diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:17 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:17 -0700 |
| commit | 7dfb04db35d9d75d6d6d61cd4b00dca03220b4a5 (patch) | |
| tree | 11516a2d61b7a59d1384a0b8efafe3f861c7cc22 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10343-0.txt | 20862 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10343-8.txt | 21290 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10343-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 481003 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10343.txt | 21290 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10343.zip | bin | 0 -> 480789 bytes |
8 files changed, 63458 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10343-0.txt b/10343-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bf3c0e --- /dev/null +++ b/10343-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20862 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10343 *** + +THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB, VOLUME 2 + +ELIA; and THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +BY + +CHARLES LAMB + +EDITED BY + +E.V. LUCAS + + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This volume contains the work by which Charles Lamb is best known and +upon which his fame will rest--_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_. +Although one essay is as early as 1811, and one is perhaps as late as +1832, the book represents the period between 1820 and 1826, when Lamb +was between forty-five and fifty-one. This was the richest period of +his literary life. + +The text of the present volume is that of the first edition of each +book--_Elia_, 1823, and _The Last Essays of Elia_, 1833. The principal +differences between the essays as they were printed in the _London +Magazine_ and elsewhere, and as they were revised for book form by +their author, are shown in the Notes, which, it should be pointed out, +are much fuller in my large edition. The three-part essay on "The Old +Actors" (_London Magazine_, February, April, and October, 1822), from +which Lamb prepared the three essays; "On Some of the Old Actors," +"The Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "The Acting of +Munden," is printed in the Appendix as it first appeared. The absence +of the "Confessions of a Drunkard" from this volume is due to the fact +that Lamb did not include it in the first edition of _The Last Essays +of Elia_. It was inserted later, in place of "A Death-Bed," on account +of objections that were raised to that essay by the family of +Randal Norris. The story is told in the notes to "A Death-Bed." The +"Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +In Mr. Bedford's design for the cover of this edition certain Elian +symbolism will be found. The upper coat of arms is that of Christ's +Hospital, where Lamb was at school; the lower is that of the Inner +Temple, where he was born and spent many years. The figures at the +bells are those which once stood out from the façade of St. Dunstan's +Church in Fleet Street, and are now in Lord Londesborough's garden in +Regent's Park. Lamb shed tears when they were removed. The tricksy +sprite and the candles (brought by Betty) need no explanatory words of +mine. + +E.V.L. + + + + +CONTENTS + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +The South-Sea House 1 342 +Oxford in the Vacation 8 345 +Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago 14 350 +The Two Races of Men 26 355 +New Year's Eve 31 358 +Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist 37 361 +A Chapter on Ears 43 363 +All Fools' Day 48 367 +A Quaker's Meeting 51 367 +The Old and the New Schoolmaster 56 369 +Valentine's Day 63 370 +Imperfect Sympathies 66 370 +Witches, and other Night-Fears 74 372 +My Relations 80 373 +Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 86 375 +Modern Gallantry 90 377 +The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 94 379 +Grace Before Meat 104 384 +My First Play 110 385 +Dream-Children; A Reverie 115 388 +Distant Correspondents 118 389 +The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 124 390 +A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis 130 392 +A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 137 395 +A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married + People 144 397 +On Some Old Actors 150 397 +On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century 161 399 +On the Acting of Munden 168 400 + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +Preface, by a Friend of the late Elia 171 402 +Blakesmoor in H----shire 174 405 +Poor Relations 178 408 +Stage Illusion 185 408 +To the Shade of Elliston 188 409 +Ellistoniana 190 410 +Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading 195 411 +The Old Margate Hoy 201 415 +The Convalescent 208 416 +Sanity of True Genius 212 416 +Captain Jackson 215 416 +The Superannuated Man 219 417 +The Genteel Style in Writing 226 420 +Barbara S---- 230 421 +The Tombs in the Abbey 235 423 +Amicus Redivivus 237 424 +Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney 242 426 +Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago 249 428 +Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the + Productions of Modern Art 256 433 +Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age 266 436 +The Wedding 271 436 +The Child Angel: a Dream 276 437 +A Death-Bed 279 437 +Old China 281 438 +Popular Fallacies-- + I. That a Bully is always a Coward 286 440 + II. That Ill-gotten Gain never Prospers 287 440 + III. That a Man must not Laugh at his own Jest 287 440 + IV. That such a One shows his Breeding.--That + it is Easy to Perceive he is no Gentleman 288 440 + V. That the Poor Copy the Vices of the Rich 288 440 + VI. That Enough is as Good as a Feast 290 440 + VII. Of Two Disputants, the Warmest is Generally + in the Wrong 291 440 + VIII. That Verbal Allusions are not Wit, because + they will not Bear a Translation 292 440 + IX. That the Worst Puns are the Best 292 440 + X. That Handsome is that Handsome does 294 441 + XI. That We must not look a Gift-horse in the + Mouth 296 441 + XII. That Home is Home though it is never so + Homely 298 442 + XIII. That You must Love Me, and Love my Dog 302 442 + XIV. That We should Rise with the Lark 305 443 + XV. That We should Lie Down with the Lamb 308 443 + XVI. That a Sulky Temper is a Misfortune 309 443 + + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +On Some of the Old Actors (_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) 315 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, April, 1822) 322 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, October, 1822) 331 444 + + NOTES 337 + INDEX 447 + + +FRONTISPIECE + +ELIA + +From a Drawing by Daniel Maclise, now preserved in the Victoria and +Albert Museum. + + + + +ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition, 1823_) + +THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE + + +Reader, in thy passage from the Bank--where thou hast been receiving +thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant +like myself)--to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or +Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,--didst thou +never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, +to the left--where Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare +say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, +and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with +few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out--a desolation something +like Balclutha's.[1] + +This was once a house of trade,--a centre of busy interests. The +throng of merchants was here--the quick pulse of gain--and here some +forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since +fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos; imposing staircases; +offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces--deserted, or thinly +peopled with a few straggling clerks; the still more sacred interiors +of court and committee rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, +door-keepers--directors seated in form on solemn days (to proclaim a +dead dividend,) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, +with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting massy silver +inkstands long since dry;--the oaken wainscots hung with pictures +of deceased governors and sub-governors, of queen Anne, and the +two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty;--huge charts, which +subsequent discoveries have antiquated;--dusty maps of Mexico, dim as +dreams,--and soundings of the Bay of Panama!--The long passages hung +with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might +defy any, short of the last, conflagration;--with vast ranges of +cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, +an "unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart +withal,--long since dissipated, or scattered into air at the blast of +the breaking of that famous BUBBLE.