: here and there some Cagliostro, even in latterdays, turns it to notable account: the blockhead also, who isambitious, and has no talent, finds sometimes in "the talent ofsilence," a kind of succedaneum. Or again, looking on the oppositeside of the matter, do we not see, in the common understanding ofmankind, a certain distrust, a certain contempt of what is altogetherself-conscious and mechanical? As nothing that is wholly seen throughhas other than a trivial character; so anything professing to begreat, and yet wholly to see through itself, is already known to befalse, and a failure. The evil repute your "theoretical men" stand in,the acknowledged inefficiency of "paper constitutions," and all thatclass of objects, are instances of this. Experience often repeated,and perhaps a certain instinct of something far deeper that lies undersuch experiences, has taught men so much. They know beforehand, thatthe loud is generally the insignificant, the empty. Whatsoever canproclaim itself from the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and forthose multitudes that must needs buy of him; but for any deeper use,might as well continue unproclaimed. Observe too, how the converse ofthe proposition holds; how the insignificant, the empty, is usuallythe loud; and, after the manner of a drum, is loud even because of itsemptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner Calefactor can be bruitedabroad over the whole world in the course of the first winter; thoseof the Printing Press are not so well seen into for the first threecenturies: the passing of the Select-Vestries Bill raises more noiseand hopeful expectancy among mankind than did the promulgation of theChristian Religion. Again, and again, we say, the great, the creativeand enduring is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barrenand transient is otherwise.

* * * * *

If we now, with a practical medical view, examine, by this same testof Unconsciousness, the Condition of our own Era, and of man's Lifetherein, the diagnosis we arrive at is nowise of a flattering sort.The state of Society in our days is, of all possible states, the leastan unconscious one: this is specially the Era when all manner ofInquiries into what was once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of man'sexistence, find their place, and, as it were, occupy the whole domainof thought. What, for example, is all this that we hear, for the lastgeneration or two, about the Improvement of the Age, the Spirit of theAge, Destruction of Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and the Marchof Intellect, but an unhealthy state of self-sentience, self-survey;the precursor and prognostic of still worse health? That Intellect domarch, if possible at double-quick time, is very desirable;nevertheless, why should she turn round at every stride, and cry: Seeyou what a stride I have taken! Such a marching of Intellect isdistinctly of the spavined kind; what the Jockeys call "all action andno go." Or at best, if we examine well, it is the marching of thatgouty Patient, whom his Doctors had clapt on a metal floorartificially heated to the searing point, so that he was obliged tomarch, and did march with a vengeance—nowhither. Intellect did notawaken for the first time yesterday; but has been under way fromNoah's Flood downwards: greatly her best progress, moreover, was inthe old times, when she said nothing about it. In those same "darkages," Intellect (metaphorically as well as literally) could inventglass, which now she has enough ado to grind into spectacles.Intellect built not only Churches, but a Church, the Church, basedon this firm Earth, yet reaching up, and leading up, as high asHeaven; and now it is all she can do to keep its doors bolted, thatthere be no tearing of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. Shebuilt a Senate-house likewise, glorious in its kind; and now it costsher a well-nigh mortal effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get theroof made rain-tight.

But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most other things, we arenow passing from that first or boastful stage of Self-sentience intothe second or painful one: out of these often-asseverated declarationsthat "our system is in high order," we come now, by natural sequence,to the melancholy conviction that it is altogether the reverse. Thus,for instance, in the matter of Government, the period of the"Invaluable Constitution" must be followed by a Reform Bill; tolaudatory De Lolmes succeed objurgatory Benthams. At any rate, whatTreatises on the Social Contract, on the Elective Franchise, theRights of Man, the Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions,Constitutions, have we not, for long years, groaned under! Or again,with a wider survey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts on Man,Inquiries concerning Man; not to mention Evidences of the ChristianFaith, Theories of Poetry, Considerations on the Origin of Evil, whichduring the last century have accumulated on us to a frightful extent.Never since the beginning of Time was there, that we hear or read of,so intensely self-conscious a Society. Our whole relations to theUniverse and to our fellow man have become an Inquiry, a Doubt;nothing will go on of its own accord, and do its function quietly; butall things must be probed into, the whole working of man's world beanatomically studied. Alas, anatomically studied, that it may bemedically aided! Till at length indeed, we have come to such a pass,that except in this same medicine, with its artifices andappliances, few can so much as imagine any strength or hope to remainfor us. The whole Life of Society must now be carried on by drugs:doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum, of CoöperativeSocieties, Universal Suffrage, Cottage-and-Cow systems, Repression ofPopulation, Vote by Ballot. To such height has the dyspepsia ofSociety reached; as indeed the constant grinding internal pain, orfrom time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all Society dootherwise too mournfully indicate.

Far be it from us to attribute, as some unwise persons do, the diseaseitself to this unhappy sensation that there is a disease! TheEncyclopedists did not produce the troubles of France; but thetroubles of France produced the Encyclopedists, and much else. TheSelf-consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it is also the attempttowards cure. We record the fact, without special censure; notwondering that Society should feel itself, and in all ways complain ofaches and twinges, for it has suffered enough. Napoleon was but aJob's-comforter, when he told his wounded Staff-officer, twiceunhorsed by cannon-balls, and with half his limbs blown to pieces:"Vous vous écoutez trop!"

On the outward, as it were Physical diseases of Society, it werebeside our purpose to insist here. These are diseases which he whoruns may read; and sorrow over, with or without hope. Wealth hasaccumulated itself into masses; and Poverty, also in accumulationenough, lies impassably separated from it; opposed, uncommunicating,like forces in positive and negative poles. The gods of this lowerworld sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than Epicurus'sgods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the boundless living chaosof Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, in its dark fury, undertheir feet. How much among us might be likened to a whited sepulchre;outwardly all pomp and strength; but inwardly full of horror anddespair and dead-men's bones! Iron highways, with their wainsfirewinged, are uniting all ends of the firm Land; quays and moles,with their innumerable stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our pliantbearer of burdens; Labour's thousand arms, of sinew and of metal,all-conquering everywhere, from the tops of the mountain down to thedepths of the mine and the caverns of the sea, ply unweariedly for theservice of man: yet man remains unserved. He has subdued this Planet,his habitation and inheritance; yet reaps no profit from the victory.Sad to look upon: in the highest stage of civilisation, nine-tenths ofmankind must struggle in the lowest battle of savage or even animalman, the battle against Famine. Countries are rich, prosperous in allmanner of increase, beyond example: but the Men of those countries arepoor, needier than ever of all sustenance outward and inward; ofBelief, of Knowledge, of Money, of Food. The rule, Sic vos nonvobis, never altogether to be got rid of in men's Industry, nowpresses with such incubus weight, that Industry must shake it off, orutterly be strangled under it; and, alas, can as yet but gasp andrave, and aimlessly struggle, like one in the final deliration. ThusChange, or the inevitable approach of Change, is manifest everywhere.In one Country we have seen lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelop allthings; Government succeed Government, like the phantasms of a dyingbrain. In another Country, we can even now see, in maddestalternation, the Peasant governed by such guidance as this: To labourearnestly one month in raising wheat, and the next month labourearnestly in burning it. So that Society, were it not by natureimmortal, and its death ever a new-birth, might appear, as it does inthe eyes of some, to be sick to dissolution, and even now writhing inits last agony. Sick enough we must admit it to be, with diseaseenough, a whole nosology of diseases; wherein he perhaps is happiestthat is not called to prescribe as physician;—wherein, however, onesmall piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest in theCommonwealth, by the sole method yet known or thought of, to cometogether and with their whole soul consult for it, might, but for latetedious experiences, have seemed unquestionable enough.

But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the Spiritualcondition of Society, and see what aspects and prospects offerthemselves there. For after all, it is there properly that the secretand origin of the whole is to be sought: the Physical derangements ofSociety are but the image and impress of its Spiritual; while theheart continues sound, all other sickness is superficial, andtemporary. False Action is the fruit of false Speculation; let thespirit of Society be free and strong, that is to say, let truePrinciples inspire the members of Society, then neither can disordersaccumulate in its Practice; each disorder will be promptly, faithfullyinquired into, and remedied as it arises. But alas, with us theSpiritual condition of Society is no less sickly than the Physical.Examine man's internal world, in any of its social relations andperformances, here too all seems diseased self-consciousness,collision and mutually-destructive struggle. Nothing acts from withinoutwards in undivided healthy force; everything lies impotent, lamed,its force turned inwards, and painfully "listens to itself."

To begin with our highest Spiritual function, with Religion, we mightask, Whither has Religion now fled? Of Churches and theirestablishments we here say nothing; nor of the unhappy domains ofUnbelief, and how innumerable men, blinded in their minds, must "livewithout God in the world;" but, taking the fairest side of the matter,we ask, What is the nature of that same Religion, which still lingersin the hearts of the few who are called, and call themselves,specially the Religious? Is it a healthy religion, vital, unconsciousof itself; that shines forth spontaneously in doing of the Work, oreven in preaching of the Word? Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyrConduct, and inspired and soul-inspiring Eloquence, whereby Religionitself were brought home to our living bosoms, to live and reignthere, we have "Discourses on the Evidences," endeavouring, withsmallest result, to make it probable that such a thing as Religionexists. The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not preach a Gospel, butkeep describing how it should and might be preached: to awaken thesacred fire of faith, as by a sacred contagion, is not theirendeavour; but, at most, to describe how Faith shows and acts, andscientifically distinguish true Faith from false. Religion, like allelse, is conscious of itself, listens to itself; it becomes less andless creative, vital; more and more mechanical. Considered as a whole,the Christian Religion of late ages has been continually dissipatingitself into Metaphysics; and threatens now to disappear, as somerivers do, in deserts of barren sand.

Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-spread maladies, why speak?Literature is but a branch of Religion, and always participates in itscharacter: however, in our time, it is the only branch that stillshows any greenness; and, as some think, must one day become the mainstem. Now, apart from the subterranean and tartarean regions ofLiterature;—leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous statisticsof Puffing, the mystery of Slander, Falsehood, Hatred and otherconvulsion-work of rabid Imbecility, and all that has renderedLiterature on that side a perfect "Babylon the mother ofAbominations," in very deed making the world "drunk" with the wine ofher iniquity;—forgetting all this, let us look only to the regions ofthe upper air; to such Literature as can be said to have some attempttowards truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not poetical, tohold of the poetical. Among other characteristics, is not thismanifest enough: that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness to theobject, being wholly possessed by the object, what we can callInspiration, has well-nigh ceased to appear in Literature. Whichmelodious Singer forgets that he is singing melodiously? We have notthe love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness. Henceinfinite Affectations, Distractions; in every case inevitable Error.Consider, for one example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature, thesin that has been named View-hunting. In our elder writers, there areno paintings of scenery for its own sake; no euphuistic gallantrieswith Nature, but a constant heartlove for her, a constant dwelling incommunion with her. View-hunting, with so much else that is of kin toit, first came decisively into action through the Sorrows of Werter;which wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many senses be regarded asthe progenitor of all that has since become popular in Literature;whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and tendency, it still offersthe most instructive image; for nowhere, except in its own country,above all in the mind of its illustrious Author, has it yet fallenwholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till that late epoch, did anyworshipper of Nature become entirely aware that he was worshipping,much to his own credit; and think of saying to himself: Come, let usmake a description! Intolerable enough: when every puny whipster drawsout his pencil, and insists on painting you a scene; so that theinstant you discern such a thing as "wavy outline," "mirror of thelake," "stern headland," or the like, in any Book, you must timorouslyhasten on; and scarcely the Author of Waverley himself can tempt younot to skip.

Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state of Literature disclosedin this one fact, which lies so near us here, the prevalence ofReviewing! Sterne's wish for a reader "that would give up the reins ofhis imagination into his author's hands, and be pleased he knew notwhy, and cared not wherefore," might lead him a long journey now.Indeed, for our best class of readers, the chief pleasure, a verystinted one, is this same knowing of the Why; which many a Kames andBossu has been, ineffectually enough, endeavouring to teach us: tillat last these also have laid down their trade; and now your Revieweris a mere taster; who tastes, and says, by the evidence of suchpalate, such tongue, as he has got, It is good, It is bad. Was it thusthat the French carried out certain inferior creatures on theirAlgerine Expedition, to taste the wells for them, and try whether theywere poisoned? Far be it from us to disparage our own craft, wherebywe have our living! Only we must note these things: that Reviewingspreads with strange vigour; that such a man as Byron reckons theReviewer and the Poet equal; that at the last Leipzig Fair, there wasadvertised a Review of Reviews. By and by it will be found that allLiterature has become one boundless self-devouring Review; and as inLondon routs, we have to do nothing, but only to see others donothing.—Thus does Literature also, like a sick thing,superabundantly "listen to itself."

No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest, if we cast a glance on ourPhilosophy, on the character of our speculative Thinking. Nay already,as above hinted, the mere existence and necessity of a Philosophy isan evil. Man is sent hither not to question, but to work: "the end ofman," it was long ago written, "is an Action, not a Thought." In theperfect state, all Thought were but the picture and inspiring symbolof Action; Philosophy, except as Poetry and Religion, would have nobeing. And yet how, in this imperfect state, can it be avoided, can itbe dispensed with? Man stands as in the centre of Nature; his fractionof Time encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth of Space encircled byInfinitude: how shall he forbear asking himself, What am I; andWhence; and Whither? How too, except in slight partial hints, in kindasseverations and assurances, such as a mother quiets her fretfullyinquisitive child with, shall he get answer to such inquiries?

The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is a perennial one. In allages, those questions of Death and Immortality, Origin of Evil,Freedom and Necessity, must, under new forms, anew make theirappearance; ever, from time to time, must the attempt to shape forourselves some Theorem of the Universe be repeated. And everunsuccessfully: for what Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite rendercomplete? We, the whole species of Mankind, and our whole existenceand history, are but a floating speck in the illimitable ocean of theAll; yet in that ocean; indissoluble portion thereof; partaking ofits infinite tendencies: borne this way and that by its deep-swellingtides, and grand ocean currents;—of which what faintest chance isthere that we should ever exhaust the significance, ascertain thegoings and comings? A region of Doubt, therefore, hovers forever inthe background; in Action alone can we have certainty. Nay properlyDoubt is the indispensable inexhaustible material whereon Actionworks, which Action has to fashion into Certainty and Reality; only ona canvas of Darkness, such is man's way of being, could themany-coloured picture of our Life paint itself and shine.

Thus if our eldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the Book ofGenesis, our latest is that of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only withinthe current year. It is a chronic malady that of Metaphysics, as wesaid, and perpetually recurs on us. At the utmost there is a betterand a worse in it; a stage of convalescence, and a stage of relapsewith new sickness: these forever succeed each other, as is the natureof all Life-movement here below. The first, or convalescent stage, wemight also name that of Dogmatical or Constructive Metaphysics; whenthe mind constructively endeavours to scheme out, and assert foritself an actual Theorem of the Universe, and therewith for a timerests satisfied. The second or sick stage might be called that ofSceptical or Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind having widened itssphere of vision, the existing Theorem of the Universe no longeranswers the phenomena, no longer yields contentment; but must be tornin pieces, and certainty anew sought for in the endless realms ofdenial. All Theologies and sacred Cosmogonies belong, in some measure,to the first class; in all Pyrrhonism, from Pyrrho down to Hume andthe innumerable disciples of Hume, we have instances enough of thesecond. In the former, so far as it affords satisfaction, a temporaryanodyne to doubt, an arena for wholesome action, there may be muchgood; indeed in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than ofMetaphysics, might be called Inspiration rather than Speculation. Thelatter is Metaphysics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from time totime a necessary evil.

For truly, if we look into it, there is no more fruitless endeavourthan this same, which the Metaphysician proper toils in: to educeConviction out of Negation. How, by merely testing and rejecting whatis not, shall we ever attain knowledge of what is? MetaphysicalSpeculation, as it begins in No or Nothingness, so it must needs endin Nothingness; circulates and must circulate in endless vortices;creating, swallowing—itself. Our being is made up of Light andDarkness, the Light resting on the Darkness, and balancing it;everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a perpetual Contradictiondwells in us: "where shall I place myself to escape from my ownshadow?" Consider it well, Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind torise above the mind; to environ, and shut in, or as we say,comprehend the mind. Hopeless struggle, for the wisest, as for thefoolishest! What strength of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable thestoutest athlete to fold his own body in his arms, and, by lifting,lift up himself? The Irish Saint swam the Channel "carrying his headin his teeth;" but the feat has never been imitated.

That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the proper, or scepticalInquisitory sense; that there was a necessity for its being such anage, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. From many causes, thearena of free Activity has long been narrowing, that of scepticalInquiry becoming more and more universal, more and more perplexing.The Thought conducts not to the Deed; but in boundless chaos,self-devouring, engenders monstrosities, fantasms, fire-breathingchimeras. Profitable Speculation were this: What is to be done; andHow is it to be done? But with us not so much as the What can be gotsight of. For some generations, all Philosophy has been a painful,captious, hostile question towards everything in the Heaven above, andin the Earth beneath: Why art thou there? Till at length it has cometo pass that the worth and authenticity of all things seems dubitableor deniable: our best effort must be unproductively spent not inworking, but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and so much aswhether we are to work at all. Doubt, which, as was said, ever hangsin the background of our world, has now become our middle-ground andforeground; whereon, for the time, no fair Life-picture can bepainted, but only the dark air-canvas itself flow round us,bewildering and benighting.

Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here; not to askquestions, but to do work: in this time, as in all times, it must bethe heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Action lie dormant, andonly that of sceptical Inquiry exert itself. Accordingly, whoeverlooks abroad upon the world, comparing the Past with the Present, mayfind that the practical condition of man in these days is one of thesaddest; burdened with miseries which are in a considerable degreepeculiar. In no time was man's life what he calls a happy one; in notime can it be so. A perpetual dream there has been of Paradises, andsome luxurious Lubberland, where the brooks should run wine, and thetrees bend with ready-baked viands; but it was a dream merely; animpossible dream. Suffering, contradiction, error, have their quiteperennial, and even indispensable abode in this Earth. Is not labourthe inheritance of man? And what labour for the present is joyous, andnot grievous? Labour, effort, is the very interruption of that ease,which man foolishly enough fancies to be his happiness; and yetwithout labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable.Thus Evil, what we call Evil, must ever exist while man exists: Evil,in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disorderedmaterial out of which man's Freewill has to create an edifice of orderand Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour; and only in free Effortcan any blessedness be imagined for us.

But if man has, in all ages, had enough to encounter, there has, inmost civilised ages, been an inward force vouchsafed him, whereby thepressure of things outward might be withstood. Obstruction abounded;but Faith also was not wanting. It is by Faith that man removesmountains: while he had Faith, his limbs might be wearied withtoiling, his back galled with bearing; but the heart within him waspeaceable and resolved. In the thickest gloom there burnt a lamp toguide him. If he struggled and suffered, he felt that it even shouldbe so; knew for what he was suffering and struggling. Faith gave himan inward Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith to front a worldof Difficulty. The true wretchedness lies here: that the Difficultyremain and the Strength be lost; that Pain cannot relieve itself infree Effort; that we have the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faithstrengthens us, enlightens us, for all endeavours and endurances; withFaith we can do all, and dare all, and life itself has a thousandtimes been joyfully given away. But the sum of man's misery is eventhis, that he feel himself crushed under the Juggernaut wheels, andknow that Juggernaut is no divinity, but a dead mechanical idol.