-- + +Such is the SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. At least, such it was forty years ago, +when I knew it,--a magnificent relic! What alterations may have been +made in it since, I have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I +take for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the +face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stagnates +upon it. The moths, that were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers +and day-books, have rested from their depredations, but other light +generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their single +and double entries. Layers of dust have accumulated (a superfoetation +of dirt!) upon the old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save +by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the +mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed +curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous +HOAX, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with +the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition +of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy +contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. + +Peace to the manes of the BUBBLE! Silence and destitution are upon thy +walls, proud house, for a memorial! + +Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living +commerce,--amid the fret and fever of speculation--with the Bank, +and the 'Change, and the India-house about thee, in the hey-day of +present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting +thee, their _poor neighbour out of business_--to the idle and merely +contemplative,--to such as me, old house! there is a charm in thy +quiet:--a cessation--a coolness from business--an indolence almost +cloistral--which is delightful! With what reverence have I paced thy +great bare rooms and courts at eventide! They spoke of the past:--the +shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit +by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle +me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which +scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from +their enshrining shelves--with their old fantastic flourishes, and +decorative rubric interlacings--their sums in triple columniations, +set down with formal superfluity of cyphers--with pious sentences at +the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to +open a book of business, or bill of lading--the costly vellum covers +of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some _better +library_,--are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look +upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped +ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had every thing on a larger +scale than we have hearts for) are as good as any thing from +Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of our days have gone retrograde. + +The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House--I speak of +forty years back--had an air very different from those in the public +offices that I have had to do with since. They partook of the genius +of the place! + +They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit of superfluous +salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had not much to do) persons +of a curious and speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason +mentioned before. Humorists, for they were of all descriptions; and, +not having been brought together in early life (which has a tendency +to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other), but, +for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, they +necessarily carried into it their separate habits and oddities, +unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. Hence they +formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic +retainers in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet pleasant +fellows, full of chat--and not a few among them had arrived at +considerable proficiency on the German flute. + +The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-Briton. He had +something of the choleric complexion of his countrymen stamped on his +visage, but was a worthy sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to +the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember +to have seen in caricatures of what were termed, in my young days, +_Maccaronies_. He was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy +as a gib-cat over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him, +making up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if +he feared every one about him was a defaulter; in his hypochondry +ready to imagine himself one; haunted, at least, with the idea of +the possibility of his becoming one: his tristful visage clearing +up a little over his roast neck of veal at Anderton's at two (where +his picture still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire +of the master of the coffee-house, which he had frequented for the +last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the meridian of its +animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The +simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke +of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in the +families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. +Then was his _forte_, his glorified hour! How would he chirp, and +expand, over a muffin! How would he dilate into secret history! His +countryman, Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent +than he in relation to old and new London--the site of old theatres, +churches, streets gone to decay--where Rosamond's pond stood--the +Mulberry-gardens--and the Conduit in Cheap--with many a pleasant +anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures +which Hogarth has immortalized in his picture of _Noon_,--the worthy +descendants of those heroic confessors, who, flying to this country, +from the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and his dragoons, kept alive +the flame of pure religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog-lane, +and the vicinity of the Seven Dials! + +Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a +nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of +the passages leading to Westminster-hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle +bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed +to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the +applications of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you +felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, +you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance of +the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the +shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was +in its original state of white paper. A sucking babe might have posed +him. What was it then? Was he rich? Alas, no! Thomas Tame was very +poor. Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear +all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, +which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in +its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth +of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood,--much less can +explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day,--to the +illustrious, but unfortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the +secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought--the sentiment--the +bright solitary star of your lives,--ye mild and happy pair,--which +cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your +station! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead +of glittering attainments: and it was worth them altogether. You +insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a piece of defensive +armour only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. _Decus et +solamen._ + +Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither +pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the +matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, +and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without +his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, +with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream +and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in +Threadneedle-street, which, without any thing very substantial +appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself +that lived in them, (I know not who is the occupier of them now) +resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet breasts," +as our ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms and +orchestras--chorus singers--first and second violoncellos--double +basses--and clarionets--who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, +and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the +desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that +were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any +thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was +thought too refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in +writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in +the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the balance of last +year in the sum of 25_l._ 1_s._ 6_d._) occupied his days and nights +for a month previous. Not that Tipp was blind to the deadness of +_things_ (as they call them in the city) in his beloved house, or did +not sigh for a return of the old stirring days when South Sea hopes +were young--(he was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most +intricate accounts of the most flourishing company in these or those +days):--but to a genuine accountant the difference of proceeds is +as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his heart as the +thousands which stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether +his part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like intensity. +With Tipp form was every thing. His life was formal. His actions +seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. +He made the best executor in the world: he was plagued with incessant +executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his +vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at the little +orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp of +the dying hand, that commended their interests to his protection. With +all this there was about him a sort of timidity--(his few enemies used +to give it a worse name)--a something which, in reverence to the dead, +we will place, if you please, a little on this side of the heroic. +Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with a sufficient +measure of the principle of self-preservation. There is a cowardice +which we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in +its elements; it betrays itself, not you: it is mere temperament; the +absence of the romantic and the enterprising; it sees a lion in the +way, and will not, with Fortinbras, "greatly find quarrel in a straw," +when some supposed honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a +stage-coach in his life; or leaned against the rails of a balcony; or +walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or looked down a precipice; or let +off a gun; or went upon a water-party; or would willingly let you go +if he could have helped it: neither was it recorded of him, that for +lucre, or for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. + +Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in whom common +qualities become uncommon? Can I forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, +the polished man of letters, the _author_, of the South-Sea House? +who never enteredst thy office in a morning, or quittedst it in +mid-day--(what didst _thou_ in an office?)--without some quirk that +left a sting! Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive +but in two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue +from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee terse, +fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone by in these +fastidious days--thy topics are staled by the "new-born gauds" of the +time:--but great thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, +upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, +and Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great Britain +her rebellious colonies,--and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, +and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond,--and such small +politics.-- + +A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, was fine +rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended,--not in a right line, +reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favoured a +little of the sinister bend) from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So +tradition gave him out; and certain family features not a little +sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed +author) had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and +had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig +still living, who has represented the county in so many successive +parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter flourished +in George the Second's days, and was the same who was summoned before +the House of Commons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess +of Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave +came off cleverly in that business. It is certain our Plumer did +nothing to discountenance the rumour. He rather seemed pleased +whenever it was, with all gentleness, insinuated. But, besides +his family pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang +gloriously.-- + +Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-like, pastoral +M----; a flute's breathing less divinely whispering than thy Arcadian +melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song +sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind +more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly +M----, the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not +what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle offspring of +blustering winter:--only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have +been mild, conciliatory, swan-like.-- + +Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must +be mine in private:--already I have fooled the reader to the top of +his bent;--else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who +existed in trying the question, and _bought litigations_?--and still +stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might +have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a +pen--with what deliberation would he wet a wafer!-- + +But it is time to close--night's wheels are rattling fast over me--it +is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. + +Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this +while--peradventure the very _names_, which I have summoned up before +thee, are fantastic--insubstantial--like Henry Pimpernel, and old John +Naps of Greece:-- + +Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their +importance is from the past. + +[Footnote 1: I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were +desolate.--Ossian.] + + + + +OXFORD IN THE VACATION + + +Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article--as the +wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, +seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the _quis +sculpsit_ in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a +Vivares, or a Woollet--methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, _Who is +Elia?_ + +Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-forgotten +humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long +since gone to decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your +mind as one of the self-same college--a votary of the desk--a notched +and cropt scrivener--one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick +people are said to do, through a quill. + +Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is my +humour, my fancy--in the forepart of the day, when the mind of your +man of letters requires some relaxation--(and none better than such +as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies)--to +while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, +cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first +place ******* and then it sends you home with such increased appetite +to your books ***** not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste +wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally, +the impression of sonnets, epigrams, _essays_--so that the very +parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, the settings up of an +author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the morning among +the cart-rucks of figures and cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its +ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation.--It +feels its promotion. ***** So that you see, upon the whole, the +literary dignity of _Elia_ is very little, if at all, compromised in +the condescension. + +Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities incidental +to the life of a public office, I would be thought blind to certain +flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to pick in this Joseph's +vest. And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret +the abolition, and doing-away-with altogether, of those consolatory +interstices, and sprinklings of freedom, through the four +seasons,--the _red-letter days_, now become, to all intents and +purposes, _dead-letter days_. There was Paul, and Stephen, and +Barnabas-- + + Andrew and John, men famous in old times + +--we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as I was at +school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the same token, +in the old _Baskett_ Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy +posture--holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act of flaying, after the +famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti.--I honoured them all, and could almost +have wept the defalcation of Iscariot--so much did we love to keep +holy memories sacred:--only methought I a little grudged at the +coalition of the _better Jude_ with Simon-clubbing (as it were) their +sanctities together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them--as an +economy unworthy of the dispensation. + +These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life--"far +off their coming shone."--I was as good as an almanac in those days. +I could have told you such a saint's-day falls out next week, or the +week after. Peradventure the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, +would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better +than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom +of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of +these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. + +Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses +the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded--but I am wading out +of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and +ecclesiastical authority--I am plain Elia--no Selden, nor Archbishop +Usher--though at present in the thick of their books, here in the +heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. + +I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as +myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of +academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle +weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at +this time of the year, falls in so pat with _ours_. Here I can take +my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I +please. I seem admitted _ad eundem_. I fetch up past opportunities. +I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for _me_. In +moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock +vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I +proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike +that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and +bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely +mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which +favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can +be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. + +The walks at these times are so much one's own,--the tall trees of +Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open +doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some +Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) +whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and +to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at +the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the +immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; +ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which +have cooked for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but +is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a +Manciple. + +Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, +art every thing! When thou _wert_, thou wert not antiquity--then thou +wert nothing, but hadst a remoter _antiquity_, as thou called'st it, +to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself +flat, _jejune, modern_! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or +what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same +idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as +nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing! + +What were thy _dark ages_? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as +now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can +never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though +a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our +ancestors wandered to and fro groping! + +Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace +me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves-- + +What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the +souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these +Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. +I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. +I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking +amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings +is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew +amid the happy orchard. + +Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. +Those _variæ lectiones_, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do +but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The +credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I +leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G.D.--whom, by the way, I +found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some +seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is +grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of +the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him +his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. + +D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No +inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is +consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's-inn--where, like a +dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, +amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, +apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm +and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not--the winds of +litigation blow over his humble chambers--the hard sheriffs officer +moves his hat as he passes--legal nor illegal discourtesy touches +him--none thinks of offering violence or injustice to him--you would +as soon "strike an abstract idea." + +D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, +in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two +Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, +relative to C----, by which he hopes to settle some disputed +points--particularly that long controversy between them as to +priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in +these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the +encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C----. Your caputs, +and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these +questions.--Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma +Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they +rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent--unreverend. They have +their good glebe lands _in manu_, and care not much to rake into the +title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is +not a man to complain. + +D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. _A priori_ +it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. +would have done the same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own +walks in Clifford's-inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking +short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the +midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other +morning at our friend _M.'s_ in Bedford-square; and, finding nobody at +home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with +great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book--which +ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of +the untimely or unfortunate visitor--and takes his leave with many +ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, +his walking destinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, +and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at _M.'s_--Mrs. +_M._ presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty _A.S._ at her +side--striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call +(forgetting that they were "certainly not to return from the country +before that day week") and disappointed a second time, inquires +for pen and paper as before: again the book is brought, and in the +line just above that in which he is about to print his second name +(his re-script)--his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him +like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his +own duplicate!--The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good +resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep +them too rigorously. + +For with G.D.--to be absent from the body, is sometimes (not to speak +it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, +personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition--or, +being stopped, starts like a thing surprised--at that moment, reader, +he is on Mount Tabor--or Parnassus--or co-sphered with Plato--or, with +Harrington, framing "immortal commonwealths"--devising some plan of +amelioration to thy country, or thy species--peradventure meditating +some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to _thee thyself_, +the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at +thy obtruded personal presence. + +D. is delightful any where, but he is at the best in such places as +these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, +at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better +than all the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and +good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he +goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you +have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. + +[Footnote 1: Januses of one face.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.] + + + + +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO + + +In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a +magnificent eulogy on my old school,[1] such as it was, or now appears +to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, +very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding +with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the +cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be +said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument +most ingeniously. + +I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some +peculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows had not. +His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the +privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through +some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy +sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He +had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon +our quarter of a penny loaf--our _crug_--moistened with attenuated +small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack +it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, +and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched +for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the +hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less +repugnant--(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week)--was +endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of +ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. +In lieu of our _half-pickled_ Sundays, or _quite fresh_ boiled beef +on Thursdays (strong as _caro equina_), with detestable marigolds +floating in the pail to poison the broth--our scanty mutton crags on +Fridays--and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same +flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which +excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal +proportion)--he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting +griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal +kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt! I +remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatting +down upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the +viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered +to the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. +There was love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the +manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to share +in 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 for +me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could +reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced +notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival +in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them +to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one after +another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred +playmates. + +O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The +yearnings 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, and +in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire! + +To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the +recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days of +summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting +memory of those _whole-day-leaves_, when, by some strange arrangement, +we were turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own hands, whether +we had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing-excursions +to 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 +for such water-pastimes:--How merrily we would sally forth into the +fields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton like +young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which +those of us that were pennyless (our scanty morning crust long since +exhausted) had not the means of allaying--while the cattle, and the +birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing to +satisfy our cravings--the very beauty of the day, and the exercise +of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon +them!