Now this is specially the misery which has fallen on man in our Era.Belief, Faith has well-nigh vanished from the world. The youth onawakening in this wondrous Universe, no longer finds a competenttheory of its wonders. Time was, when if he asked himself, What isman, What are the duties of man? the answer stood ready written forhim. But now the ancient "ground-plan of the All" belies itself whenbrought into contact with reality; Mother Church has, to the most,become a superannuated Stepmother, whose lessons go disregarded; orare spurned at, and scornfully gainsaid. For young Valour and thirstof Action no Ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, prescribes what isheroic: the old ideal of Manhood has grown obsolete, and the new isstill invisible to us, and we grope after it in darkness, oneclutching this phantom, another that; Werterism, Byronism, evenBrummelism, each has its day. For Contemplation and love of Wisdom, noCloister now opens its religious shades; the Thinker must, in allsenses, wander homeless, too often aimless, looking up to a Heavenwhich is dead for him, round to an Earth which is deaf. Action, inthose old days, was easy, was voluntary, for the divine worth of humanthings lay acknowledged; Speculation was wholesome, for it rangeditself as the handmaid of Action; what could not so range itself diedout by its natural death, by neglect. Loyalty still hallowedobedience, and made rule noble; there was still something to be loyalto: the Godlike stood embodied under many a symbol in men's interestsand business; the Finite shadowed forth the Infinite; Eternity lookedthrough Time. The Life of man was encompassed and overcanopied by aglory of Heaven, even as his dwelling-place by the azure vault.

How changed in these new days! Truly may it be said, the Divinity haswithdrawn from the Earth; or veils himself in that wide-wastingWhirlwind of a departing Era, wherein the fewest can discern hisgoings. Not Godhead, but an iron, ignoble circle of Necessity embracesall things; binds the youth of these times into a sluggish thrall, orelse exasperates him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralysed; forwhat worth now remains unquestionable with him? At the fervid periodwhen his whole nature cries aloud for Action, there is nothing sacredunder whose banner he can act; the course and kind and conditions offree Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt storms-in on him throughevery avenue; inquiries of the deepest, painfullest sort must beengaged with; and the invincible energy of young years waste itself insceptical, suicidal cavillings; in passionate "questionings ofDestiny," whereto no answer will be returned.

For men, in whom the old perennial principle of Hunger (be it Hungerof the poor Day-drudge who stills it with eighteenpence a-day, or ofthe ambitious Placehunter who can nowise still it with so little)suffices to fill up existence, the case is bad; but not the worst.These men have an aim, such as it is; and can steer towards it, withchagrin enough truly; yet, as their hands are kept full, withoutdesperation. Unhappier are they to whom a higher instinct has beengiven; who struggle to be persons, not machines; to whom the Universeis not a warehouse, or at best a fancy-bazaar, but a mystic temple andhall of doom. For such men there lie properly two courses open. Thelower, yet still an estimable class, take up with worn-out Symbols ofthe Godlike; keep trimming and trucking between these and Hypocrisy,purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous intermediate class endin Denial; and form a theory that there is no theory; that nothing iscertain in the world, except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant; sothey try to realise what trifling modicum of Pleasure they can comeat, and to live contented therewith, winking hard. Of these we speaknot here; but only of the second nobler class, who also have dared tosay No, and cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No they dwell asin a Golgotha, where life enters not, where peace is not appointedthem. Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men; the harder thenobler they are. In dim forecastings, wrestles within them the "DivineIdea of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal itself. They haveto realise a Worship for themselves, or live unworshipping. TheGodlike has vanished from the world; and they, by the strong cry oftheir soul's agony, like true wonder-workers, must again evoke itspresence. This miracle is their appointed task; which they mustaccomplish, or die wretchedly: this miracle has been accomplished bysuch; but not in our land; our land yet knows not of it. Behold aByron, in melodious tones, "cursing his day:" he mistakes earthbornpassionate Desire for heaven-inspired Freewill; without heavenlyloadstar, rushes madly into the dance of meteoric lights that hover onthe mad Mahlstrom; and goes down among its eddies. Hear a Shelleyfilling the earth with inarticulate wail; like the infinite,inarticulate grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A noble FriedrichSchlegel, stupefied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silencedbattle-field, flies back to Catholicism; as a child might to its slainmother's bosom, and cling there. In lower regions, how many a poorHazlitt must wander on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest onburning deserts; passionately dig wells, and draw up only the dryquicksand; believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle amongendless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with spectre-hosts; anddie and make no sign!

To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial has long sinceceased: the problem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and perform.Once in destroying the False, there was a certain inspiration; but nowthe genius of Destruction has done its work, there is now nothing moreto destroy. The doom of the Old has long been pronounced, andirrevocable; the Old has passed away; but, alas, the New appears notin its stead; the Time is still in pangs of travail with the New. Manhas walked by the light of conflagrations, and amid the sound offalling cities; and now there is darkness, and long watching till itbe morning. The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim: "As yetstruggles the twelfth hour of the Night: birds of darkness are on thewing, spectres up-rear, the dead walk, the living dream.—Thou,Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to dawn!"[52]

[Footnote 52: Jean Paul's Hesperus. Vorrede.]

Such being the condition, temporal and spiritual, of the world at ourEpoch, can we wonder that the world "listens to itself," and strugglesand writhes, everywhere externally and internally, like a thing inpain? Nay, is not even this unhealthy action of the world'sOrganisation, if the symptom of universal disease, yet also thesymptom and sole means of restoration and cure? The effort of Nature,exerting her medicative force to cast out foreign impediments, andonce more become One, become whole? In Practice, still more inOpinion, which is the precursor and prototype of Practice, there mustneeds be collision, convulsion; much has to be ground away. Thoughtmust needs be Doubt and Inquiry, before it can again be Affirmationand Sacred Precept. Innumerable "Philosophies of Man," contending inboundless hubbub, must annihilate each other, before an inspired Poesyand Faith for Man can fashion itself together.

* * * * *

From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylonish confusion of tongues, wehave here selected two Voices; less as objects of praise orcondemnation, than as signs how far the confusion has reached, whatprospect there is of its abating. Friedrich Schlegel's Lectures,delivered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's Essay, published in London, arethe latest utterances of European Speculation: far asunder in externalplace, they stand at a still wider distance in inward purport; are,indeed, so opposite and yet so cognate that they may, in many senses,represent the two Extremes of our whole modern system of Thought; andbe said to include between them all the Metaphysical Philosophies, sooften alluded to here, which, of late times, from France, Germany,England, have agitated and almost overwhelmed us. Both in regard tomatter and to form, the relation of these two Works is significantenough.

Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let us remark, not withoutemotion, one quite extraneous point of agreement; the fact that theWriters of both have departed from this world; they have now finishedtheir search, and had all doubts resolved: while we listen to thevoice, the tongue that uttered it has gone silent forever. But thefundamental, all-pervading similarity lies in this circ*mstance, wellworthy of being noted, that both these Philosophers are of theDogmatic or Constructive sort: each in its way is a kind of Genesis;an endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's Universe once more undersome theoretic Scheme: in both there is a decided principle of unity;they strive after a result which shall be positive; their aim is notto question, but to establish. This, especially if we consider withwhat comprehensive concentrated force it is here exhibited, forms anew feature in such works.

Under all other aspects, there is the most irreconcilable opposition;a staring contrariety, such as might provoke contrasts, were there farfewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's Work is the apotheosis ofSpiritualism; Hope's again is the apotheosis of Materialism: in theone, all Matter is evaporated into a Phenomenon, and terrestrial Lifeitself, with its whole doings and showings, held out as a Disturbance(Zerrüttung) produced by the Zeitgeist (Spirit of Time); in theother, Matter is distilled and sublimated into some semblance ofDivinity: the one regards Space and Time as mere forms of man's mind,and without external existence or reality; the other supposes Spaceand Time to be "incessantly created," and rayed-in upon us like a sortof "gravitation." Such is their difference in respect of purport: noless striking is it in respect of manner, talent, success and alloutward characteristics. Thus, if in Schlegel we have to admire thepower of Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might almost be said,at the want of an articulate Language. To Schlegel his PhilosophicSpeech is obedient, dextrous, exact, like a promptly-ministeringgenius; his names are so clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost(sometimes altogether) become things for him: with Hope there is noPhilosophical Speech; but a painful, confused stammering, andstruggling after such; or the tongue, as in dotish forgetfulness,maunders, low, long-winded, and speaks not the word intended, butanother; so that here the scarcely intelligible, in these endlessconvolutions, becomes the wholly unreadable; and often we could ask,as that mad pupil did of his tutor in Philosophy, "But whether isVirtue a fluid, then, or a gas?" If the fact, that Schlegel, in thecity of Dresden, could find audience for such high discourse, mayexcite our envy; this other fact, that a person of strong powers,skilled in English Thought and master of its Dialect, could write theOrigin and Prospects of Man, may painfully remind us of thereproach, that England has now no language for Meditation; thatEngland, the most calculative, is the least meditative, of allcivilised countries.

It is not our purpose to offer any criticism of Schlegel's Book; insuch limits as were possible here, we should despair of communicatingeven the faintest image of its significance. To the mass of readers,indeed, both among the Germans themselves, and still more elsewhere,it nowise addresses itself, and may lie forever sealed. We point itout as a remarkable document of the Time and of the Man; can recommendit, moreover, to all earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their bestregard; a work full of deep meditation, wherein the infinite mysteryof Life, if not represented, is decisively recognised. Of Schlegelhimself, and his character, and spiritual history, we can profess nothorough or final understanding; yet enough to make us view him withadmiration and pity, nowise with harsh contemptuous censure; and mustsay, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of his being "arenegade," and so forth, is but like other outcries, a judgment wherethere was neither jury, nor evidence, nor judge. The candid reader, inthis Book itself, to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces ofa high, far-seeing, earnest spirit, to whom "Austrian Pensions," andthe Kaiser's crown, and Austria altogether, were but a light matter tothe finding and vitally appropriating of Truth. Let us respect thesacred mystery of a Person; rush not irreverently into man's Holy ofHolies! Were the lost little one, as we said already, found "suckingits dead mother, on the field of carnage," could it be other than aspectacle for tears? A solemn mournful feeling comes over us when wesee this last Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the unwearied seeker, endabruptly in the middle; and, as if he had not yet found, as ifemblematically of much, end with an "Aber—," with a "But—!" Thiswas the last word that came from the Pen of Friedrich Schlegel: abouteleven at night he wrote it down, and there paused sick; at one in themorning, Time for him had merged itself in Eternity; he was, as wesay, no more.

Still less can we attempt any criticism of Mr. Hope's new Book ofGenesis. Indeed, under any circ*mstances, criticism of it were nowimpossible. Such an utterance could only be responded to in peals oflaughter; and laughter sounds hollow and hideous through the vaults ofthe dead. Of this monstrous Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped andhuddled together, and the principles of all are, with a childlikeinnocence, plied hither and thither, or wholly abolished in case ofneed; where the First Cause is figured as a huge Circle, with nothingto do but radiate "gravitation" towards its centre; and so construct aUniverse, wherein all, from the lowest cucumber with its coolness, upto the highest seraph with his love, were but "gravitation," direct orreflex, "in more or less central globes,"—what can we say, except,with sorrow and shame, that it could have originated nowhere save inEngland? It is a general agglomerate of all facts, notions, whims andobservations, as they lie in the brain of an English gentleman; as anEnglish gentleman, of unusual thinking power, is led to fashion them,in his schools and in his world: all these thrown into the crucible,and if not fused, yet soldered or conglutinated with boundlesspatience; and now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amorphous,unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most melancholy must we name the wholebusiness; full of long-continued thought, earnestness, loftiness ofmind; not without glances into the Deepest, a constant fearlessendeavour after truth; and with all this nothing accomplished, but theperhaps absurdest Book written in our century by a thinking man. Ashameful Abortion; which, however, need not now be smothered ormangled, for it is already dead; only, in our love and sorrowingreverence for the writer of Anastasius, and the heroic seeker ofLight, though not bringer thereof, let it be buried and forgotten.

* * * * *

For ourselves, the loud discord which jars in these two Works, ininnumerable works of the like import, and generally in all the Thoughtand Action of this period, does not any longer utterly confuse us.Unhappy who, in such a time, felt not, at all conjunctures,ineradicably in his heart the knowledge that a God made this Universe,and a Demon not! And shall Evil always prosper, then? Out of all Evilcomes Good; and no Good that is possible but shall one day be real.Deep and sad as is our feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful Night;equally deep, indestructible is our assurance that the Morning alsowill not fail. Nay already, as we look round, streaks of a day-springare in the east; it is dawning; when the time shall be fulfilled, itwill be day. The progress of man towards higher and noblerdevelopments of whatever is highest and noblest in him, lies not onlyprophesied to Faith, but now written to the eye of Observation, sothat he who runs may read.

One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in actualcirc*mstances, was this same; the clear ascertainment that we are inprogress. About the grand Course of Providence, and his final Purposeswith us, we can know nothing, or almost nothing: man begins indarkness, ends in darkness; mystery is everywhere around us and in us,under our feet, among our hands. Nevertheless so much has becomeevident to every one, that this wondrous Mankind is advancingsomewhither; that at least all human things are, have been and foreverwill be, in Movement and Change:—as, indeed, for beings that exist inTime, by virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might have been longsince understood. In some provinces, it is true, as in ExperimentalScience, this discovery is an old one; but in most others it belongswholly to these latter days. How often, in former ages, by eternalCreeds, eternal Forms of Government and the like, has it beenattempted, fiercely enough, and with destructive violence, to chainthe Future under the Past: and to say to the Providence, whose wayswith man are mysterious, and through the great deep: Hitherto shaltthou come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt; and for manhimself, could it prosper, the frightfullest of all enchantments, avery Life-in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny of everyindividual man, is to be in turns Apprentice and Workman; or sayrather, Scholar, Teacher, Discoverer: by nature he has a strength forlearning, for imitating; but also a strength for acting, for knowingon his own account. Are we not in a world seen to be Infinite; therelations lying closest together modified by those latest discoveredand lying farthest asunder? Could you ever spell-bind man into aScholar merely, so that he had nothing to discover, to correct; couldyou ever establish a Theory of the Universe that were entire,unimprovable, and which needed only to be got by heart; man then werespiritually defunct, the Species we now name Man had ceased to exist.But the gods, kinder to us than we are to ourselves, have forbiddensuch suicidal acts. As Phlogiston is displaced by Oxygen, and theEpicycles of Ptolemy by the Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism giveplace to Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy, and Feudalism toRepresentative Government,—where also the process does not stop.Perfection of Practice, like completeness of Opinion, is alwaysapproaching, never arrived; Truth, in the words of Schiller, immerwird, nie ist; never is, always is a-being.

Sad, truly, were our condition did we know but this, that Change isuniversal and inevitable. Launched into a dark shoreless sea ofPyrrhonism, what would remain for us but to sail aimless, hopeless; ormake madly merry, while the devouring Death had not yet engulfed us?As indeed, we have seen many, and still see many do. Nevertheless sostands it not. The venerator of the Past (and to what pure heart isthe Past, in that "moonlight of memory," other than sad and holy?)sorrows not over its departure, as one utterly bereaved. The true Pastdeparts not, nothing that was worthy in the Past departs; no Truth orGoodness realised by man ever dies, or can die; but is all still here,and, recognised or not, lives and works through endless changes. Ifall things, to speak in the German dialect, are discerned by us, andexist for us, in an element of Time, and therefore of Mortality andMutability; yet Time itself reposes on Eternity: the truly Great andTranscendental has its basis and substance in Eternity; standsrevealed to us as Eternity in a vesture of Time. Thus in all Poetry,Worship, Art, Society, as one form passes into another, nothing islost: it is but the superficial, as it were the body only, thatgrows obsolete and dies; under the mortal body lies a soul which isimmortal; which anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation; and thePresent is the living sum-total of the whole Past.

In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural:on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot and life inthis world. Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can ourWorks and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continuealways the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful: and ifMemory have its force and worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we lookwell to it, what is all Derangement, and necessity of great Change, initself such an evil, but the product simply of increased resourceswhich the old methods can no longer administer; of new wealth whichthe old coffers will no longer contain? What is it, for example, thatin our own day bursts asunder the bonds of ancient Political Systems,and perplexes all Europe with the fear of Change, but even this: theincrease of social resources, which the old social methods will nolonger sufficiently administer? The new omnipotence of theSteam-engine is hewing asunder quite other mountains than thephysical. Have not our economical distresses, those barnyardConflagrations themselves, the frightfullest madness of our mad epoch,their rise also in what is a real increase: increase of Men; of humanForce; properly, in such a Planet as ours, the most precious of allincreases? It is true again, the ancient methods of administrationwill no longer suffice. Must the indomitable millions, full of oldSaxon energy and fire, lie cooped up in this Western Nook, choking oneanother, as in a Blackhole of Calcutta, while a whole fertileuntenanted Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare, cries: Comeand till me, come and reap me? If the ancient Captains can no longeryield guidance, new must be sought after: for the difficulty lies notin nature, but in artifice; the European Calcutta-Blackhole has nowalls but air ones and paper ones.—So too, Scepticism itself, withits innumerable mischiefs, what is it but the sour fruit of a mostblessed increase, that of Knowledge; a fruit too that will not alwayscontinue sour?

In fact, much as we have said and mourned about the unproductiveprevalence of Metaphysics, it was not without some insight into theuse that lies in them. Metaphysical Speculation, if a necessary evil,is the forerunner of much good. The fever of Scepticism must needsburn itself out, and burn out thereby the Impurities that caused it;then again will there be clearness, health. The principle of life,which now struggles painfully, in the outer, thin and barren domain ofthe Conscious or Mechanical, may then withdraw into its innersanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and miracle; withdraw deeper thanever into that domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite andinexhaustible; and that creatively work there. From that mysticregion, and from that alone, all wonders, all Poesies and Religions,and Social Systems have proceeded: the like wonders, and greater andhigher, lie slumbering there; and, brooded on by the spirit of thewaters, will evolve themselves, and rise like exhalations from theDeep.

Of our Modern Metaphysics, accordingly, may not this already be said,that if they have produced no Affirmation, they have destroyed muchNegation? It is a disease expelling a disease: the fire of Doubt, asabove hinted, consuming away the Doubtful; that so the Certain come tolight, and again lie visible on the surface. English or FrenchMetaphysics, in reference to this last stage of the speculativeprocess, are not what we allude to here; but only the Metaphysics ofthe Germans. In France or England, since the days of Diderot and Hume,though all thought has been of a sceptico-metaphysical texture, so faras there was any Thought, we have seen no Metaphysics; but only moreor less ineffectual questionings whether such could be. In thePyrrhonism of Hume and the Materialism of Diderot, Logic had, as itwere, overshot itself, overset itself. Now, though the athlete, to useour old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift up his own body, he mayshift it out of a laming posture, and get to stand in a free one. Sucha service have German Metaphysics done for man's mind. The secondsickness of Speculation has abolished both itself and the first.Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the fruitlessness, the tumult andtransiency of German as of all Metaphysics; and with reason. Yet inthat wide-spreading, deep-whirling vortex of Kantism, so soonmetamorphosed into Fichteism, Schellingism, and then as Hegelism, andCousinism, perhaps finally evaporated, is not the issue visibleenough, That Pyrrhonism and Materialism, themselves necessaryphenomena in European culture, have disappeared; and a Faith inReligion has again become possible and inevitable for the scientificmind; and the word Free-thinker no longer means the Denier orCaviller, but the Believer, or the Ready to believe? Nay, in thehigher Literature of Germany, there already lies, for him that canread it, the beginning of a new revelation of the Godlike; as yetunrecognised by the mass of the world; but waiting there forrecognition, and sure to find it when the fit hour comes. This agealso is not wholly without its Prophets.

Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarianism, or Radicalism, or theMechanical Philosophy, or by whatever name it is called, has still itslong task to do; nevertheless we can now see through it and beyond it:in the better heads, even among us English, it has become obsolete; asin other countries, it has been, in such heads, for some forty or evenfifty years. What sound mind among the French, for example, nowfancies that men can be governed by "Constitutions;" by the never socunning mechanising of Self-interests, and all conceivable adjustmentsof checking and balancing; in a word, by the best possible solution ofthis quite insoluble and impossible problem, Given a world of Knaves,to produce an Honesty from their united action? Were not experimentsenough of this kind tried before all Europe, and found wanting, when,in that doomsday of France, the infinite gulf of human Passionshivered asunder the thin rinds of Habit; and burst forthall-devouring as in seas of Nether Fire? Which cunningly-devised"Constitution," constitutional, republican, democratic, sansculottic,could bind that raging chasm together? Were they not all burnt up,like paper as they were, in its molten eddies; and still the fire-searaged fiercer than before? It is not by Mechanism, but by Religion;not by Self-interest, but by Loyalty, that men are governed orgovernable.

Remarkable it is, truly, how everywhere the eternal fact begins againto be recognised, that there is a Godlike in human affairs; that Godnot only made us and beholds us, but is in us and around us; that theAge of Miracles, as it ever was, now is. Such recognition we discernon all hands and in all countries: in each country after its ownfashion. In France, among the younger nobler minds, strangely enough;where, in their loud contention with the Actual and Conscious, theIdeal or Unconscious is, for the time, without exponent; whereReligion means not the parent of Polity, as of all that is highest,but Polity itself; and this and the other earnest man has not beenwanting, who could audibly whisper to himself: "Go to, I will make areligion." In England still more strangely; as in all things, worthyEngland will have its way: by the shrieking of hysterical women,casting out of devils, and other "gifts of the Holy Ghost." Well mightJean Paul say, in this his twelfth hour of the Night, "the livingdream"; well might he say, "the dead walk." Meanwhile let us rejoicerather that so much has been seen into, were it through never sodiffracting media, and never so madly distorted; that in all dialects,though but half-articulately, this high Gospel begins to be preached:Man is still Man. The genius of Mechanism, as was once beforepredicted, will not always sit like a choking incubus on our soul; butat length, when by a new magic Word the old spell is broken, becomeour slave, and as familiar-spirit do all our bidding. "We are nearawakening when we dream that we dream."

He that has an eye and a heart can even now say: Why should I falter?Light has come into the world; to such as love Light, so as Light mustbe loved, with a boundless all-doing, all enduring love. For the rest,let that vain struggle to read the mystery of the Infinite cease toharass us. It is a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only readhere a line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that thename of the Infinite is GOOD, is GOD? Here on Earth we are asSoldiers, fighting in a foreign land; that understand not the plan ofthe campaign, and have no need to understand it; seeing well what isat our hand to be done. Let us do it like Soldiers, with submission,with courage, with a heroic joy. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,do it with all thy might." Behind us, behind each one of us, lie SixThousand Years of human effort, human conquest: before us is theboundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered Continentsand Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and fromthe bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars.

"My inheritance how wide and fair!
Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir."

Carlyle.

TUNBRIDGE TOYS

I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movablealmanac at the butt-end are still favourite implements with boys, andwhether pedlars still hawk them about the country? Are there pedlarsand hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to dealwith them? Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were notof much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, wasconstantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would work from itsmoorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and youwould find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 23-1/2 of the month(which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word yourcherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was thisa matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy'spocket. You had hardbake in it; marbles, kept in your purse when themoney was all gone; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly andsupplied with a little bit of gold, long since—prodigal littleson!—scattered amongst the swine—I mean amongst brandy-balls, opentarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a topand string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a"Little Warbler"; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerableperiod, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully,for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket);—with allthese things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in yourpockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetualmovement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twistedout of its place now and again—your pencil-case to be bent—yourliquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax,your bull's eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, andso forth?

In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one of thosepencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in myform. Is he dead? Is he a millionaire? Is he a bankrupt now? He was animmense screw at school, and I believe to this day that the value ofthe thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, wasin reality not one-and-nine.

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myselfwith twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off.The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large andviolent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constantremark was, "When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence?What sneaks your relations must be! They come to see you. You go outto them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you anything!Don't tell me, you little humbug!" and so forth. The truth is thatmy relations were respectable; but my parents were making a tour inScotland; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, weremost kind to me, certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, ofMay to August 1823, passed in agonies, then, in consequence of my debtto Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case incomparison with the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the senseof the debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling eyesand gloomy coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out ofsixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some one come to see me, andtip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, goand see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss thesovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don'tfancy they are too old—try 'em. And they will remember you, and blessyou in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your drearyafter life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindnessare scant. Oh mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me,Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that veryterm, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetchedfrom school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawkerof this circ*mstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me apound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affectedat parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to thedear fellow!… There was Hawker when I came back—of course there hewas. As he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. Hemuttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. Myrelation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment,asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard meconstrue a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which Iwas then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school;upon my word of honour, without so much as a half-crown! It is allvery well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expectingtips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and soforth. Avaricious! fudge! Boys contract habits of tart and toffeeeating, which they do not carry into after life. On the contrary, Iwish I did like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one could have nowfor five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook'stray! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with yourhalf-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the littlefleeting joys of their age.

Well, then. At the beginning of August 1823, Bartlemytide holidayscame, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. Myplace in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants—"Bolt-in-Tun,"Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning was the word. My tutor, theReverend Edward P——, to whom I hereby present my best compliments,had a parting interview with me: gave me my little account for mygovernor: the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for myown expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an old accountwhich had been over-paid, and was to be restored to my family.

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight itwas off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs.Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate—but that is not to the point.) The nextmorning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boyshared a hackney-coach, two-and-six; porter for putting luggage oncoach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, mycompanion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a goodbreakfast. I couldn't: because, though I had five-and-twenty shillingsof my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember howstrongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour towait. A beautiful August morning—I am very hungry. There isRasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room. I pace the street, assadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. Iturn into a court by mere chance—I vow it was by mere chance—andthere I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window. "Coffee,Twopence, Round of buttered toast, Twopence." And here am I hungry,penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money in mypocket.

What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it inthat pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were atrust—by me to be handed over.

But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually withoutbreakfast? Having this money and being so hungry, so very hungry,mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as Ichose?

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember thetaste of the coffee and toast to this day—a peculiar, muddy,not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee—a rich, rancid, yetnot-buttered-enough, delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At anyrate, fourpence, I know, was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased,I got on the coach a guilty being.

At the last stage,—what is its name? I have forgotten inseven-and-thirty years,—there is an inn with a little green and treesbefore it; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is ourcarriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and myparents in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days untilthis one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! Butthere was that fourpence. All the journey down the toast had chokedme, and the coffee poisoned me.

I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgotthe maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pulled outthe twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.

"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P—— owes you, all butfourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for apencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, andhad some coffee at a shop."

I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession.

"My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast atthe hotel?"

"He must be starved," says my mother.

I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken back to myparents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a verylong career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes apin which is not his own, will take a thousand pounds when occasionserves, brings his parents' grey heads with sorrow to the grave, andcarry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, uponwhom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began byplaying pitch-and-toss on a tombstone: playing fair, for what we know:and even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bamboowas ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses out of him. Frompitch-and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary: to highwayrobbery; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah! Heaven be thanked, myparents' heads are still above the grass, and mine still out of thenoose.

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks,the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boyssaunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other boys gallopby on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is "Cramp, RidingMaster," as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that CentaurCramp must be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footmanwith a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as ournovels? Oh! how delightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghostof Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeusof Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depictyou in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as forCorinthian Tom in light blue pantaloons and hessians, and JerryHawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendourof real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all thewit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion,with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparklingvivacious rattle?

Who knows? They may have kept those very books at the librarystill—at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sellthat delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I wend myway to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, ahundred years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure.Is it possible, that in the past century, gentlefolks of the firstrank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the CornhillMagazine) assembled here and entertained each other with gaming,dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, andtrumpeters performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, butwhere is the fine company? Where are the earls, duch*esses, bishops,and magnificent embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children andtheir nurses are listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in apoke bonnet passes; and for the rest, I see but an uninterestingpopulation of native tradesmen. As for the library, its window is fullof pictures of burly theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues,and so forth. Can I go in and ask the young ladies at the counter for"Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk," and "Life in London, or theAdventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esquire, and theirfriend Bob Logic"?—absurd. I turn away abashed from thecasem*nt—from the Pantiles—no longer Pantiles—but Parade. I strollover the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills around,twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have sprung up overthis charming ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene ofpeace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes over the heath, blowsthe cloud-shadows across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees!Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see aportion of it when I look up from the window at which I write. Butfair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming in sunshine, andpurple clouds swollen with summer rain—nay, the very pages over whichmy head bends—disappear from before my eyes. They are lookingbackwards, back into forty years off, into a dark room, into a littlehouse hard by on the Common here, in the Bartlemytide holidays. Theparents have gone to town for two days: the house is all his own, hisown and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated at nightin the lonely drawing-room, poring over "Manfroni, or the One-handedMonk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round.

Thackeray.

NIGHT WALKS

Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to adistressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night,for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a longtime to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but,it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directlyafter lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise.

In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fairamateur experience of houselessness. My principal object being to getthrough the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympatheticrelations with people who have no other object every night in theyear.

The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold. The sunnot rising before half-past five, the night perspective lookedsufficiently long at half-past twelve: which was about my time forconfronting it.

The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles andtosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the firstentertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. Itlasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when thelate public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrustthe last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles andstray people were left us, after that. If we were very lucky, apoliceman's rattle sprang and a fray turned up; but, in general,surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Except in theHaymarket, which is the worst kept part of London, and aboutKent-street in the Borough, and along a portion of the line of the OldKent-road, the peace was seldom violently broken. But, it was alwaysthe case that London, as if in imitation of individual citizensbelonging to it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness. Afterall seemed quiet, if one cab rattled by, half-a-dozen would surelyfollow; and Houselessness even observed that intoxicated peopleappeared to be magnetically attracted towards each other: so that weknew when we saw one drunken object staggering against the shutters ofa shop, that another drunken object would stagger up before fiveminutes were out, to fraternise or fight with it. When we made adivergence from the regular species of drunkard, the thin-armed,puff-faced, leaden-lipped gin-drinker, and encountered a rarerspecimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one but that specimenwas dressed in soiled mourning. As the street experience in the night,so the street experience in the day; the common folk who comeunexpectedly into a little property, come unexpectedly into a deal ofliquor.

At length these flickering sparks would die away, worn out—the lastveritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman orhot-potato man—and London would sink to rest. And then the yearningof the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, any lightedplace, any movement, anything suggestive of any one being up—nay,even so much as awake, for the houseless eye looked out for lights inwindows.

Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would walkand walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle ofstreets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen inconversation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men. Nowand then in the night—but rarely—Houselessness would become aware ofa furtive head peering out of a doorway a few yards before him, and,coming up with the head, would find a man standing bolt upright tokeep within the doorway's shadow, and evidently intent upon noparticular service to society. Under a kind of fascination, and in aghostly silence suitable to the time, Houselessness and this gentlemanwould eye one another from head to foot, and so, without exchange ofspeech, part, mutually suspicious. Drip, drip, drip, from ledge andcoping, splash from pipes and water-spouts, and by-and-by thehouseless shadow would fall upon the stones that pave the way toWaterloo-bridge; it being in the houseless mind to have a halfpennyworth of excuse for saying "Good night" to the toll-keeper, andcatching a glimpse of his fire. A good fire and a good great-coat anda good woollen neck-shawl, were comfortable things to see inconjunction with the toll-keeper; also his brisk wakefulness wasexcellent company when he rattled the change of halfpence down uponthat metal table of his, like a man who defied the night, with all itssorrowful thoughts, and didn't care for the coming of dawn. There wasneed of encouragement on the threshold of the bridge, for the bridgewas dreary. The chopped-up murdered man, had not been lowered with arope over the parapet when those nights were; he was alive, and sleptthen quietly enough most likely, and undisturbed by any dream of wherehe was to come. But the river had an awful look, the buildings on thebanks were muffled in black shrouds, and the reflected lights seemedto originate deep in the water, as if the spectres of suicides wereholding them to show where they went down. The wild moon and cloudswere as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed, and the veryshadow of the immensity of London seemed to lie oppressively upon theriver.

Between the bridge and the two great theatres, there was but thedistance of a few hundred paces, so the theatres came next. Grim andblack within, at night, those great dry Wells, and lonesome toimagine, with the rows of faces faded out, the lights extinguished,and the seats all empty. One would think that nothing in them knewitself at such a time but Yorick's skull. In one of my night walks, asthe church steeples were shaking the March winds and rain with strokesof Four, I passed the outer boundary of one of these great deserts,and entered it. With a dim lantern in my hand, I groped my well-knownway to the stage and looked over the orchestra—which was like a greatgrave dug for a time of pestilence—into the void beyond. A dismalcavern of an immense aspect, with the chandelier gone dead likeeverything else, and nothing visible through mist and fog and space,but tiers of winding-sheets. The ground at my feet where, when lastthere, I had seen the peasantry of Naples dancing among the vines,reckless of the burning mountain which threatened to overwhelm them,was now in possession of a strong serpent of engine-hose, watchfullylying in wait for the serpent Fire, and ready to fly at it if itshowed its forked tongue. A ghost of a watchman, carrying a faintcorpse candle, haunted the distant upper gallery and flitted away.Retiring within the proscenium, and holding my light above my headtowards the rolled-up curtain—green no more, but black as ebony—mysight lost itself in a gloomy vault, showing faint indications in itof a shipwreck of canvas and cordage. Methought I felt much as a divermight, at the bottom of the sea.

In those small hours when there was no movement in the streets, itafforded matter for reflection to take Newgate in the way, and,touching its rough stone, to think of the prisoners in their sleep,and then to glance in at the lodge over the spiked wicket, and see thefire and light of the watching turnkeys, on the white wall. Not aninappropriate time either, to linger by that wicked little Debtors'Door—shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw—which hasbeen Death's Door to so many. In the days of the uttering of forgedone-pound notes by people tempted up from the country, how manyhundreds of wretched creatures of both sexes—many quiteinnocent—swung out of a pitiless and inconsistent world, with thetower of yonder Christian church of Saint Sepulchre monstrously beforetheir eyes! Is there any haunting of the Bank Parlour, by theremorseful souls of old directors, in the nights of these later days,I wonder, or is it as quiet as this degenerate Aceldama of an OldBailey?

To walk on to the Bank, lamenting the good old times and bemoaning thepresent evil period, would be an easy next step, so I would take it,and would make my houseless circuit of the Bank, and give a thought tothe treasure within; likewise to the guard of soldiers passing thenight there, and nodding over the fire. Next, I went to Billingsgate,in some hope of market-people, but it proving as yet too early,crossed London-bridge and got down by the waterside on the Surreyshore among the buildings of the great brewery. There was plenty goingon at the brewery; and the reek, and the smell of grains, and therattling of the plump dray horses at their mangers, were capitalcompany. Quite refreshed by having mingled with this good society, Imade a new start with a new heart, setting the old King's Bench prisonbefore me for my next object, and resolving, when I should come to thewall, to think of poor Horace Kinch, and the Dry Rot in men.

A very curious disease the Dry Rot in men, and difficult to detect thebeginning of. It had carried Horace Kinch inside the wall of the oldKing's Bench prison, and it had carried him out with his feetforemost. He was a likely man to look at, in the prime of life, wellto do, as clever as he needed to be, and popular among many friends.He was suitably married, and had healthy and pretty children. But,like some fair-looking houses or fair-looking ships, he took the DryRot. The first strong external revelation of the Dry Rot in men, is atendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street-corners withoutintelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about manyplaces rather than at any; to do nothing tangible, but to have anintention of performing a variety of intangible duties to-morrow orthe day after. When this manifestation of the disease is observed, theobserver will usually connect it with a vague impression once formedor received, that the patient was living a little too hard. He willscarcely have had leisure to turn it over in his mind and form theterrible suspicion "Dry Rot," when he will notice a change for theworse in the patient's appearance: a certain slovenliness anddeterioration, which is not poverty, nor dirt, nor intoxication, norill-health, but simply Dry Rot. To this, succeeds a smell as of strongwaters, in the morning; to that, a looseness respecting money; tothat, a stronger smell as of strong waters, at all times; to that, alooseness respecting everything; to that, a trembling of the limbs,somnolency, misery, and crumbling to pieces. As it is in wood, so itis in men. Dry Rot advances at a compound usury quite incalculable. Aplank is found infected with it, and the whole structure is devoted.Thus it had been with the unhappy Horace Kinch, lately buried by asmall subscription. Those who knew him had not nigh done saying, "Sowell off, so comfortably established, with such hope before him—andyet, it is feared, with a slight touch of Dry Rot!" when lo! the manwas all Dry Rot and dust.

From the dead wall associated on those houseless nights with this toocommon story, I chose next to wander by Bethlehem Hospital; partly,because it lay on my road round to Westminster; partly, because I hada night fancy in my head which could be best pursued within sight ofits walls and dome. And the fancy was this: Are not the sane and theinsane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming? Are not all of usoutside this hospital, who dream, more or less in the condition ofthose inside it, every night of our lives? Are we not nightlypersuaded, as they daily are, that we associate preposterously withkings and queens, emperors and empresses, and notabilities of allsorts? Do we not nightly jumble events and personages and times andplaces, as these do daily? Are we not sometimes troubled by our ownsleeping inconsistencies, and do we not vexedly try to account forthem or excuse them, just as these do sometimes in respect of theirwaking delusions? Said an afflicted man to me, when I was last in ahospital like this, "Sir, I can frequently fly." I was half ashamed toreflect that so could I—by night. Said a woman to me on the sameoccasion, "Queen Victoria frequently comes to dine with me, and herMajesty and I dine off peaches and maccaroni in our nightgowns, andhis Royal Highness the Prince Consort does us the honour to make athird on horseback in a Field-Marshal's uniform." Could I refrain fromreddening with consciousness when I remembered the amazing royalparties I myself had given (at night), the unaccountable viands I hadput on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting myself onthose distinguished occasions? I wonder that the great master who kneweverything, when he called Sleep the death of each day's life, did notcall Dreams the insanity of each day's sanity.

By this time I had left the Hospital behind me, and was again settingtowards the river; and in a short breathing space I was onWestminster-bridge, regaling my houseless eyes with the external wallsof the British Parliament—the perfection of a stupendous institution,I know, and the admiration of all surrounding nations and succeedingages, I do not doubt, but perhaps a little the better now and then forbeing pricked up to its work. Turning off into Old Palace-yard, theCourts of Law kept me company for a quarter of an hour; hinting in lowwhispers what numbers of people they were keeping awake, and howintensely wretched and horrible they were rendering the small hours tounfortunate suitors. Westminster Abbey was fine gloomy society foranother quarter of an hour; suggesting a wonderful procession of itsdead among the dark arches and pillars, each century more amazed bythe century following it than by all the centuries going before. Andindeed in those houseless night walks—which even included cemeterieswhere watchmen went round among the graves at stated times, and movedthe tell-tale handle of an index which recorded that they had touchedit at such an hour—it was a solemn consideration what enormous hostsof dead belong to one old great city, and how, if they were raisedwhile the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's pointin all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not onlythat, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleysbeyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows howfar.