--How faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards +nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that +the hours of our uneasy liberty had expired! + +It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets +objectless--shivering at cold windows of printshops, to extract a +little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little +novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual +faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own +charges) to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levée, by courtesy +immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. + +L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the +foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint +which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was +understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the +severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions +of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I +have been called out of my bed, and _waked for the purpose_, in the +coldest winter nights--and this not once, but night after night--in +my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven +other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has +been any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six +last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, +answerable for an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had the +power to hinder.--The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of +us from the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and, under +the cruelest penalties, forbad the indulgence of a drink of water, +when we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, and +the day's sports. + +There was one H----, who, I learned, in after days, was seen expiating +some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying +that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered--at Nevis, +I think, or St. Kits,--some few years since? My friend Tobin was the +benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero +actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red hot iron; and +nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, to the one +half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may +seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of +his) he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the +_ward_, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better +than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must +cry roast meat--happier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept +his own counsel--but, foolisher, alas! than any of his species in the +fables--waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky +minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; +and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as +(toppling down the walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any +longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, +to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent any +censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired +Perry. + +Under the same _facile_ administration, can L. have forgotten the cool +impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open +platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, +which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for +our dinners? These things were daily practised in that magnificent +apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so +highly for the grand paintings "by Verrio, and others," with which it +is "hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat +boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to +him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions +carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (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 +of fresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition. But +these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children +are universally fat-haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, +_unsalted_, are detestable. A _gag-eater_ in our time was equivalent +to a _goul_, and held in equal detestation.--suffered under the +imputation. + + --'Twas said + He ate strange flesh. + +He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants +left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may credit +me)--and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which +he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at +his bed-side. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he +privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces +of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported, that, on +leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue +check handkerchief, full of something. This then must be the accursed +thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose +of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally +prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play +with him. He was excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. +He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every +mode of that negative punishment, which is more grievous than many +stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his +school-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had +traced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out +building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery-lane, which are +let out to various scales of pauperism with open door, and a common +staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth +up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by +an 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 was +looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little +after my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all his +conduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to +sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers +or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents +of ----, an honest couple come to decay,--whom this seasonable supply +had, in all probability, saved from mendicancy; and that this young +stork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while been +only feeding the old birds!--The governors on this occasion, much +to their honour, voted a present relief to the family of ----, and +presented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read +upon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medal +to ----, I believe, would not be lost upon his auditory.--I had left +school then, but I well remember ----. He was a tall, shambling youth, +with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostile +prejudices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think +I heard he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by the +old folks. + +I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon the +day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted +to assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was of tender years, +barely turned of seven; and had only read of such things in books, or +seen them but in dreams. I was told he had _run away_. This was the +punishment for the first offence.--As a novice I was soon after taken +to see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where a +boy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket--a mattress, +I think, was afterwards substituted--with a peep of light, let in +askance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by. Here +the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of any +but the porter who brought him his bread and water--who _might not +speak to him_;--or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call him +out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, +because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude:--and here +he was shut up by himself of _nights_, out of the reach of any sound, +to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incident +to his time of life, might subject him to.[2] This was the penalty for +the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of +him in the next degree? + +The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose +expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as +at some solemn _auto da fe_, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling +attire--all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he +was exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters +formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of +this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could +have anticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was +as if some of those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon +him. In this disguisement he was brought into the hall (_L.'s +favourite state-room_), where awaited him the whole number of his +school-fellows, whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforth to +share no more; the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the +last time; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the +occasion; and of two faces more, of direr import, because never but +in these extremities visible. These were governors; two of whom, by +choice, or charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these +_Ultima Supplicia_; not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), +but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter +Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle +turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for +the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long +and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. +We were generally too faint with attending to the previous disgusting +circumstances, to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree +of corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out the +back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his +_San Benito_, to his friends, if he had any (but commonly such poor +runagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance +the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the +outside of the hall gate. + +These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil +the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and +recreation _after_ school hours; and, for myself, I must confess, +that I was never happier, than _in_ them. The Upper and the Lower +Grammar Schools were held in the same room; and an imaginary line only +divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the +inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrennees. The Rev. James Boyer +was the Upper Master; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that +portion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be a +member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just +what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or +a grammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take +two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in +forgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then +the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a +brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole +remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the +cane with no great good will--holding it "like a dancer." It looked +in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; +and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that +did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great +consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now +and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came, +it made no difference to us--he had his private room to retire to, the +short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth +and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden +to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among +us--Peter Wilkins--the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle--the +Fortunate Blue Coat Boy--and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for +mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; +or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called _cat-cradles_; or +making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the +art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a +hundred other such devices to pass away the time--mixing the useful +with the agreeable--as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John +Locke chuckle to have seen us. + +Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect +to mix in equal proportion the _gentleman_, the _scholar_, and the +_Christian_; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally +found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged +in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levée, when +he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the +classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first +years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded +further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phædrus. How +things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the +proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps +felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. +I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether +displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. +We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, +with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and +then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat +and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering +their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that +enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our +little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and +the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders +rolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us; +contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our +fleece was dry.[3] His boys turned out the better scholars; we, I +suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him +without something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembrance +of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and +summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and +Elysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday." + +Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were +near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. +We occasionally heard sounds of the _Ululantes_, and caught glances +of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to +barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those +periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[4]--He would +laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble +about _Rex_--or at the _tristis severitas in vultu_, or _inspicere in +patinas_, of Terence--thin jests, which at their first broaching could +hardly have had _vis_ enough to move a Roman muscle.--He had two wigs, +both pedantic, but of differing 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 to +the school, when he made his morning appearance in his _passy_, or +_passionate wig_. No comet expounded surer.--J.B. had a heavy hand. I +have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the +maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume +to set your wits at me?"--Nothing was more common than to see him make +a head-long entry into the school-room, from his inner recess, or +library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od's +my life, Sirrah," (his favourite adjuration) "I have a great mind to +whip you,"--then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into +his lair--and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which +all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong +out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some +Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell--"_and I WILL, too._"--In +his gentler moods, when the _rabidus furor_ was assuaged, he had +resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to +himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same +time; a paragraph, and a lash between; which in those times, when +parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these +realms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration +for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. + +Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual +from his hand--when droll squinting W---- having been caught putting +the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had +clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity +averred, that _he did not know that the thing had been forewarned_. +This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the _oral_ or +_declaratory_, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who +heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was +unavoidable. + +L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, +in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ample +encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to +compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot +dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.--when he +heard that his old master was on his death-bed--"Poor J.B.!--may all +his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub +boys, all head and wings, with no _bottoms_ to reproach his sublunary +infirmities." + +Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.--First Grecian of +my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, since +Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T----e. What +an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who +remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!--You never met +the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly +dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. +Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each +other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced +age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long 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 in yours +at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the _Cicero De +Amicitia_, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart +even then was burning to anticipate!--Co-Grecian with S. was Th----, +who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at +the Northern courts. Th---- was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing +of speech, with raven locks.--Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him +(now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. 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 the _regni +novitas_ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility +quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly +fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a +reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers +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 Oxford Prize Poems; a +pale, studious Grecian.--Then followed poor S----, ill-fated M----! of +these the Muse is silent. + + Finding some of Edward's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy +fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar +not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician, +Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand +still, intranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion +between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear +thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of +Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not +pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, +or Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the +accents of the _inspired charity-boy_!--Many were the "wit-combats," +(to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller,) between him and C.V. +Le G----, "which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion, and an +English man of war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far +higher 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 all winds, by +the quickness of his wit and invention." + +Nor shall thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the +cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont +to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant +jest 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 _Nircus +formosus_ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou +didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by +provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by +thy angel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "_bl----_," for a +gentler greeting--"_bless thy handsome face_!" + +Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of +Elia--the junior Le G---- and F----; who impelled, the former by +a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect--ill +capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to +in our seats 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 Roman +height about him. + +Fine, frank-hearted Fr----, the present master of Hertford, with +Marmaduke T----, mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends +still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. + +[Footnote 1: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.] + +[Footnote 2: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, +accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of +this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits +was dispensed with.--This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout +of Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) +methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue.] + +[Footnote 3: Cowley.] + +[Footnote 4: In this and every thing B. was the antipodes of his +co-adjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, +worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the +more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, +under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the +chroniclers 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, in +a way of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was _too classical for +representation_.] + + + + +THE TWO RACES OF MEN + + +The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is +composed of two distinct races, _the men who borrow_, and _the men +who lend_. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those +impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, +black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and +Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with +one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superiority +of the former, which I choose to designate as the _great race_, +is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive +sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his +brethren." There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and +suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of +the other. + +Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all +ages--Alcibiades--Falstaff--Sir Richard Steele--our late incomparable +Brinsley--what a family likeness in all four! + +What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! what rosy gills! +what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest,--taking +no more thought than lilies! What contempt for money,--accounting +it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal +confounding of those pedantic distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_! +or rather what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke), +resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible +pronoun adjective!--What near approaches doth he make to the primitive +_community_,--to the extent of one half of the principle at least!-- + +He is the true taxer who "calleth all the world up to be taxed:" and +the distance is as vast between him and _one of us_, as subsisted +betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid +it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem!--His exactions, too, have such a +cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or +state-gatherers,--those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of +welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth +you with no receipt; confining himself to no set season. Every day is +his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the _lene +tormentum_ of a pleasant look to your purse,--which to that gentle +warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the +traveller, for which sun and wind contended! He is the true Propontic +which never ebbeth! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's +hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with +destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained +to lend--that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the +reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the +penalties of Lazarus and of Dives!--but, when thou seest the proper +authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, +a handsome sacrifice! See how light _he_ makes of it! Strain not +courtesies with a noble enemy. + +Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death +of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed this life on +Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, without much trouble. He +boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who +heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and +sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in +life he found himself invested with ample revenues; which, with that +noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the +_great race_, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate +and bring to nothing: for there is something revolting in the idea of +a king holding a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all +regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of disfurnishment; getting rid +of the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) + + To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, + Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, + +he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, +"borrowing and to borrow!" + +In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it +has been calculated that he laid a tythe part of the inhabitants under +contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated:--but +having had the honour of accompanying my friend, divers times, in his +perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at +first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort +of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to +explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders +of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to +express himself), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a +loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took +a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be +"stocked with so fair a herd." + +With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his +treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had +often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." +So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away +(for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he +threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him--as +boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious,--into ponds, or +ditches, or deep holes,--inscrutable cavities of the earth;--or he +would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's +side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no +interest--but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's +offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed +it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies +became necessary, the first stranger, was sure to contribute to the +deficiency. For Bigod had an _undeniable_ way with him. He had a +cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just +touched with grey (_cana fides_). He anticipated no excuse, and found +none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the _great race_, I +would put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times have +disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the +kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than +to say _no_ to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, +by his mumping visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better; +and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in +reality so much less shock in the refusal. + +When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his swell of +feeling; how magnificent, how _ideal_ he was; how great at the +midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I +have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and +think that I am fallen into the society of _lenders_, and _little +men_. + +To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers +than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more +formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your _borrowers +of books_--those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry +of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, +matchless in his depredations! + +That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth +knocked out--(you are now with me in my little back study in +Bloomsbury, reader!)