When a church clock strikes, on houseless ears in the dead of thenight, it may be at first mistaken for company and hailed as such.But, as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive atsuch a time with great clearness, go opening out, for ever and everafterwards widening perhaps (as the philosopher has suggested) ineternal space, the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness isprofounder. Once—it was after leaving the Abbey and turning my facenorth—I came to the great steps of St. Martin's church as the clockwas striking Three. Suddenly, a thing that in a moment more I shouldhave trodden upon without seeing, rose up at my feet with a cry ofloneliness and houselessness, struck out of it by the bell, the likeof which I never heard. We then stood face to face looking at oneanother, frightened by one another. The creature was like abeetle-browed hair-lipped youth of twenty, and it had a loose bundleof rags on, which it held together with one of its hands. It shiveredfrom head to foot, and its teeth chattered, and as it stared atme—persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it thought me—it made with itswhining mouth as if it were snapping at me, like a worried dog.Intending to give this ugly object money, I put out my hand to stayit—for it recoiled as it whined and snapped—and laid my hand uponits shoulder. Instantly, it twisted out of its garment, like the youngman in the New Testament, and left me standing alone with its rags inmy hands.

Covent-garden Market, when it was market morning, was wonderfulcompany. The great waggons of cabbages, with growers' men and boyslying asleep under them, and with sharp dogs from market-gardenneighbourhoods looking after the whole, were as good as a party. Butone of the worst night sights I know in London, is to be found in thechildren who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fightfor the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay theirthieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge theconstables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on thepavement of the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet. A painfuland unnatural result comes of the comparison one is forced toinstitute between the growth of corruption as displayed in the so muchimproved and cared for fruits of the earth, and the growth ofcorruption as displayed in these all uncared for (except inasmuch asever-hunted) savages.

There was early coffee to be got about Covent-garden Market, and thatwas more company—warm company, too, which was better. Toast of a verysubstantial quality, was likewise procurable: though thetowzled-headed man who made it, in an inner chamber within thecoffee-room, hadn't got his coat on yet, and was so heavy with sleepthat in every interval of toast and coffee he went off anew behind thepartition into complicated cross-roads of choke and snore, and losthis way directly. Into one of these establishments (among theearliest) near Bow-street, there came one morning as I sat over myhouseless cup, pondering where to go next, a man in a high and longsnuff-coloured coat, and shoes, and, to the best of my belief, nothingelse but a hat, who took out of his hat a large cold meat pudding; ameat pudding so large that it was a very tight fit, and brought thelining of the hat out with it. This mysterious man was known by hispudding, for on his entering, the man of sleep brought him a pint ofhot tea, a small loaf, and a large knife and fork and plate. Left tohimself in his box, he stood the pudding on the bare table, and,instead of cutting it, stabbed it, over-hand, with the knife, like amortal enemy; then took the knife out, wiped it on his sleeve, torethe pudding asunder with his fingers, and ate it all up. Theremembrance of this man with the pudding remains with me as theremembrance of the most spectral person my houselessness encountered.Twice only was I in that establishment, and twice I saw him stalk in(as I should say, just out of bed, and presently going back to bed),take out his pudding, stab his pudding, wipe the dagger, and eat hispudding all up. He was a man whose figure promised cadaverousness, butwho had an excessively red face, though shaped like a horse's. On thesecond occasion of my seeing him, he said huskily to the man of sleep,"Am I red to-night?" "You are," he uncompromisingly answered. "Mymother," said the spectre, "was a red-faced woman that liked drink,and I looked at her hard when she laid in her coffin, and I took thecomplexion." Somehow, the pudding seemed an unwholesome pudding afterthat, and I put myself in its way no more.

When there was no market, or when I wanted variety, a railway terminuswith the morning mails coming in, was remunerative company. But likemost of the company to be had in this world, it lasted only a veryshort time. The station lamps would burst out ablaze, the porterswould emerge from places of concealment, the cabs and trucks wouldrattle to their places (the post-office carts were already in theirs),and, finally, the bell would strike up, and the train would comebanging in. But there were few passengers and little luggage, andeverything scuttled away with the greatest expedition. The locomotivepost-offices, with their great nets—as if they had been dragging thecountry for bodies—would fly open as to their doors, and woulddisgorge a smell of lamp, an exhausted clerk, a guard in a red coat,and their bags of letters; the engine would blow and heave andperspire, like an engine wiping its forehead and saying what a run ithad had; and within ten minutes the lamps were out, and I washouseless and alone again.

But now, there were driven cattle on the high road near, wanting (ascattle always do) to turn into the midst of stone walls, and squeezethemselves through six inches' width of iron railing, and gettingtheir heads down (also as cattle always do) for tossing-purchase atquite imaginary dogs, and giving themselves and every devoted creatureassociated with them a most extraordinary amount of unnecessarytrouble. Now, too, the conscious gas began to grow pale with theknowledge that daylight was coming, and straggling work-people werealready in the streets, and, as waking life had become extinguishedwith the last pieman's sparks, so it began to be rekindled with thefires of the first street-corner breakfast-sellers. And so by fasterand faster degrees, until the last degrees were very fast, the daycame, and I was tired and could sleep. And it is not, as I used tothink, going home at such times, the least wonderful thing in London,that in the real desert region of the night, the houseless wanderer isalone there. I knew well enough where to find Vice and Misfortune ofall kinds, if I had chosen; but they were put out of sight, and myhouselessness had many miles upon miles of streets in which it could,and did, have its own solitary way.

Dickens.

"A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED"

These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's JuvenileDrama. That national monument, after having changed its name toPark's, to Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, hasnow become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, likeStonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may be theMuseum numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else hergracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; but to the plainprivate person they are become, like Raphaels, unattainable. I have,at different times, possessed Aladdin, The Red Rover, The BlindBoy, The Old Oak Chest, The Wood Dæmon, Jack Sheppard, TheMiller and his Men, Der Freischütz, The Smuggler, The Forest ofBondy, Robin Hood, The Waterman, Richard I., My Poll and myPartner Joe, The Inchcape Bell (imperfect), and Three-FingeredJack, the Terror of Jamaica; and I have assisted others in theillumination of The Maid of the Inn and The Battle of Waterloo. Inthis roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of a happychildhood; and though not half of them are still to be procured of anyliving stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all survive,kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past.

There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certainstationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins thecity of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made aparty to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in thosedays I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this ofitself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. Inthe Leith Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed atheatre in working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few"robbers carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfoldto me! the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled oneupon another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets.One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate ofcharacters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear theclothyard arrow; I would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long TomCoffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest!how—if the name by chance were hidden—I would wonder in what play hefigured, and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strangeapparel! And then to go within, to announce yourself as an intendingpurchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles andbreathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epilepticcombats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses andprison vaults—it was a giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smeltof Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy.They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was aplace besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding Salem, had adouble task. They kept us at the stick's end, frowned us down,snatched each play out of our hand ere we were trusted with another;and, incredible as it may sound, used to demand of us upon ourentrance, like banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. OldMr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, once sweptthe treasures from before me, with the cry: "I do not believe, child,that you are an intending purchaser at all!" These were the dragons ofthe garden; but for such joys of paradise we could have faced theTerror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was anotherlightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowingin the raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare with itsave now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certainunwrit stones of adventure, from which I awake to find the world allvanity. The crux of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to theuncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on thesebundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the sight andtouch of them which he would jealously prolong; and when at length thedeed was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman hadbrushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth again,a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the bluewinter's even, and The Miller, or The Rover, or some kindred dramaclutched against his side—on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughedaloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all theyears of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare withthese, and that was on the night when I brought back with me theArabian Entertainments in the fat, old, double-columned volume withthe prints. I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, Iremember, when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted prettystiff) came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead ofordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might!

The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit.Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, asset forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes andcharacters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. TheHermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back ofstage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slantingdirection"—such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly tobe called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did notmuch appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of TheBlind Boy, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince andonce, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And The Old Oak Chest, whatwas it all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious numberof banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificentkitchen in the third act (was it in the third?)—they are all fallenin a deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish.

I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quiteforget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to"twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound ofit—crimson lake!—the horns of elf-land are not richer on theear)—with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to becompounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. Thelatter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisitepigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day myheart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness the veryaspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasurein the painting. But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it,all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look at;but to cut the figures out was simply sacrilege; nor could any childtwice court the tedium, the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantmentof an actual performance. Two days after the purchase the honey hadbeen sucked. Parents used to complain; they thought I wearied of myplay. It was not so: no more than a person can be said to have weariedof his dinner when he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got themarrow of it and said grace.

Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to studythat enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true childof Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Muchas I have travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, uponthat map or abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear ofmemory, and are still but names. The Floating Beacon—why was thatdenied me? or The Wreck Ashore? Sixteen-String Jack whom I did noteven guess to be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted myslumbers; and there is one sequence of three from that enchantedcalender that I still at times recall, like a loved verse of poetry:Lodoiska, Silver Palace, Echo of Westminster Bridge. Names, barenames, are surely more to children than we poor, grown-up, obliteratedfools remember.

The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of thecharm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but theattraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had creptinto the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now wehave reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name ofSkelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly todesign these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. Itis even to be found, with reverence be it said, among the works ofnature. The stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular,home-bred staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day,but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: apeculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in atone of voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insistupon the art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters thatonce so thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadlyengines and incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; theextreme hard favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said withpain; the villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and thescenes themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem theefforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the otherside the impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a greatunity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is deadand buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, theready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one withcold reality, but how much dearer to the mind!

The scenery of Skeltdom—or, shall we say, the kingdom ofTranspontus?—had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Polandas in The Blind Boy, or Bohemia with The Miller and his Men, orItaly with The Old Oak Chest, still it was Transpontus. A botanistcould tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, runningwild in deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; andovershadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and QuercusSkeltica—brave growths. The caves were all embowelled in theSurreyside formation; the soil was all betrodden by the light pump ofT. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet another, an oriental string:he held the gorgeous east in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyères,say, in the garden of the Hôtel des Îles d'Or, you may behold theseblessed visions realised. But on these I will not dwell; they were anoutwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt was all himself.It had a strong flavour of England; it was a sort of indigestion ofEngland and drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How theroads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiatesfrom behind the cloud, and how the congregated clouds themselvesuproll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the usualfirst flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, thegun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this dramamust be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) withthe red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; and thereagain is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so dull tocolour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills,glimpses of the navigable Thames—England, when at last I came tovisit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, forthe Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and therethe horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at theripe age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend toload it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my ownideal, radiating pure romance—still I was but a puppet in the hand ofSkelt; the original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely theantitype of all the bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank,had adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild. "This is mastering me," asWhitman cries, upon some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life,art, letters, the world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stampedhimself upon my immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, apoor penny world; but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I goto the theatre to see a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a littlefaded. If I visit a bold scene in nature, Skelt would have beenbolder; there had been certainly a castle on that mountain, and thehollow tree—that set piece—I seem to miss it in the foreground.Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive, andinfantile art, I seem to have learned the very spirit of my life'senjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I was to read aboutand love in a late future; got the romance of Der Freischütz longere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery ofscenes and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain,I might enact all novels and romances; and took from these rude cutsan enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader—and yourself?

A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stagefavourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modestreadiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or thebright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, or to Clarke's of GarrickStreet. In Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of myancient aspirations: Wreck Ashore and Sixteen-String Jack; and Icherish the belief that when these shall see once more the light ofday, B. Pollock will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have adream at times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander ina ghostly street—E. W., I think, the postal district—close below thefool's-cap of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo ofthe Abbey bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smellingstrong of glue and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty withgreat Skelt himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy,with what a choking heart—I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; Ipay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust.

R. L. Stevenson.

THE JULY GRASS

A July fly went sideways over the long grass. His wings made a burrabout him like a net, beating so fast they wrapped him round with acloud. Every now and then, as he flew over the trees of grass, ataller one than common stopped him, and there he clung, and then theeye had time to see the scarlet spots—the loveliest colour—on hiswings. The wind swung the burnet and loosened his hold, and away hewent again over the grasses, and not one jot did he care if they werePoa or Festuca, or Bromus or Hordeum, or any other name. Nameswere nothing to him; all he had to do was to whirl his scarlet spotsabout in the brilliant sun, rest when he liked, and go on again. Iwonder whether it is a joy to have bright scarlet spots, and to beclad in the purple and gold of life; is the colour felt by thecreature that wears it? The rose, restful of a dewy morn before thesunbeams have topped the garden wall, must feel a joy in its ownfragrance, and know the exquisite hue of its stained petals. The rosesleeps in its beauty.

The fly whirls his scarlet-spotted wings about and splashes himselfwith sunlight, like the children on the sands. He thinks not of thegrass and sun; he does not heed them at all—and that is why he is sohappy—any more than the barefoot children ask why the sea is there,or why it does not quite dry up when it ebbs. He is unconscious; helives without thinking about living; and if the sunshine were ahundred hours long, still it would not be long enough. No, neverenough of sun and sliding shadows that come like a hand over the tableto lovingly reach our shoulder, never enough of the grass that smellssweet as a flower, not if we could live years and years equal innumber to the tides that have ebbed and flowed counting backwards fouryears to every day and night, backward still till we found out whichcame first, the night or the day. The scarlet-dotted fly knows nothingof the names of the grasses that grow here where the sward nears thesea, and thinking of him I have decided not to wilfully seek to learnany more of their names either. My big grass book I have left at home,and the dust is settling on the gold of the binding. I have picked ahandful this morning of which I know nothing. I will sit here on theturf and the scarlet-dotted flies shall pass over me, as if I too werebut a grass. I will not think, I will be unconscious, I will live.

Listen! that was the low sound of a summer wavelet striking theuncovered rock over there beneath in the green sea. All things thatare beautiful are found by chance, like everything that is good. Hereby me is a praying-rug, just wide enough to kneel on, of the richestgold inwoven with crimson. All the Sultans of the East never had suchbeauty as that to kneel on. It is, indeed, too beautiful to kneel on,for the life in these golden flowers must not be broken down even forthat purpose. They must not be defaced, not a stem bent; it is morereverent not to kneel on them, for this carpet prays itself. I willsit by it and let it pray for me. It is so common, the bird's-footlotus, it grows everywhere; yet if I purposely searched for days Ishould not have found a plot like this, so rich, so golden, so glowingwith sunshine. You might pass by it in one stride, yet it is worthy tobe thought of for a week and remembered for a year. Slender grasses,branched round about with slenderer boughs, each tipped with pollenand rising in tiers cone-shaped—too delicate to grow tall—cluster atthe base of the mound. They dare not grow tall or the wind would snapthem. A great grass, stout and thick, rises three feet by the hedge,with a head another foot nearly, very green and strong and bold,lifting itself right up to you; you must say, "What a fine grass!"Grasses whose awns succeed each other alternately; grasses whose topsseem flattened; others drooping over the shorter blades beneath; somethat you can only find by parting the heavier growth around them;hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands. The kingly poppies onthe dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, theirsubjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are,the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, butraising up a brilliant blazon of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. Theyare useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison andeverlasting night; yet they are forgiven because they are notcommonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppiescommonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and theyare saved. Even when they take the room of the corn we must admirethem. The mighty multitude of nations, the millions and millions ofthe grass stretching away in intertangled ranks, through pasture andmead from shore to shore, have no kinship with these their lords. Theruler is always a foreigner. From England to China the native born isno king; the poppies are the Normans of the field. One of these on themound is very beautiful, a width of petal, a clear silkiness of colourthree shades higher than the rest—it is almost dark with scarlet. Iwish I could do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and goldand crimson and green, something more than see it, not exactly todrink it or inhale it, but in some way to make it part of me that Imight live it.

The July grasses must be looked for in corners and out-of-the-wayplaces, and not in the broad acres—the scythe has taken them there.By the wayside on the banks of the lane, near the gateway—look, too,in uninteresting places behind incomplete buildings on the mounds castup from abandoned foundations where speculation has been and gone.There weeds that would not have found resting-place elsewhere growunchecked, and uncommon species and unusually large growths appear.Like everything else that is looked for, they are found under unlikelyconditions. At the back of ponds, just inside the enclosure of woods,angles of corn-fields, old quarries, that is where to find grasses, orby the sea in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow bythe mere road-side; you may look for others up the lanes in the deepruts, look too inside the hollow trees by the stream. In a morning youmay easily garner together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut thelarger stems aslant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green glass.You must consider as you gather them the height and slenderness of thestems, the droop and degree of curve, the shape and colour of thepanicle, the dusting of the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind.The sheaf you may take home with you, but the wind that was among itstays without.

Richard Jeffries.

WORN-OUT TYPES

It is now a complaint of quite respectable antiquity that the types inwhich humanity was originally set up by a humour-loving Providence areworn out and require recasting. The surface of society has becomesmooth. It ought to be a bas-relief—it is a plane. Even a Chaucer (soit is said) could make nothing of us as we wend our way to Brighton.We have tempers, it is true—bad ones for the most part; but nohumours to be in or out of. We are all far too much alike; we do notgroup well; we only mix. All this, and more, is alleged against us. Acheerfully disposed person might perhaps think that, assuming theprevailing type to be a good, plain, readable one, this uniformityneed not necessarily be a bad thing; but had he the courage to giveexpression to this opinion he would most certainly be at once told,with that mixture of asperity and contempt so properly reserved forthose who take cheerful views of anything, that without well-definedtypes of character there can be neither national comedy nor whimsicalnovel; and as it is impossible to imagine any person sufficientlycheerful to carry the argument further by inquiring ingenuously, "Andhow would that matter?" the position of things becomes serious, anddemands a few minutes' investigation.

As we said at the beginning, the complaint is an old one—mostcomplaints are. When Montaigne was in Rome in 1580 he complainedbitterly that he was always knocking up against his own countrymen,and might as well have been in Paris. And yet some people would haveyou believe that this curse of the Continent is quite new. More thanseventy years ago that most quotable of English authors, Hazlitt,wrote as follows:

"It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all literature to generalizeand dissipate character by giving men the same artificial educationand the same common stock of ideas; so that we see all objects fromthe same point of view, and through the same reflected medium; welearn to exist not in ourselves, but in books; all men become alike,mere readers—spectators, not actors in the scene and lose all properpersonal identity. The templar—the wit—the man of pleasure and theman of fashion, the courtier and the citizen, the knight and thesquire, the lover and the miser—Lovelace, Lothario, Will Honeycomband Sir Roger de Coverley, Sparkish and Lord Foppington, Western andTom Jones, my Father and my Uncle Toby, Millament and Sir SampsonLegend, Don Quixote and Sancho, Gil Bias and Guzman d'Alfarache, CountFathom and Joseph Surface—have all met and exchanged commonplaces onthe barren plains of the haute littérature—toil slowly on to theTemple of Science, seen a long way off upon a level, and end in onedull compound of politics, criticism, chemistry, and metaphysics."

Very pretty writing, certainly[53]; nor can it be disputed thatuniformity of surroundings puts a tax upon originality. To make bricksand find your own straw are terms of bondage. Modern characters, likemodern houses, are possibly built too much on the same lines.Dickens's description of co*ketown is not easily forgotten:

"All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severecharacters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary,the infirmary might have been the jail, the town hall might have beeneither, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to thecontrary in the graces of their construction."

[Footnote 53: Yet in his essay On Londoners and Country People wefind Hazlitt writing: "London is the only place in which the childgrows completely up into the man. I have known characters of thiskind, which, in the way of childish ignorance and self-pleasingdelusion, exceeded anything to be met with in Shakespeare or BenJonson, or the Old Comedy."]

And the inhabitants of co*ketown are exposed to the same objection astheir buildings. Every one sinks all traces of what he vulgarly calls"the shop" (that is, his lawful calling), and busily pretends to benothing. Distinctions of dress are found irksome. A barrister offeeling hates to be seen in his robes save when actually engaged in acase. An officer wears his uniform only when obliged. Doctors havelong since shed all outward signs of their healing art. Court dressexcites a smile. A countess in her jewels is reckoned indecent by theBritish workman, who, all unemployed, puffs his tobacco smoke againstthe window-pane of the carriage that is conveying her ladyship to adrawing-room; and a West End clergyman is with difficulty restrainedfrom telling his congregation what he had been told the Britishworkman said on that occasion. Had he but had the courage to repeatthose stirring words, his hearers (so he said) could hardly havefailed to have felt their force—so unusual in such a place; but hehad not the courage, and that sermon of the pavement remainsunpreached. The toe of the peasant is indeed kibing the heel of thecourtier. The passion for equality in externals cannot be denied. Weare all woven strangely in the same piece, and so it comes about that,though our modern society has invented new callings, those callingshave not created new types. Stockbrokers, directors, officialliquidators, philanthropists, secretaries—not of State, but ofcompanies—speculative builders, are a new kind of people known tomany—indeed, playing a great part among us—but who, for all that,have not enriched the stage with a single character. Were they todisappear to-morrow, to be blown dancing away like the leaves beforeShelley's west wind, where in reading or playgoing would posterityencounter them? Alone amongst the children of men the pale student ofthe law, burning the midnight oil in some one of the "high lonelytowers" recently built by the Benchers of the Middle Temple (in theItalian taste), would, whilst losing his youth over that interminableseries, The Law Reports, every now and again strike across the oldtrack, once so noisy with the bayings of the well-paid hounds ofjustice, and, pushing his way along it, trace the history of the boguscompany, from the acclamations attendant upon its illegitimate birthto the hour of disgrace when it dies by strangulation at the hands ofthe professional wrecker. The pale student will not be a whollyunsympathetic reader. Great swindles have ere now made greatreputations, and lawyers may surely be permitted to take a pensiveinterest in such matters.

"Not one except the Attorney was amused—
He, like Achilles, faithful to the tomb,
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
Knowing they must be settled by the laws."

But our elder dramatists would not have let any of these charactersswim out of their ken. A glance over Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumontand Fletcher, is enough to reveal their frank and easy method. Theircharacters, like an apothecary's drugs, wear labels round their necks.Mr. Justice Clement and Mr. Justice Greedy; Master Matthew, the towngull; Sir Giles Overreach, Sir Epicure Mammon, Mr. Plenty, Sir JohnFrugal, need no explanatory context. Are our dramatists to blame forwithholding from us the heroes of our modern society? Ought we tohave—

"Sir Moses, Sir Aaron, Sir Jamramagee,
Two stock-jobbing Jews, and a shuffling Parsee"?

Baron Contango, the Hon. Mr. Guinea-Pig, poor Miss Impulsia Allottee,Mr. Jeremiah Builder—Rare Old Ben, who was fond of the City, wouldhave given us them all and many more; but though we may well wish hewere here to do it, we ought, I think, to confess that the humour ofthese typical persons who so swell the dramatis personæ of anElizabethan is, to say the least of it, far to seek. There is acertain warm-hearted tradition about their very names which makesdisrespect painful. It seems a churl's part not to laugh, as did ourfathers before us, at the humours of the conventional parasite orimpossible serving-man; but we laugh because we will, and not becausewe must.

Genuine comedy—the true tickling scene, exquisite absurdity,soul-rejoicing incongruity—has really nothing to do with types,prevailing fashions, and such-like vulgarities. Sir Andrew Aguecheekis not a typical fool; he is a fool, seised in fee simple of hisfolly.

Humour lies not in generalizations, but in the individual; not in hishat nor in his hose, even though the latter be "cross-gartered"; butin the deep heart of him, in his high-flying vanities, his low-lyingoddities—what we call his "ways"—nay, in the very motions of hisback as he crosses the road. These stir our laughter whilst he livesand our tears when he dies, for in mourning over him we know full wellwe are taking part in our own obsequies. "But indeed," wrote CharlesLamb, "we die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when Ithink that such a hold as I had of you is gone."

Literature is but the reflex of life, and the humour of it lies in theportrayal of the individual, not the type; and though the young man inLocksley Hall no doubt observes that the individual withers, we havebut to take down George Meredith's novels to find the fact isotherwise, and that we have still one amongst us who takes notes, andagainst the battery of whose quick wits even the costly raiment ofPoole is no protection. We are forced as we read to exclaim withPetruchio: "Thou hast hit it; come sit on me." No doubt the task ofthe modern humorist is not so easy as it was. The surface ore has beenmostly picked up. In order to win the precious metal you must now workwith in-stroke and out-stroke after the most approved methods.Sometimes one would enjoy it a little more if we did not hear quite sodistinctly the snorting of the engine, and the groaning and thecreaking of the gear as it painfully winds up its prize: but whatwould you? Methods, no less than men, must have the defects of theirqualities.

If, therefore, it be the fact that our national comedy is in decline,we must look for some other reasons for it than those suggested byHazlitt in 1817. When Mr. Chadband inquired, "Why can we not fly, myfriends?" Mr. Snagsby ventured to observe, "in a cheerful and ratherknowing tone, 'No wings!'" but he was immediately frowned down by Mrs.Snagsby. We lack courage to suggest that the somewhat heavy-footedmovements of our recent dramatists are in any way due to their notbeing provided with those twin adjuncts indispensable for the geniuswho would soar.

Augustine Birrell.

BOOK-BUYING

The most distinguished of living Englishmen, who, great as he is inmany directions, is perhaps inherently more a man of letters thananything else, has been overheard mournfully to declare that therewere more book-sellers' shops in his native town sixty years ago, whenhe was a boy in it, than are to-day to be found within its boundaries.And yet the place "all unabashed" now boasts its bookless self a city!

Mr. Gladstone was, of course, referring to second-hand bookshops.Neither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about newbooks. When a new book is published, read an old one, was the adviceof a sound though surly critic. It is one of the boasts of letters tohave glorified the term "second-hand," which other crafts have "soiledto all ignoble use." But why it has been able to do this is obvious.All the best books are necessarily second-hand. The writers of to-dayneed not grumble. Let them "bide a wee." If their books are worthanything, they, too, one day will be second-hand. If their books arenot worth anything there are ancient trades still in full operationamongst us—the pastrycooks and the trunkmakers—who must have paper.

But is there any substance in the plaint that nobody now buys books,meaning thereby second-hand books? The late Mark Pattison, who had16,000 volumes, and whose lightest word has therefore weight, oncestated that he had been informed, and verily believed, that there weremen of his own University of Oxford who, being in uncontrolledpossession of annual incomes of not less than £500, thought they weredoing the thing handsomely if they expended £50 a year upon theirlibraries. But we are not bound to believe this unless we like. Therewas a touch of morosity about the late Rector of Lincoln which led himto take gloomy views of men, particularly Oxford men.

No doubt arguments a priori may readily be found to support thecontention that the habit of book-buying is on the decline. I confessto knowing one or two men, not Oxford men either, but Cambridge men(and the passion of Cambridge for literature is a by-word), who, onthe plea of being pressed with business, or because they were going toa funeral, have passed a bookshop in a strange town without so much asstepping inside "just to see whether the fellow had anything." Butpainful as facts of this sort necessarily are, any damaging inferencewe might feel disposed to draw from them is dispelled by a comparisonof price-lists. Compare a bookseller's catalogue of 1862 with one ofthe present year, and your pessimism is washed away by the tears whichunrestrainedly flow as you see what bonnes fortunes you have lost. Ayoung book-buyer might well turn out upon Primrose Hill and bemoan hisyouth, after comparing old catalogues with new.

Nothing but American competition, grumble some old stagers.

Well! why not? This new battle for the books is a free fight, not aprivate one, and Columbia has "joined in." Lower prices are not to belooked for. The book-buyer of 1900 will be glad to buy at to-day'sprices. I take pleasure in thinking he will not be able to do so. Goodfinds grow scarcer and scarcer. True it is that but a few short weeksago I picked up (such is the happy phrase, most apt to describe whatwas indeed a "street casualty") a copy of the original edition ofEndymion (Keats's poem—O subscriber to Mudie's!—not LordBeaconsfield's novel) for the easy equivalent of half-a-crown—butthen that was one of my lucky days. The enormous increase ofbooksellers' catalogues and their wide circulation amongst the tradehas already produced a hateful uniformity of prices. Go where you willit is all the same to the odd sixpence. Time was when you could mapout the country for yourself with some hopefulness of plunder. Therewere districts where the Elizabethan dramatists were but slenderlyprotected. A raid into the "bonnie North Countrie" sent you home againcheered with chap-books and weighted with old pamphlets of curiousinterests; whilst the West of England seldom failed to yield a crop ofnovels. I remember getting a complete set of the Brontë books in theoriginal issues at Torquay, I may say, for nothing. Those days areover. Your country bookseller is, in fact, more likely, such talesdoes he hear of London auctions, and such catalogues does he receiveby every post, to exaggerate the value of his wares than to part withthem pleasantly, and as a country bookseller should, "just to clear myshelves, you know, and give me a bit of room." The only compensationfor this is the catalogues themselves. You get them, at least, fornothing, and it cannot be denied that they make mighty pretty reading.

These high prices tell their own tale, and force upon us theconviction that there never were so many private libraries in courseof growth as there are to-day.

Libraries are not made; they grow. Your first two thousand volumespresent no difficulty, and cost astonishingly little money. Given £400and five years, and an ordinary man can in the ordinary course,without undue haste or putting any pressure upon his taste, surroundhimself with this number of books, all in his own language, andthenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it ispossible to be happy. But pride is still out of the question. To beproud of having two thousand books would be absurd. You might as wellbe proud of having two top-coats. After your first two thousanddifficulty begins, but until you have ten thousand volumes the lessyou say about your library the better. Then you may begin to speak.

It is no doubt a pleasant thing to have a library left you. Thepresent writer will disclaim no such legacy, but hereby undertakes toaccept it, however dusty. But good as it is to inherit a library, itis better to collect one. Each volume then, however lightly astranger's eye may roam from shelf to shelf, has its ownindividuality, a history of its own. You remember where you got it,and how much you gave for it; and your word may safely be taken forthe first of these facts, but not for the second.

The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplatehimself objectively, and is justified in believing in his ownexistence. No other man but he would have made precisely such acombination as his. Had he been in any single respect different fromwhat he is, his library, as it exists, never would have existed.Therefore, surely he may exclaim, as in the gloaming he contemplatesthe backs of his loved ones, "They are mine, and I am theirs."

But the eternal note of sadness will find its way even through thekeyhole of a library. You turn some familiar page, of Shakespeare itmay be, and his "infinite variety," his "multitudinous mind," suggestssome new thought, and as you are wondering over it you think ofLycidas, your friend, and promise yourself the pleasure of having hisopinion of your discovery the very next time when by the fire you two"help: waste a sullen day." Or it is, perhaps, some quainter, tendererfancy that engages your solitary attention, something in Sir PhilipSydney or Henry Vaughan, and then you turn to look for Phyllis, everthe best interpreter of love, human or divine. Alas! the printed pagegrows hazy beneath a filmy eye as you suddenly remember that Lycidasis dead—"dead ere his prime"—and that the pale cheek of Phyllis willnever again be relumined by the white light of her pure enthusiasm.And then you fall to thinking of the inevitable, and perhaps, in yourpresent mood, not unwelcome hour, when the "ancient peace" of your oldfriends will be disturbed, when rude hands will dislodge them fromtheir accustomed nooks and break up their goodly company

"Death bursts amongst them like a shell,
And strews them over half the town."

They will form new combinations, lighten other men's toil, and sootheanother's sorrow. Fool that I was to call anything mine!

Augustine Birrell.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN

It is universally conceded that our great-grandmothers were women ofthe most precise life and austere manners. The girls nowadays displaya shocking freedom; but they were partly led into it by the relativelaxity of their mothers, who, in their turn, gave great anxiety to astill earlier generation. To hear all the "Ahs" and the "Well, Inevers" of the middle-aged, one would fancy that propriety of conductwas a thing of the past, and that never had there been a "gaggle ofgirls" (the phrase belongs to Dame Juliana Berners) so wanton andrebellious as the race of 1895. Still, there must be a fallacysomewhere. If each generation is decidedly wilder, more independent,more revolting, and more insolent than the one before, how exceedinglygood people must have been four or five generations ago! Outside thepages of the people so sweetly advertised as "sexual femalefictionists," the girls of to-day do not strike one as extremely bad.Some of them are quite nice; the average is not very low. How lofty,then, must have been the standard one hundred years ago, to make roomfor such a steady decline ever since! Poor J. K. S. wrote:—

"If all the harm that's been done by men
Were doubled and doubled and doubled again,
And melted and fused into vapour, and then
Were squared and raised to the power of ten,
There wouldn't be nearly enough, not near,
To keep a small girl for a tenth of a year."

This is the view of a cynic. To the ordinary observer, the "revoltingdaughters," of whom we hear so much, do not revolt nearly enough todifferentiate them duly from their virtuous great-grandmothers.

We fear that there was still a good deal of human nature in girls ahundred, or even two hundred, years ago. That eloquent and animatedwriter, the author of The Whole Duty of Man, published in the reignof Charles II, a volume which, if he had had the courage of hisopinions, he would have named The Whole Duty of Woman. Under thetamer title of The Ladies' Calling it achieved a great success. Inthe frontispiece to this work a doleful dame, seated on what seems tobe a bare altar in an open landscape, is raising one hand to grasp acrown dangled out of her reach in the clouds, and in the other, withan air of great affectation is lifting her skirt between finger andthumb. A purse, a coronet, a fan, a mirror, rings, dice, coins, andother useful articles lie strewn at her naked feet; she spurns them,and lifts her streaming eyes to heaven. This is the sort of picturewhich does its best to prevent the reader from opening the book; butThe Ladies' Calling, nevertheless, is well worth reading. It excitesin us a curious wish to know more exactly what manner of women it wasaddressed to. How did the great-grandmothers of our great-grandmothersbehave? When we come to think of it, how little we know about them!

The customary source of information is the play-book of the time.There, indeed, we come across some choice indications of ancientwoman's behaviour. Nor did the women spare one another. The womandramatists outdid the men in attacking the manners of their sex, andwhat is perhaps the most cynical comedy in all literature was writtenby a woman. It will be some time before the Corinnas of The YellowBook contrive to surpass The Town Fop in outrageous frankness. Ourideas of the fashions of the seventeenth century are, however, takentoo exclusively, if they are taken from these plays alone. We conceiveevery fine lady to be like Lady Brute, in The Provok'd Wife, whowakes about two o'clock in the afternoon, is "trailed" to her greatchair for tea, leaves her bedroom only to descend to dinner, spendsthe night with a box and dice, and does not go to bed until the dawn.Comedy has always forced the note, and is a very unsafe (thoughpicturesque) guide to historic manners. Perhaps we obtain a justernotion from the gallant pamphlets of the age, such as The Lover'sWatch and The Lady's Looking-Glass; yet these were purely intendedfor people whom we should nowadays call "smart," readers who hungabout the outskirts of the Court.

For materials, then, out of which to construct a portrait of theordinary woman of the world in the reign of Charles II, we are glad tocome back to our anonymous divine. His is the best-kept secret inEnglish literature. In spite of the immense success of The Whole Dutyof Man, no one has done more than conjecture, more or less vaguely,who he may have been. He wrote at least five works besides his mostfamous treatise, and in preparing each of these for the press he tookmore pains than Junius did a century later to conceal his identity.The publisher of The Ladies' Calling, for example, assures us thathe knows no more than we do. The MS. came to him from an unknownsource and in a strange handwriting, "as from the Clouds dropt into myhands." The anonymous author made no attempt to see proofs of it, norclaimed his foundling in any way whatever. In his English ProseSelections, the recent third volume of which covers the ground we aredealing with, Mr. Craik, although finding room for such wretchedwriters as Bishop Cumberland and William Sherlock, makes no mention ofthe author of The Whole Duty. That is a curious oversight. There wasno divine of the age who wielded a more graceful pen. Only theexigencies of our space restrain us from quoting the noble praise ofthe Woman-Confessor in the preface to The Ladies' Calling. It begins"Queens and Empresses knew then no title so glorious"; and the readerwho is curious in such matters will refer to it for himself.

The women of this time troubled our author by their loudness ofspeech. There seems some reason to believe that with the Restoration,and in opposition to the affected whispering of the Puritans, atruculent and noisy manner became the fashion among Englishwomen. Thiswas, perhaps, the "barbarous dissonance" that Milton deprecated; itis, at all events, so distasteful to the writer of The Ladies'Calling that he gives it an early prominence in his exhortation. "Awoman's tongue," he says, "should be like the imaginary music of thespheres, sweet and charming, but not to be heard at distance."Modesty, indeed, he inculcates as the first ornament of womanhood, andhe intimates that there was much neglect of it in his day. We mightfancy it to be Mrs. Lynn Linton speaking when, with uplifted hands, hecries, "Would God that they would take, in exchange for that virileBoldness, which is now too common among many even of the best Rank,"such a solidity and firmness of mind as will permit them to succeedin—keeping a secret! Odd to hear a grave and polite divine urging theladies of his congregation not to "adorn" their conversation withoaths and imprecations, of which he says, with not less truth thangallantry, that "out of a woman's mouth there is on this side Hell nonoise that can be more amazingly odious." The revolting daughters ofto-day do not curse and swear; at all events, they do not swear inprint, where only we have met the shrews. On the other hand, theysmoke, a contingency which does not seem to have occurred to theauthor of The Ladies' Calling, who nowhere warns the sisterhoodagainst tobacco. The gravity of his indictment of excess in wine, notless than the evidence of such observers as Pepys, proves to us thatdrunkenness was by no means rare even among women of quality.

There never, we suppose, from the beginning of the world was aman-preacher who did not warn the women of his congregation againstthe vanity of fair raiment. The author of The Ladies' Calling is noexception; but he does his spiriting in a gentlemanlike way. Theladies came to listen to him bedizened with jewels, with all theobjects which lie strewn at the feet of his penitent in thefrontispiece. He does not scream to them to rend them off. He onlyremonstrates at their costliness. In that perfectly charming record ofa child's mind, the Memoir of Marjorie Fleming, the delicious littlewiseacre records the fact that her father and mother have given aguinea for a pineapple, remarking that that money would have sustaineda poor family during the entire winter. We are reminded of that whenour divine tells his auditors that "any one of the baubles, theloosest appendage of the dress, a fan, a busk, perhaps a black patch,bears a price that would warm the empty bowels of a poor starvingwretch." This was long before the days of very elaborate and expensivepatches, which were still so new in Pepys's days that he remarked onthose of Mr. Penn's pretty sister when he saw her in the new coach,"patched and very fine." Our preacher is no ranter, nor does he shutthe door of mercy on entertainments; all he deprecates is theirexcess. His penitents are not forbidden to spend an afternoon at thetheatre, or an evening in dancing or at cards; but they are desired toremember that, delightful as these occupations are, devotion is moredelightful still.

The attitude of the author to gaming is curious. "I question not thelawfulness of this recreation," he says distinctly; but he desires hisladies not to make cards the business of their life, and especiallynot to play on Sundays. It appears that some great ladies, in theemptiness of their heads and hearts, took advantage of the high pewsthen always found in churches to play ombre or quadrille under thevery nose of the preacher. This conduct must have been rare; thelegends of the age prove that it was not unknown. The game might beconcealed from every one if it was desisted from at the moment of thesermon, and in many cases the clergyman was a pitiful, obsequiouswretch who knew better than to find fault with the gentlefolks "up atthe house." It was not often that a convenient flash of lightning camein the middle of service to kill the impious gamester in his pew, ashappened, to the immense scandal and solemnization of everybody, atWithycombe, in Devonshire.

On the whole, it is amusing to find that the same faults and the samedangers which occupy our satirists to-day were pronounced imminent forwomen two hundred years ago. The ladies of Charles II's reign were alittle coarser, a little primmer, a good deal more ignorant than thoseof our age. Their manners were on great occasions much better, and onsmall occasions much worse, than those of their descendants of 1895;but the same human nature prevailed. The author of The Ladies'Calling considered that the greatest danger of his congregation layin the fact that "the female Sex is eminent for its pungency in thesensible passion of love"; and, although we take other modes of sayingit, that is true now.

Edmund Gosse.

STEELE'S LETTERS

On the 19th of May, 1708, Her Majesty Queen Anne being then upon thethrone of Great Britain and Ireland, a coach with two horses, gaudyrather than neat in its appointments, drew up at the door of my LordSunderland's office in Whitehall. It contained a lady about thirty, ofconsiderable personal attractions, and dressed richly in cinnamonsatin. She was a brunette, with a rather high forehead, the height ofwhich was ingeniously broken by two short locks upon the temples.Moreover, she had distinctly fine eyes, and a mouth which, in itsnormal state, must have been arch and pretty, but was now drawn downat the corners under the influence of some temporary irritation. Asthe coach stopped, a provincial-looking servant promptly alighted,pulled out from the box-seat a large case of the kind used forpreserving the voluminous periwigs of the period, and subsequentlyextracted from the same receptacle a pair of shining new shoes withsquare toes and silver buckles. These, with the case, he carriedcarefully into the house, returning shortly afterwards. Then ensuedwhat, upon the stage, would be called "an interval" during which timethe high forehead of the lady began to cloud visibly with impatience,and the corners of her mouth to grow more ominous. At length, abouttwenty minutes later, came a sound of laughter and noisy voices; andby-and-by bustled out of the co*ckpit portal a square-shouldered,square-faced man in a rich dress, which, like the coach, was a littleshowy. He wore a huge black full-bottomed periwig. Speaking with amarked Irish accent, he made profuse apologies to the occupant of thecarriage—apologies which, as might be expected, were not wellreceived. An expression of vexation came over his good-tempered faceas he took his seat at the lady's side, and he lapsed for a fewminutes into a moody silence. But before they had gone many yards, hisdark, deep-set eyes began to twinkle once more as he looked about him.When they passed the Tilt-Yard a detachment of the Second Troop ofLife Guards, magnificent in their laced red coats, jack boots, andwhite feathers, came pacing out on their black horses. They took theirway towards Charing Cross, and for a short distance followed the sameroute as the chariot. The lady was loftily indifferent to theirpresence; and she was, besides, on the further side of the vehicle.But her companion manifestly recognized some old acquaintances amongthem, and was highly gratified at being recognized in his turn,although at the same time it was evident he was also a littleapprehensive lest the "Gentlemen of the Guard," as they were called,should be needlessly demonstrative in their acknowledgment of hisexistence. After this, nothing more of moment occurred. Slowlymounting St. James's Street, the coach turned down Piccadilly, and,passing between the groups of lounging lackeys at the gate, enteredHyde Park. Here, by the time it had once made the circuit of the Ring,the lady's equanimity was completely restored, and the gentleman wasradiant. He was, in truth, to use his own words, "no undelightfulCompanion." He possessed an infinite fund of wit and humour; and hismanner to women had a sincerity of deference which was not theprevailing characteristic of his age.

There is but slender invention in this little picture. The gentlemanwas Captain Steele, late of the Life Guards, the Coldstreams, andLucas's regiment of foot, now Gazetteer, and Gentleman Waiter to QueenAnne's consort, Prince George of Denmark, and not yet "Mr. IsaacBickerstaff" of the immortal Tatler. The lady was Mrs. Steele, néeMiss Mary Scurlock, his "Ruler" and "absolute Governesse" (as hecalled her), to whom he had been married some eight months before. Ifyou ask at the British Museum for the Steele manuscripts (Add. MSS.5,145, A, B, and C), the courteous attendant will bring you, with itsfaded ink, dusky paper, and hasty scrawl, the very letter makingarrangements for this meeting ("best Periwigg" and "new Shoes"included), at the end of which the writer assures his "dear Prue"(another pet name) that she is "Vitall Life to Yr. Oblig'dAffectionate Husband & Humble Sernt. Richd. Steele." There are manysuch in the quarto volume of which this forms part, written from allplaces, at all times, in all kinds of hands. They take all tones; theyare passionate, tender, expostulatory, playful, dignified, lyric,didactic. It must be confessed that from a perusal of them one'sfeeling for the lady of the chariot is not entirely unsympathetic. Itcan scarcely have been an ideal household, that "third door right handturning out of Jermyn Street," to which so many of them are addressed;and Mrs. Steele must frequently have had to complain to herconfidante, Mrs. (or Miss) Binns (a lady whom Steele is obviouslyanxious to propitiate), of the extraordinary irregularity of herrestless lord and master. Now a friend from Barbados has stopped himon his way home, and he will come (he writes) "within a Pint of Wine";now it is Lord Sunderland who is keeping him indefinitely at theCouncil; now the siege of Lille and the proofs of the "Gazette" willdetain him until ten at night. Sometimes his vague "West Indianbusiness" (that is, his first wife's property) hurries him suddenlyinto the City; sometimes he is borne off to the Gentleman Ushers'table at St. James's. Sometimes, even, he stays out all night, as hehad done not many days before the date of the above meeting, when hehad written to beg that his dressing-gown, his slippers, and "cleanLinnen" might be sent to him at "one Legg's," a barber "over againstthe Devill Tavern at Charing Cross," where he proposes to lie thatnight, chiefly, it has been conjectured from the context, in order toescape certain watchful "shoulder-dabbers" who were hangingobstinately about his own mansion in St. James's. For—to tell thetruth—he was generally hopelessly embarrassed, and scarcely everwithout a lawsuit on his hands. He was not a bad man; he was notnecessarily vicious or dissolute. But his habits were incurablygenerous, profuse, and improvident; and his sanguine Irish nature ledhim continually to mistake his expectations for his income. Naturally,perhaps, his "absolute Governesse" complained of an absolutism sostrangely limited. If her affection for him was scarcely as ardent ashis passion for her, it was still a genuine emotion. But to a coquetteof some years' standing, and "a cried-up beauty" (as Mrs. Manley callsher), the realities of her married life must have been a crueldisappointment; and she was not the woman to conceal it. "I wish,"says her husband in one of his letters, "I knew how to Court you intoGood Humour, for Two or Three Quarrells more will dispatch me quite."Of her replies we have no knowledge; but from scattered specimens ofher style when angry, they must often have been exceptionally scornfuland unconciliatory. On one occasion, where he addresses her as"Madam," and returns her note to her in order that she may see, uponsecond thoughts, the disrespectful manner in which she treats him, heis evidently deeply wounded. She has said that their dispute is farfrom being a trouble to her, and he rejoins that to him anydisturbance between them is the greatest affliction imaginable. Andthen he goes on to expostulate, with more dignity than usual, againsther unreasonable use of her prerogative. "I Love you," he says,"better than the light of my Eyes, or the life-blood in my Heart butwhen I have lett you know that, you are also to understand thatneither my sight shall be so far inchanted, or my affection so muchmaster of me as to make me forgett our common Interest. To attend mybusinesse as I ought and improve my fortune it is necessary that mytime and my Will should be under no direction but my own." Clearly hisbosom's queen had been inquiring too closely into his goings andcomings. It is a strange thing, he says, in another letter, that,because she is handsome, he must be always giving her an account ofevery trifle, and minute of his time. And again—"Dear Prue, do notsend after me, for I shall be ridiculous!" It had happened to him, nodoubt. "He is governed by his wife most abominably, as bad asMarlborough," says another contemporary letter-writer. And we mayfancy the blue eyes of Dr. Swift flashing unutterable scorn as hescribbles off this piece of intelligence to Stella and Mrs. Dingley.

In the letters which follow Steele's above-quoted expostulation, theembers of misunderstanding flame and fade, to flame and fade again. Aword or two of kindness makes him rapturous; a harsh expression sinkshim to despair. As time goes on, the letters grow fewer, and thewriters grow more used to each other's ways. But to the last Steele'saffectionate nature takes fire upon the least encouragement. Once,years afterwards, when Prue is in the country and he is in London, andshe calls him "Good Dick," it throws him into such a transport that hedeclares he could forget his gout, and walk down to her at Wales. "Mydear little peevish, beautiful, wise Governess, God bless you," theletter ends. In another he assures her that, lying in her place and onher pillow, he fell into tears from thinking that his "charming littleinsolent might be then awake and in pain" with headache. She wantsflattery, she says, and he flatters her. "Her son," he declares, "isextremely pretty, and has his face sweetened with something of theVenus his mother, which is no small delight to the Vulcan who begothim." He assures her that, though she talks of the children, they aredear to him more because they are hers than because they are hisown.[54] And this reminds us that some of the best of his laterletters are about his family. Once, at this time of their mother'sabsence in Wales, he says that he has invited his eldest daughter todinner with one of her teachers, because she had represented to him"in her pretty language that she seemed helpless and friendless,without anybody's taking notice of her at Christmas, when all thechildren but she and two more were with their relations." So now theyare in the room where he is writing. "I told Betty," he adds, "I hadwrit to you; and she made me open the letter again, and give herhumble duty to her mother, and desire to know when she shall have thehonour to see her in town." No doubt this was in strict accordancewith the proprieties as practised at Mrs. Nazereau's polite academy inChelsea; but somehow one suspects that "Madam Betty" would scarcelyhave addressed the writer of the letter with the same boarding-schoolformality. Elsewhere the talk is all of Eugene, the eldest boy. "Yourson, at the present writing, is mighty well employed in tumbling onthe floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows amost delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also avery great scholar: he can read his Primer; and I have brought down myVirgil. He makes most shrewd remarks upon the pictures. We are veryintimate friends and play-fellows." Yes: decidedly Steele's childrenmust have loved their clever, faulty, kindly father.

[Footnote 54: A few sentences in this paper are borrowed from thewriter's "Life of Steele," 1886.]

Austin Dobson.

A DEFENCE OF NONSENSE

There are two equal and eternal ways of looking at this twilight worldof ours: we may see it as the twilight of evening or the twilight ofmorning; we may think of anything, down to a fallen acorn, as adescendant or as an ancestor. There are times when we are almostcrushed, not so much with the load of the evil as with the load of thegoodness of humanity, when we feel that we are nothing but theinheritors of a humiliating splendour. But there are other times wheneverything seems primitive, when the ancient stars are only sparksblown from a boy's bonfire, when the whole earth seems so young andexperimental that even the white hair of the aged, in the finebiblical phrase, is like almond-trees that blossom, like the whitehawthorn grown in May. That it is good for a man to realize that he is"the heir of all the ages" is pretty commonly admitted; it is a lesspopular but equally important point that it is good for him sometimesto realize that he is not only an ancestor, but an ancestor of primalantiquity; it is good for him to wonder whether he is not a hero, andto experience ennobling doubts as to whether he is not a solar myth.

The matters which most thoroughly evoke this sense of the abidingchildhood of the world are those which are really fresh, abrupt andinventive in any age; and if we were asked what was the best proof ofthis adventurous youth in the nineteenth century we should say, withall respect to its portentous sciences and philosophies, that it wasto be found in the rhymes of Mr. Edward Lear and in the literature ofnonsense. "The Dong with the Luminous Nose," at least, is original, asthe first ship and the first plough were original.

It is true in a certain sense that some of the greatest writers theworld has seen—Aristophanes, Rabelais and Sterne—have writtennonsense; but unless we are mistaken, it is in a widely differentsense. The nonsense of these men was satiric—that is to say,symbolic; it was a kind of exuberant capering round a discoveredtruth. There is all the difference in the world between the instinctof satire, which, seeing in the Kaiser's moustaches something typicalof him, draws them continually larger and larger; and the instinct ofnonsense which, for no reason whatever, imagines what those moustacheswould look like on the present Archbishop of Canterbury if he grewthem in a fit of absence of mind. We incline to think that no ageexcept our own could have understood that the Quangle-Wangle meantabsolutely nothing, and the Lands of the Jumblies were absolutelynowhere. We fancy that if the account of the knave's trial in "Alicein Wonderland" had been published in the seventeenth century it wouldhave been bracketed with Bunyan's "Trial of Faithful" as a parody onthe State prosecutions of the time. We fancy that if "The Dong withthe Luminous Nose" had appeared in the same period every one wouldhave called it a dull satire on Oliver Cromwell.

It is altogether advisedly that we quote chiefly from Mr. Lear's"Nonsense Rhymes." To our mind he is both chronologically andessentially the father of nonsense; we think him superior to LewisCarroll. In one sense, indeed, Lewis Carroll has a great advantage. Weknow what Lewis Carroll was in daily life: he was a singularly seriousand conventional don, universally respected, but very much of a pedantand something of a Philistine. Thus his strange double life in earthand in dreamland emphasizes the idea that lies at the back ofnonsense—the idea of escape, of escape into a world where thingsare not fixed horribly in an eternal appropriateness, where applesgrow on pear-trees, and any odd man you meet may have three legs.Lewis Carroll, living one life in which he would have thunderedmorally against any one who walked on the wrong plot of grass, andanother life in which he would cheerfully call the sun green and themoon blue, was, by his very divided nature, his one foot on bothworlds, a perfect type of the position of modern nonsense. HisWonderland is a country populated by insane mathematicians. We feelthe whole is an escape into a world of masquerade; we feel that if wecould pierce their disguises, we might discover that Humpty Dumpty andthe March Hare were Professors and Doctors of Divinity enjoying amental holiday. This sense of escape is certainly less emphatic inEdward Lear, because of the completeness of his citizenship in theworld of unreason. We do not know his prosaic biography as we knowLewis Carroll's. We accept him as a purely fabulous figure, on his owndescription of himself:

"His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat."

While Lewis Carroll's Wonderland is purely intellectual, Learintroduces quite another element—the element of the poetical and evenemotional. Carroll works by the pure reason, but this is not so stronga contrast; for, after all, mankind in the main has always regardedreason as a bit of a joke. Lear introduces his unmeaning words and hisamorphous creatures not with the pomp of reason, but with the romanticprelude of rich hues and haunting rhythms.

"Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live,"

is an entirely different type of poetry to that exhibited in"Jabberwocky." Carroll, with a sense of mathematical neatness, makeshis whole poem a mosaic of new and mysterious words. But Edward Lear,with more subtle and placid effrontery, is always introducing scrapsof his own elvish dialect into the middle of simple and rationalstatements, until we are almost stunned into admitting that we knowwhat they mean. There is a genial ring of common sense about suchlines as,

"For his aunt Jobiska said 'Every one knows
That a Pobble is better without his toes,'"

which is beyond the reach of Carroll. The poet seems so easy on thematter that we are almost driven to pretend that we see his meaning,that we know the peculiar difficulties of a Pobble, that we are as oldtravellers in the "Gromboolian Plain" as he is.

Our claim that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a newsense) would be quite indefensible if nonsense were nothing more thana mere æsthetic fancy. Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen outof mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has everarisen out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soilfor any great æsthetic growth. The principle of art for art's sakeis a very good principle if it means that there is a vital distinctionbetween the earth and the tree that has its roots in the earth; but itis a very bad principle if it means that the tree could grow just aswell with its roots in the air. Every great literature has always beenallegorical—allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The"Iliad" is only great because all life is a battle, the "Odyssey"because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is ariddle. There is one attitude in which we think that all existence issummed up in the word "ghosts"; another, and somewhat better one, inwhich we think it is summed up in the words "A Midsummer Night'sDream." Even the vulgarest melodrama or detective story can be good ifit expresses something of the delight in sinister possibilities—thehealthy lust for darkness and terror which may come on us any night inwalking down a dark lane. If, therefore, nonsense is really to be theliterature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmosto offer; the world must not only be the tragic, romantic, andreligious, it must be nonsensical also. And here we fancy thatnonsense will, in a very unexpected way, come to the aid of thespiritual view of things. Religion has for centuries been trying tomake men exult in the "wonders" of creation, but it has forgotten thata thing cannot be completely wonderful so long as it remains sensible.So long as we regard a tree as an obvious thing, naturally andreasonably created for a giraffe to eat, we cannot properly wonder atit. It is when we consider it as a prodigious wave of the living soilsprawling up to the skies for no reason in particular that we take offour hats, to the astonishment of the park-keeper. Everything has infact another side to it, like the moon, the patroness of nonsense.Viewed from that other side, a bird is a blossom broken loose from itschain of stalk, a man a quadruped begging on its hind legs, a house agigantesque hat to cover a man from the sun, a chair an apparatus offour wooden legs for a cripple with only two.

This is the side of things which tends most truly to spiritual wonder.It is significant that in the greatest religious poem existent, theBook of Job, the argument which convinces the infidel is not (as hasbeen represented by the merely rational religionism of the eighteenthcentury) a picture of the ordered beneficence of the Creation; but, onthe contrary, a picture of the huge and undecipherable unreason of it."Hast Thou sent the rain upon the desert where no man is?" This simplesense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberantindependence of our intellectual standards and our trivialdefinitions, is the basis of spirituality as it is the basis ofnonsense. Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) arethe two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out thesoul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw outLeviathan with a hook. The well-meaning person who, by merely studyingthe logical side of things, has decided that "faith is nonsense," doesnot know how truly he speaks; later it may come back to him in theform that nonsense is faith.

G. K. Chesterton.

THE COLOUR OF LIFE

Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But thetrue colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or oflife broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed thecolour of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Oncefully visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act ofbetrayal and of waste. Red is the secret of life, and not themanifestation thereof. It is one of the things the value of which issecrecy, one of the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. Thetrue colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of thecovered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart andthe pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood. Sobright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life isoutdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it iswhite, but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth;red, but less red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucidthan the colour of lilies. It has the hint of gold that is in all finecolour; but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive. UnderSicilian skies, indeed, it is deeper than old ivory; but under themisty blue of the English zenith, and the warm grey of the Londonhorizon, it is as delicately flushed as the paler wild roses, out totheir utmost, flat as stars, in the hedges of the end of June.

For months together London does not see the colour of life in anymass. The human face does not give much of it, what with features, andbeards, and the shadow of the top-hat and chapeau melon of man, andof the veils of woman. Besides, the colour of the face is subject to athousand injuries and accidents. The popular face of the Londoner hassoon lost its gold, its white, and the delicacy of its red and brown.We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely ingreat numbers out-of-doors. You get it in some quantity when all theheads of a great indoor meeting are turned at once upon a speaker; butit is only in the open air, needless to say, that the colour of lifeis in perfection, in the open air, "clothed with the sun," whether thesunshine be golden and direct, or dazzlingly diffused in grey.

The little figure of the London boy it is that has restored to thelandscape the human colour of life. He is allowed to come out of allhis ignominies, and to take the late colour of the midsummernorth-west evening, on the borders of the Serpentine. At the stroke ofeight he sheds the slough of nameless colours—all allied to the huesof dust, soot, and fog, which are the colours the world has chosen forits boys—and he makes, in his hundreds, a bright and delicate flushbetween the grey-blue water and the grey-blue sky. Clothed now withthe sun, he is crowned by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes tobathe, and the reflection of an early moon is under his feet.

So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature. Theyare so quickly restored. There seems to be nothing to do, but only alittle thing to undo. It is like the art of Eleonora Duse. The lastand most finished action of her intellect, passion, and knowledge is,as it were, the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken forart by other actors, some little obstacle to the way and liberty ofNature.

All the squalor is gone in a moment, kicked off with the second boot,and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lackingcolour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, hestill shouts with a co*ckney accent. You half expect pure vowels andelastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness,his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepeningmidsummer sun, he gives his colours to his world again.

It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, whereNature has lapsed, to replace Nature. It is always to do, by thehappily easy way of doing nothing. The grass is always ready to growin the streets—and no streets could ask for a more charming finishthan your green grass. The gasometer even must fall to pieces unlessit is renewed; but the grass renews itself. There is nothing soremediable as the work of modern man—"a thought which is also," asMr. Pecksniff said, "very soothing." And by remediable I mean, ofcourse, destructible. As the bathing child shuffles off hisgarments—they are few, and one brace suffices him—so the land mightalways, in reasonable time, shuffle off its yellow brick and purpleslate, and all the things that collect about railway stations. Asingle night almost clears the air of London.

But if the colour of life looks so well in the rather sham scenery ofHyde Park, it looks brilliant and grave indeed on a real sea-coast. Tohave once seen it there should be enough to make a colourist. Omemorable little picture! The sun was gaining colour as it nearedsetting, and it set not over the sea, but over the land. The sea hadthe dark and rather stern, but not cold, blue of that aspect—the darkand not the opal tints. The sky was also deep. Everything was verydefinite, without mystery, and exceedingly simple. The most luminousthing was the shining white of an edge of foam, which did not cease tobe white because it was a little golden and a little rosy in thesunshine. It was still the whitest thing imaginable. And the next mostluminous thing was the little child, also invested with the sun andthe colour of life.

In the case of women, it is of the living and unpublished blood thatthe violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed. See thecurious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution.On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes ofparty. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a triflewhen you consider how generously she was permitted political death.She was to spin and cook for her citizen in the obscurity of herliving hours; but to the hour of her death was granted a part in thelargest interests, social, national, international. The bloodwherewith she should, according to Robespierre, have blushed to beseen or heard in the tribune, was exposed in the public sightunsheltered by her veins.

Against this there was no modesty. Of all privacies, the last and theinnermost—the privacy of death—was never allowed to put obstacles inthe way of public action for a public cause. Women might be, and were,duly suppressed when, by the mouth of Olympe de Gouges, they claimed a"right to concur in the choice of representatives for the formation ofthe laws"; but in her person, too, they were liberally allowed to bearpolitical responsibility to the Republic. Olympe de Gouges wasguillotined. Robespierre thus made her public and complete amends.

Alice Meynell.

A FUNERAL

It was in a Surrey churchyard on a grey, damp afternoon—all verysolitary and quiet, with no alien spectators and only a very fewmourners; and no desolating sense of loss, although a very true andkindly friend was passing from us. A football match was in progress ina field adjoining the churchyard, and I wondered, as I stood by thegrave, if, were I the schoolmaster, I would stop the game just for thefew minutes during which a body was committed to the earth; and Idecided that I would not. In the midst of death we are in life, justas in the midst of life we are in death; it is all as it should be inthis bizarre, jostling world. And he whom we had come to bury wouldhave been the first to wish the boys to go on with their sport.

He was an old scholar—not so very old, either—whom I had known forsome five years, and had many a long walk with: a short and sturdyIrish gentleman, with a large, genial grey head stored with odd loreand the best literature; and the heart of a child. I never knew a manof so transparent a character. He showed you all his thoughts: as someone once said, his brain was like a beehive under glass—you couldwatch all its workings. And the honey in it! To walk with him at anyseason of the year was to be reminded or newly told of the best thatthe English poets have said on all the phenomena of wood and hedgerow,meadow and sky. He had the more lyrical passages of Shakespeare at histongue's end, and all Wordsworth and Keats. These were his favourites;but he had read everything that has the true rapturous note, and hadforgotten none of its spirit.

His life was divided between his books, his friends, and long walks. Asolitary man, he worked at all hours without much method, and probablycourted his fatal illness in this way. To his own name there is notmuch to show; but such was his liberality that he was continuallyhelping others, and the fruits of his erudition are widely scattered,and have gone to increase many a comparative stranger's reputation.His own magnum opus he left unfinished; he had worked at it foryears, until to his friends it had come to be something of a joke. Butthough still shapeless, it was a great feast, as the world, I hope,will one day know. If, however, this treasure does not reach theworld, it will not be because its worth was insufficient, but becauseno one can be found to decipher the manuscript; for I may sayincidentally that our old friend wrote the worst hand in London, andit was not an uncommon experience of his correspondents to carry hismissives from one pair of eyes to another, seeking a clue; and Iremember on one occasion two such inquirers meeting unexpectedly, andeach simultaneously drawing a letter from his pocket and uttering therequest that the other should put everything else on one side in orderto solve the enigma.

Lack of method and a haphazard and unlimited generosity were not hisonly Irish qualities. He had a quick, chivalrous temper, too, and Iremember the difficulty I once had in restraining him from leaping thecounter of a small tobacconist's in Great Portland Street, to give theman a good dressing for an imagined rudeness—not to himself, but tome. And there is more than one 'bus conductor in London who has causeto remember this sturdy Quixotic passenger's championship of a poorwoman to whom insufficient courtesy seemed to him to have been shown.Normally kindly and tolerant, his indignation on hearing of injusticewas red hot. He burned at a story of meanness. It would haunt him allthe evening. "Can it really be true?" he would ask, and burst forthagain to flame.

Abstemious himself in all things, save reading and writing and helpinghis friends and correspondents, he mixed excellent whisky punch, as hecalled it. He brought to this office all the concentration which helacked in his literary labours. It was a ritual with him; nothingmight be hurried or left undone, and the result, I might say,justified the means. His death reduces the number of such convivialalchemists to one only, and he is in Tasmania, and, so far as I amconcerned, useless.

His avidity as a reader—his desire to master his subject—led to somecharming eccentricities, as when, for a daily journey between Earl'sCourt Road and Addison Road stations, he would carry a heavy hand-bagfilled with books, "to read in the train." This was no satire on therailway system, but pure zeal. He had indeed no satire in him; hespoke his mind and it was over.

It was a curious little company that assembled to do honour to thisold kindly bachelor—the two or three relatives that he possessed, andeight of his literary friends, most of them of a good age, and for themost part men of intellect, and in one or two cases of world-widereputation, and all a little uncomfortable in unwonted formal black.We were very grave and thoughtful, but it was not exactly a sadfuneral, for we knew that had he lived longer—he was sixty-three—hewould certainly have been an invalid, which would have irked hisactive, restless mind and body almost unbearably; and we knew, also,that he had died in his first real illness after a very happy life.Since we knew this, and also that he was a bachelor and almost alone,those of us who were not his kin were not melted and unstrung by thatpoignant sense of untimely loss and irreparable removal that makessome funerals so tragic; but death, however it come, is a mysterybefore which one cannot stand unmoved and unregretful; and I, for one,as I stood there, remembered how easy it would have been oftener tohave ascended to his eyrie and lured him out into Hertfordshire or hisbeloved Epping, or even have dragged him away to dinner and whiskypunch; and I found myself meditating, too, as the profoundlyimpressive service rolled on, how melancholy it was that all thatstoried brain, with its thousands of exquisite phrases and its perhapsunrivalled knowledge of Shakespearean philology, should have ceased tobe. For such a cessation, at any rate, say what one will ofimmortality, is part of the sting of death, part of the victory of thegrave, which St. Paul denied with such magnificent irony.

And then we filed out into the churchyard, which is a new and verylarge one, although the church is old, and at a snail's pace, led bythe clergyman, we crept along, a little black company, for, I suppose,nearly a quarter of a mile, under the cold grey sky. As I said, manyof us were old, and most of us were indoor men, and I was amused tosee how close to the head some of us held our hats—the merestbarleycorn of interval being maintained for reverence' sake; whereasthe sexton and the clergyman had slipped on those black velvetskull-caps which God, in His infinite mercy, either completelyoverlooks, or seeing, smiles at. And there our old friend wascommitted to the earth, amid the contending shouts of the footballplayers, and then we all clapped our hats on our heads with firmness(as he would have wished us to do long before), and returned to thetown to drink tea in an ancient hostelry, and exchange memories,quaint, and humorous, and touching, and beautiful, of the dead.

E. V. Lucas.

FIRES

A Friend of mine making a list of the things needed for the cottagethat he had taken, put at the head "bellows." Then he thought for someminutes, and was found merely to have added "tongs" and "poker." Thenhe asked someone to finish it. A fire, indeed, furnishes. Nothingelse, not even a chair, is absolutely necessary; and it is difficultfor a fire to be too large. Some of the grates put into modern housesby the jerry-builders would move an Elizabethan to tears, so petty andmean are they, and so incapable of radiation. We English people wouldsuffer no loss in kindliness and tolerance were the inglenook restoredto our homes. The ingle humanises.

Although the father of the family no longer, as in ancient Greece,performs on the hearth religious rites, yet it is still a sacred spot.Lovers whisper there, and there friends exchange confidences. Husbandand wife face the fire hand in hand. The table is for wit and goodhumour, the hearth is for something deeper and more personal. Thewisest counsels are offered beside the fire, the most loving sympathyand comprehension are there made explicit. It is the scene of the bestdual companionship. The fire itself is a friend, having the primeattribute—warmth. One of the most human passages of that most humanpoem, The Deserted Village, tells how the wanderer was now and againtaken by the memory of the hearth of his distant home:—

"I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down …
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw…."

Only by the fireside could a man so unbosom himself. A good fireextracts one's best; it will not be resisted. FitzGerald's "Meadows inSpring" contains some of the best fireside stanzas:—

"Then with an old friend
I talk of our youth—
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!

Or to get merry
We sing some old rhyme,
That made the wood ring again
In summer time—
Sweet summer time!

Then we go to drinking,
Silent and snug;
Nothing passes between us
Save a brown jug—
Sometimes!

And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily—
So merrily!"

The hearth also is for ghost stories; indeed, a ghost story demands afire. If England were warmed wholly by hot-water pipes or gas stoves,the Society for Psychical Research would be dissolved. Gas stoves arepoor comforters. They heat the room, it is true, but they do so aftera manner of their own, and there they stop. For encouragement, forinspiration, you seek the gas stove in vain. Who could be witty, whocould be humane, before a gas stove? It does so little for the eye andnothing for the imagination; its flame is so artificial and restricteda thing, its glowing heart so shallow and ungenerous. It has no voice,no personality, no surprises; it submits to the control of a gascompany, which, in its turn, is controlled by Parliament. Now, a fireproper has nothing to do with Parliament. A fire proper has whims,ambitions, and impulses unknown to gas-burners, undreamed of byasbestos. Yet even the gas stove has advantages and merits whencompared with hot-water pipes. The gas stove at least offers a focusfor the eye, unworthy though it be; and you can make a semicircle ofgood people before it. But with hot-water pipes not even that ispossible. From the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat whosesource is invisible is hardly to be coveted at all. Moreover, the heatof hot-water pipes is but one remove from stuffiness.

Coals are a perpetual surprise, for no two consignments burn exactlyalike. There is one variety that does not burn—it explodes. This kindcomes mainly from the slate quarries, and, we must believe, reachesthe coal merchant by accident. Few accidents, however, occur sofrequently. Another variety, found in its greatest perfection inrailway waiting-rooms, does everything but emit heat. A third varietyjumps and burns the hearthrug. One can predicate nothing definiteconcerning a new load of coal at any time, least of all if theconsignment was ordered to be "exactly like the last."

A true luxury is a fire in the bedroom. This is fire at its mostfanciful and mysterious. One lies in bed watching drowsily the play ofthe flames, the flicker of the shadows. The light leaps up and hidesagain, the room gradually becomes peopled with fantasies. Now and thena coal drops and accentuates the silence. Movement with silence is oneof the curious influences that come to us: hence, perhaps, part of thefascination of the cinematoscope, wherein trains rush into stations,and streets are seen filled with hurrying people and bustlingvehicles, and yet there is no sound save the clicking of themechanism. With a fire in one's bedroom sleep comes witchingly.

Another luxury is reading by firelight, but this is less to the creditof the fire than the book. An author must have us in no uncertain gripwhen he can induce us to read him by a light so impermanent as that ofthe elfish coal. Nearer and nearer to the page grows the bended head,and nearer and nearer to the fire moves the book. Boys and girls loveto read lying full length on the hearthrug.

Some people maintain a fire from January to December; and, indeed, thedays on which a ruddy grate offends are very few. According toMortimer Collins, out of the three hundred and sixty-five days thatmake up the year only on the odd five is a fire quite dispensable. Aperennial fire is, perhaps, luxury writ large. The very fact thatsunbeams falling on the coals dispirit them to greyness andineffectual pallor seems to prove that when the sun rides high it istime to have done with fuel except in the kitchen or in the open air.

The fire in the open air is indeed joy perpetual, and there is nosurer way of renewing one's youth than by kindling and tending it,whether it be a rubbish fire for potatoes, or an aromatic offering ofpine spindles and fir cones, or the scientific structure of the gipsyto heat a tripod-swung kettle. The gipsy's fire is a work of art. "Twoshort sticks were stuck in the ground, and a third across to them likea triangle. Against this frame a number of the smallest and drieststick were leaned, so that they made a tiny hut. Outside these therewas a second layer of longer sticks, all standing, or rather leaning,against the first. If a stick is placed across, lying horizontally,supposing it catches fire, it just burns through the middle and thatis all, the ends go out. If it is stood nearly upright, the flamedraws up to it; it is certain to catch, burns longer, and leaves agood ember." So wrote one who knew—Richard Jefferies, in Bevis,that epic of boyhood. Having built the fire, the next thing is tolight it. An old gipsy woman can light a fire in a gale, just as asailor can always light his pipe, even in the cave of Æolus; but theamateur is less dexterous. The smoke of the open-air fire is chargedwith memory. One whiff of it, and for a swift moment we are insympathy with our remotest ancestors, and all that is elemental andprimitive in us is awakened.

An American poet, R. H. Messinger, wrote—

"Old wood to burn!—
Ay, bring the hillside beech
From where the owlets meet and screech,
And ravens croak;
The crackling pine, the cedar sweet;
Bring, too, a clump of fragrant peat,
Dug 'neath the fern;
The knotted oak,
A fa*ggot, too, perhaps,
Whose bright flame, dancing, winking,
Shall light us at our drinking;
While the oozing sap
Shall make sweet music to our thinking."

There is no fire of coals, not even the blacksmith's, that can comparewith the blazing fire of wood. The wood fire is primeval. Centuriesbefore coals were dreamed of, our rude forefathers were cooking theirmeat and gaining warmth from burning logs.

Coal is modern, decadent. Look at this passage concerning fuel from anold Irish poem:—"O man," begins the lay, "that for Fergus of thefeasts does kindle fire, whether afloat or ashore never burn the kingof woods…. The pliant woodbine, if thou burn, wailings formisfortunes will abound; dire extremity at weapons' points or drowningin great waves will come after thee. Burn not the precious appletree." The minstrel goes on to name wood after wood that may or maynot be burned. This is the crowning passage:—"Fiercest heat-giver ofall timber is green oak, from him none may escape unhurt; bypartiality for him the head is set on aching, and by his acrid embersthe eye is made sore. Alder, very battle-witch of all woods, tree thatis hottest in the fight—undoubtedly burn at thy discretion both thealder and the white thorn. Holly, burn it green; holly, burn it dry;of all trees whatsoever the critically best is holly." Could anyonewrite with this enthusiasm and poetic feeling about Derby Brights andSilkstone—even the best Silkstone and the best Derby Brights?

The care of a wood fire is, in itself, daily work for a man; for farmore so than with coal is progress continuous. Something is alwaystaking place and demanding vigilance—hence the superiority of a woodfire as a beguiling influence. The bellows must always be near athand, the tongs not out of reach; both of them more sensibleimplements than those that usually appertain to coals. The tongs haveno pretensions to brightness and gentility; the bellows, quite apartfrom their function in life, are a thing of beauty; the fire-dogs, onwhose backs the logs repose, are fine upstanding fellows; and thebricks on which the fire is laid have warmth and simplicity and ahospitable air to which decorative tiles can never attain. Again,there is about the logs something cleanly, in charming contrast to thedirt of coal. The wood hails from the neighbouring coppice. You havewatched it grow; your interest in it is personal, and its interest inyou is personal. It is as keen to warm you as you are to be warmed.Now there is nothing so impersonal as a piece of coal. Moreover, thiswood was cut down and brought to the door by some good-humouredcountryman of your acquaintance, whereas coal is obtained byminers—bad-tempered, truculent fellows that strike. Who ever heard ofa strike among coppicers? And the smoke from a wood fire!—clean andsweet and pungent, and, against dark foliage, exquisite in colour asthe breast of a dove. The delicacy of its grey-blue is not to bematched.

Whittier's "Snow Bound" is the epic of the wood-piled hearth.
Throughout we hear the crackling of the brush, the hissing of the sap.
The texture of the fire was "the oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
and rugged brush":—

"Hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst flower-like into rosy bloom.

That italicised line—my own italics—is good. For the best fire (asfor the best celery)—the fire most hearty, most inspired, andinspiring—frost is needed. When old Jack is abroad and there is abreath from the east in the air, then the sparks fly and the coalsglow. In moist and mild weather the fire only burns, it has noenthusiasm for combustion. Whittier gives us a snowstorm:—

"Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed."

But the wood fire is not for all. In London it is impracticable; thebuilder has set his canon against it. Let us, then—those of us whoare able to—build our coal fires the higher, and nourish in theirkindly light. Whether one is alone or in company, the fire is potentto cheer. Indeed, a fire is company. No one need fear to be alone ifthe grate but glows. Faces in the fire will smile at him, mock him,frown at him, call and repulse; or, if there be no faces, the smokewill take a thousand shapes and lead his thoughts by delightful pathsto the land of reverie; or he may watch the innermost heart of thefire burn blue (especially if there is frost in the air); or, poker inhand, he may coax a coal into increased vivacity. This is an agreeablediversion, suggesting the mediæval idea of the Devil in his domain.

E. V. Lucas.

THE LAST GLEEMAN

Michael Moran was born about 1794 off Black Pitts, in the Liberties ofDublin, in Faddle Alley. A fortnight after birth he went stone blindfrom illness, and became thereby a blessing to his parents, who weresoon able to send him to rhyme and beg at street corners and at thebridges over the Liffey. They may well have wished that their quiverwere full of such as he, for, free from the interruption of sight, hismind became a perfect echoing chamber, where every movement of the dayand every change of public passion whispered itself into rhyme orquaint saying. By the time he had grown to manhood he was the admittedrector of all the ballad-mongers of the Liberties. Madden, the weaver,Kearney, the blind fiddler from Wicklow, Martin from Meath, M'Bridefrom heaven knows where, and that M'Grane, who in after days, when thetrue Moran was no more, strutted in borrowed plumes, or rather inborrowed rags, and gave out that there had never been any Moran buthimself, and many another, did homage before him, and held him chiefof all their tribe. Nor despite his blindness did he find anydifficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose,for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dearto the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventionalherself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. Nor didhe lack despite his rags many excellent things, for it is rememberedthat he ever loved caper sauce, going so far indeed in his honestindignation at its absence upon one occasion as to fling a leg ofmutton at his wife. He was not, however, much to look at, with hiscoarse frieze coat with its cape and scalloped edge, his old corduroytrousers and great brogues, and his stout stick made fast to his wristby a thong of leather: and he would have been a woeful shock to thegleeman MacConglinne could that friend of kings have beheld him inprophetic vision from the pillar stone at Cork. And yet though theshort cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a truegleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. In themorning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbourwould read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until heinterrupted with, "That'll do—I have me meditations;" and from thesemeditations would come the day's store of jest and rhyme. He had thewhole Middle Ages under his frieze coat.

He had not, however, MacConglinne's hatred of the Church and clergy,for when the fruit of his meditations did not ripen well, or when thecrowd called for something more solid, he would recite or sing ametrical tale or ballad of saint or martyr or of Biblical adventure.He would stand at a street corner, and when a crowd had gathered wouldbegin in some such fashion as follows (I copy the record of one whoknew him)—"Gather round me, boys, gather round me. Boys, am Istandin' in puddle? am I standin' in wet?" Thereon several boys wouldcry, "Ah, no! yez not! yer in a nice dry place. Go on with St. Mary;go on with Moses"—each calling for his favourite tale. Then Moran,with a suspicious wriggle of his body and a clutch at his rags, wouldburst out with "All me buzzim friends are turned backbiters;" andafter a final "If yez don't drop your coddin' and deversion I'll lavesome of yez a case," by way of warning to the boys, begin hisrecitation, or perhaps still delay, to ask, "Is there a crowd aroundme now? Any blackguard heretic around me?" The best-known of hisreligious tales was St. Mary of Egypt, a long poem of exceedingsolemnity, condensed from the much longer work of a certain BishopCoyle. It told how a fast woman of Egypt, Mary by name, followedpilgrims to Jerusalem for no good purpose, and then, turning penitenton finding herself withheld from entering the Temple by supernaturalinterference, fled to the desert and spent the remainder of her lifein solitary penance. When at last she was at the point of death, Godsent Bishop Zozimus to hear her confession, give her the lastsacrament, and with the help of a lion, whom He sent also, dig hergrave. The poem has the intolerable cadence of the eighteenth century,but was so popular and so often called for that Moran was soonnicknamed Zozimus, and by that name is he remembered. He had also apoem of his own called Moses, which went a little nearer poetrywithout going very near. But he could ill brook solemnity, and beforelong parodied his own verses in the following ragamuffin fashion:

"In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile,
King Pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in style.
She tuk her dip, then walked unto the land,
To dry her royal pelt she ran along the strand.
A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling babby in a wad o' straw.
She tuk it up, and said with accents mild,
''Tare-and-agers, girls, which av yez owns the child?'"

His humorous rhymes were, however, more often quips and cranks at theexpense of his contemporaries. It was his delight, for instance, toremind a certain shoemaker, noted alike for display of wealth and forpersonal uncleanness, of his inconsiderable origin in a song of whichbut the first stanza has come down to us:

"At the dirty end of Dirty Lane,
Liv'd a dirty cobbler, Dick Maclane;
His wife was in the old king's reign
A stout brave orange-woman.
On Essex Bridge she strained her throat,
And six-a-penny was her note.
But Dikey wore a bran-new coat,
He got among the yeomen.
He was a bigot, like his clan,
And in the streets he wildly sang,
O Roly, toly, toly raid, with his old jade."

He had troubles of divers kinds, and numerous interlopers to face andput down. Once an officious peeler arrested him as a vagabond, but wastriumphantly routed amid the laughter of the court, when Moranreminded his worship of the precedent set by Homer, who was also, hedeclared, a poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman. He had to face amore serious difficulty as his fame grew. Various imitators started upupon all sides. A certain actor, for instance, made as many guineas asMoran did shillings by mimicking his sayings and his songs and hisget-up upon the stage. One night this actor was at supper with somefriends, when a dispute arose as to whether his mimicry was overdoneor not. It was agreed to settle it by an appeal to the mob. Aforty-shilling supper at a famous coffee-house was to be the wager.The actor took up his station at Essex Bridge, a great haunt ofMoran's, and soon gathered a small crowd. He had scarce got through"In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile," when Moran himself came up,followed by another crowd. The crowds met in great excitement andlaughter. "Good Christians," cried the pretender, "is it possible thatany man would mock the poor dark man like that?"

"Who's that? It's some imposhterer," replied Moran.

"Begone, you wretch! it's you'ze the imposhterer. Don't you fear thelight of heaven being struck from your eyes for mocking the poor darkman?"

"Saints and angels, is there no protection against this? You're a mostinhuman blaguard to try to deprive me of my honest bread this way,"replied poor Moran.

"And you, you wretch, won't let me go on with the beautiful poem.Christian people, in your charity won't you beat this man away? he'staking advantage of my darkness."

The pretender, seeing that he was having the best of it, thanked thepeople for their sympathy and protection, and went on with the poem,Moran listening for a time in bewildered silence. After a while Moranprotested again with:

"Is it possible that none of yez can know me? Don't yez see it'smyself; and that's some one else?"

"Before I proceed any further in this lovely story," interrupted thepretender, "I call on yez to contribute your charitable donations tohelp me to go on."

"Have you no sowl to be saved, you mocker of heaven?" cried Moran, putcompletely beside himself by this last injury. "Would you rob the pooras well as desave the world? O, was ever such wickedness known?"

"I leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to giveto the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from thatschemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence.While he was doing so, Moran started his Mary of Egypt, but theindignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, whenthey fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself.The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of thatvillain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" They ledhim over to Moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a fewshillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them hewas indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and sodeparted amid much enthusiasm, to eat the supper he had won.

In April 1846 word was sent to the priest that Michael Moran wasdying. He found him at 15 (now 14-1/2) Patrick Street, on a straw bed,in a room full of ragged ballad-singers come to cheer his lastmoments. After his death the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and thelike, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to themerriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, orquaint rhyme. He had had his day, had said his prayers and made hisconfession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? Thefuneral took place the next day. A good party of his admirers andfriends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet andnasty. They had not gone far when one of them burst out with "It'scruel cowld, isn't it?" "Garra'," replied another, "we'll all be asstiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "Bad cess tohim," said a third; "I wish he'd held out another month until theweather got dacent." A man called Carroll thereupon produced ahalf-pint of whiskey, and they all drank to the soul of the departed.Unhappily, however, the hearse was over-weighted, and they had notreached the cemetery before the spring broke, and the bottle with it.

Moran must have felt strange and out of place in that other kingdom hewas entering, perhaps while his friends were drinking in his honour.Let us hope that some kindly middle region was found for him, where hecan call dishevelled angels about him with some new and morerhythmical form of his old

"Gather round me, boys, will yez
Gather round me?
And hear what I have to say
Before ould Salley brings me
My bread and jug of tay;"

and fling outrageous quips and cranks at cherubim and seraphim.Perhaps he may have found and gathered, ragamuffin though he be, theLily of High Truth, the Rose of Far-sight Beauty, for whose lack somany of the writers of Ireland, whether famous or forgotten, have beenfutile as the blown froth upon the shore.

W. B. Yeats.

A BROTHER OF ST. FRANCIS

When talking to a wise friend a while ago I told her of the feeling ofhorror which had invaded me when watching a hippopotamus.

"Indeed," said she, "you do not need to go to the hippopotamus for asensation. Look at a pig! There is something dire in the face of apig. To think the same power should have created it that created astar!"

Those who love beauty and peace are often tempted to scamp theirthinking, to avoid the elemental terrors that bring night into themind. Yet if the fearful things of life are there, why not pluck upheart and look at them? Better have no Bluebeard's chamber in themind. Better go boldly in and see what hangs by the wall. So salt, somedicinal is Truth, that even the bitterest draught may be madewholesome to the gentlest soul. So I would recommend anyone who canbear to think to leave the flower garden and go down and spend an hourby the pigstye.

There lies our friend in the sun upon his straw, blinking his cleverlittle eye. Half friendly is his look. (He does not know thatI—Heaven forgive me!—sometimes have bacon for breakfast!) Plainly,with that gashed mouth, those dreadful cheeks, and that sprawl of his,he belongs to an older world; that older world when first the mud andslime rose and moved, and, roaring, found a voice: aye, and no doubtenjoyed life, and in harsh and fearful sounds praised the Creator atthe sunrising.

To prove the origin of the pig, let him out, and he will celebrate itby making straight for the nearest mud and diving into it. So strangeis his aspect, so unreal to me, that it is almost as if the sunshinefalling upon him might dissolve him, and resolve him into his originalelement. But no; there he is, perfectly real; as real as the goodChristians and philosophers who will eventually eat him. While he liesthere let me reflect in all charity on the disagreeable things I haveheard about him.

He is dirty, people say. Nay, is he as dirty (or, at least, ascomplicated in his dirt) as his brother man can be? Let those who knowthe dens of London give the answer. Leave the pig to himself, and heis not so bad. He knows his mother mud is cleansing; he rolls partlybecause he loves her and partly because he wishes to be clean.

He is greedy? In my mind's eye there rises the picture of humangormandisers, fat-necked, with half-buried eyes and toddling step. Howlong since the giant Gluttony was slain? or does he still keep hismonstrous table d'hôte?

The pig pushes his brother from the trough? Why, that is a commonplaceof our life. There is a whole school of so-called philosophers andpolitical economists busied in elevating the pig's shove into a socialand political necessity.

He screams horribly if you touch him or his share of victuals? I haveheard a polite gathering of the best people turn senseless and rave ata mild suggestion of Christian Socialism. He is bitter-tempered? Godknows, so are we. He has carnal desires? The worst sinner is man. Hewill fight? Look to the underside of war. He is cruel? Well, boys doqueer things sometimes. For the rest, read the blacker pages ofhistory; not as they are served up for the schoolroom by privatenational vanity, but after the facts.

If a cow or a sheep is sick or wounded and the pig can get at it, hewill worry it to death? So does tyranny with subject peoples.

He loves to lie in the sun among his brothers, idle and at his ease?Aye, but suppose this one called himself a lord pig and lay in the sunwith a necklace of gold about his throat and jewels in his ears,having found means to drive his brethren (merry little pigs and all)out of the sun for his own benefit, what should we say of him then?

No; he has none of our cold cunning. He is all simplicity. I am toldit is possible to love him. I know a kindly Frenchwoman who takes herpig for an airing on the sands of St. Michel-en-Grève every summerafternoon. Knitting, she walks along, and calls gaily and endearinglyto the delighted creature; he follows at a word, gambolling withflapping ears over the ribs of sand, pasturing on shrimps and seaweedwhile he enjoys the salt air.

Clearly, then, the pig is our good little brother, and we have noright to be disgusted at him. Clearly our own feet are planted in theclay. Clearly the same Voice once called to our ears while yetunformed. Clearly we, too, have arisen from that fearful bed, and theslime of it clings to us still. Cleanse ourselves as we may, andrepenting, renew the whiteness of our garments, we and the nations arefor ever slipping back into the native element. What a fearful commandthe "Be ye perfect" to earth-born creatures, but half-emerged, thestar upon their foreheads bespattered and dimmed! But let us (eventhose of us who have courage to know the worst of man) take heart. Inthe terror of our origin, in the struggle to stand upon our feet, tocleanse ourselves, and cast an eye heavenward, our glory is come by.The darker our naissance, the greater the terrors that have broodedround that strife, the more august and puissant shines the angel inman.

Grace Rhys.

THE PILGRIMS' WAY

In the morning a storm comes up on bellying blue clouds above the palelevels of young corn and round-topped trees black as night but gold attheir crests. The solid rain does away with all the hills, and showsonly the solitary thorns at the edge of an oak wood, or a row ofbeeches above a hazel hedgerow and, beneath that, stars of stitchwortin the drenched grass. But a little while and the sky is emptied andin its infant blue there are white clouds with silver gloom in theirfolds; and the light falls upon round hills, yew and beech thick upontheir humps, the coombes scalloped in their sides tenanted by oaksbeneath. By a grassy chalk pit and clustering black yew, white beamand rampant clematis, is the Pilgrims' Way. Once more the sky emptiesheavy and dark rain upon the bright trees so that they pant and quiverwhile they take it joyfully into their deep hearts. Before the eye hasdone with watching the dance and glitter of rain and the sway ofbranches, the blue is again clear and like a meadow sprinkled overwith blossoming cherry trees.

The decent vale consists of square green fields and park-like slopes,dark pine and light beech: but beyond that the trees gather togetherin low ridge after ridge so that the South Country seems a denseforest from east to west. On one side of the hill road is a common oflevel ash and oak woods, holly and thorn at their edges, and betweenthem and the dust a grassy tract, sometimes furzy; on the other, oaksand beeches sacred to the pheasant but exposing countless cuckooflowers among the hazels of their underwood. Please trespass. TheEnglish game preserve is a citadel of woodland charm, and howeverprecious, it has only one or two defenders easily eluded and, whenmet, most courteous to all but children and not very well dressedwomen. The burglar's must be a bewitching trade if we may judge by thepleasures of the trespasser's unskilled labour.

In the middle of the road is a four-went way, and the grassy or whiteroads lead where you please among tall beeches or broad, crisp-leavedshining thorns and brief open spaces given over to the mounds of antand mole, to gravel pits and heather. Is this the Pilgrims' Way, inthe valley now, a frail path chiefly through oak and hazel, sometimesover whin and whinberry and heather and sand, but looking up at theyews and beeches of the chalk hills? It passes a village pierced bystraight clear waters—a woodland church—woods of the willowwren—and then, upon a promontory, alone, within the greenest meadrippled up to its walls by but few graves, another church, dark,squat, small-windowed, old, and from its position above the worldhaving the characters of church and beacon and fortress, calling forall men's reverence. Up here in the rain it utters the pathos of theold roads behind, wiped out as if writ in water, or worn deep and thendeserted and surviving only as tunnels under the hazels. I wish theycould always be as accessible as churches are, and not handed over toland-owners—like Sandsbury Lane near Petersfield—because straightnew roads have taken their places for the purposes of tradesmen andcarriage people, or boarded up like that discarded fragment,deep-sunken and overgrown, below Colman's Hatch in Surrey. Forcenturies these roads seemed to hundreds so necessary, and men set outupon them at dawn with hope and followed after joy and were fain oftheir whiteness at evening: few turned this way or that out of themexcept into others as well worn (those who have turned aside forwantonness have left no trace at all), and most have been well contentto see the same things as those who went before and as they themselveshave seen a hundred times. And now they, as the sound of their feetand the echoes, are dead, and the roads are but pleasant folds in thegrassy chalk. Stay, traveller, says the dark tower on the hill, andtread softly because your way is over men's dreams; but not too long;and now descend to the west as fast as feet can carry you, and followyour own dream, and that also shall in course of time lie under men'sfeet; for there is no going so sweet as upon the old dreams of men.

Edward Thomas.

ON A GREAT WIND

It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind,whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novelin those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, savetheir ignorant belief that their affirmation is new.

The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, andcan alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff andstrengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made thecompanion of, a great wind.

It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with asoul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more aperson than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary ofway, in the largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose,it seems to mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great windcomes roaring over the eastern flats towards the North Sea, drivingover the Fens and the Wringland, it is like something of this islandthat must go out and wrestle with the water, or play with it in a gameor a battle; and when, upon the western shores, the clouds comebowling up from the horizon, messengers, outriders, or comrades of agale, it is something of the sea determined to possess the land. Therising and falling of such power, its hesitations, its renewedviolence, its fatigue and final repose—all these are symbols of amind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! It is the shoutingand the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man.

Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the betterwe can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives byfriendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strengthis the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it issomething worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, andterror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, thereis no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here isstrength too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or asfear; and that strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health inour own souls. For with terror (of the sort I mean—terror of theabyss or panic at remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip ofthe succours of the mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and withall the forms of that Evil which lies in wait for men, there is thesavour of disease. It is an error to think of such things as power setup in equality against justice and right living. We were not made forthem, but rather for influences large and soundly poised; we are notsubject to them but to other powers that can always enliven andrelieve. It is health in us, I say, to be full of heartiness and ofthe joy of the world, and of whether we have such health our comfortin a great wind is a good test indeed. No man spends his day upon themountains when the wind is out, riding against it or pushing forwardon foot through the gale, but at the end of his day feels that he hashad a great host about him. It is as though he had experienced armies.The days of high winds are days of innumerable sounds, innumerable invariation of tone and of intensity, playing upon and awakeninginnumerable powers in man. And the days of high wind are days in whicha physical compulsion has been about us and we have met pressure andblows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us with the simulacrum ofwar by which nations live, and in the just pursuit of which men incompanionship are at their noblest.

It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen yearsago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost tohim under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly ofhorses being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesomewood and stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked;and even of stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion ofsaying these things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thankGod!) mere folly; for man will always at last tend to his end, whichis happiness, and he will remember again to do all those things whichserve that end. So it is with the uses of the wind, and especially theusing of the wind with sails.

No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed hisown boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has mostto do with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary ofit all along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himselfa*gain against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if itfails him, denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in everymanner conceivable handles this glorious playmate.

As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrumentfor crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them,either they have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing.It is not an accident that the tall ships of every age of varyingfashions so arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole ofman went into their creation, and they expressed him very well; hiscunning, and his mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the windis in nothing more capitally our friend than in this, that it hasbeen, since men were men, their ally in the seeking of the unknownand in their divine thirst for travel which, in its severalaspects—pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, and, in general,enlargement—is one prime way whereby man fills himself with being.

I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before thenorth-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month ofMarch like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. Theypushed their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle ofthe beach at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, theybreasted and they met the open sea. Then for days and days they droveunder this master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for asort of captain, and looking always out to the sea line to find whatthey could find. It was the springtime; and men feel the spring uponthe sea even more surely than they feel it upon the land. They weremen whose eyes, pale with the foam, watched for a landfall, thatunmistakable good sight which the wind brings us to, the cloud thatdoes not change and that comes after the long emptiness of sea dayslike a vision after the sameness of our common lives. To them the landthey so discovered was wholly new.

We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the worldwere ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longercalls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, andthe picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Anyman to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon thehigh seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousandyears; and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for suchdiscoveries is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as Ihave sailed, over seas that he has known from childhood, and come uponan island far away, mapped and well known, and visited for thehundredth time.

H. Belloc.

The Temple Press Letchworth England

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Punctuation has been added to the title pages and publisherinformation so as to clarify meaning.

The Table of Contents has been reformatted for clarity.

"Addison" has been added as the author attribution at the endof the essay entitled "Gipsies," per the Table of Contents.

In "Steele's Letters," superscripted abbreviations have beenchanged to full-stopped, as in "Yr." for "Your," originallyprinted as Y^r, where the "r" is superscript.