--with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side +(like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of +nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, _Opera Bonaventuræ_, +choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school +divinity also, but of a lesser calibre,--Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), +showed but as dwarfs,--itself an Ascapart!--_that_ Comberbatch +abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I +confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that "the title +to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for instance), is in exact +ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the +same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves +is safe? + +The slight vacuum in the left-hand case--two shelves from the +ceiling--scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser--was +whilom the commodious resting-place of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will +hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who +introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to +discover its beauties--but so have I known a foolish lover to praise +his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her +off than himself.--Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth +volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as +distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates _borrowed_ Hector. +Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state.--There loitered +the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side.--In yonder +nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," I mourns his +ravished mate. + +One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, +sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as +rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of +this nature (my friend's gathering's in his various calls), picked +up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little +memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These +proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they +stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as +little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am.--I charge +no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the +ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. + +To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are +sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give +no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, +spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of +tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely +woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?--knowing at the time, +and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn +over one leaf of the illustrious folio:--what but the mere spirit +of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy +friend?--Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the +Gallican land-- + + Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, + A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, + Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder! + +--hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, +about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies +with thy quips and mirthful tales?--Child of the Green-room, it was +unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part +Englishwoman!--that _she_ could fix upon no other treatise to bear +away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke +Greville, Lord Brook--of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, +Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a +tittle! _Was there not Zimmerman on Solitude?_ + +Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, be shy +of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy +books; but let it be to such a one as S.T.C.--he will return them +(generally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with +annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are +these precious MSS. of his--(in _matter_ oftentimes, and almost in +_quantity_ not unfrequently, vying with the originals)--in no very +clerkly hand--legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas +Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! +wandering in Pagan lands.--I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy +library, against S.T.C. + + + + +NEW YEAR'S EVE + + +Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, +which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his +mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he +termeth _his_. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this +custom of solemnizing our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or +is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor +understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of +a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or +cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. +It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is +left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. + +Of all sounds of all bells--(bells, the music nighest bordering upon +heaven)--most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the +Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of my mind to a +concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past +twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected--in +that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person +dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a +contemporary, when he exclaimed + + I saw the skirts of the departing Year. + +It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be +conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, and all +felt it with me, last night; though some of my companions affected +rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, +than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I +am none of those who-- + + Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. + +I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, +new years,--from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to +face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine +only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into +foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past +disappointments. I am armour-proof against old discouragements. I +forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again _for +love_, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so +dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and +events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the +incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I +should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall +to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W----n, than that so +passionate a love-adventure should be lost. It was better that our +family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us +of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds _in +banco_, and be without the idea of that specious old rogue. + +In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look back upon +those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping +over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love +_himself_, without the imputation of self-love? + +If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is introspective--and +mine is painfully so--can have a less respect for his present +identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know him to be light, and +vain, and humorsome; a notorious ***; addicted to ****: averse +from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it;--*** besides; +a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it on, and spare not; I +subscribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst be willing to lay +at his door--but for the child Elia--that "other me," there, in the +back-ground--I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that +young master--with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid +changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of some other +house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient small-pox at +five, and rougher medicaments I can lay its poor fevered head upon the +sick pillow at Christ's and wake with it in surprise at the gentle +posture of maternal tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had +watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least colour +of falsehood.--God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed! Thou art +sophisticated.--I know how honest, how courageous (for a weakling) it +was--how religious, how imaginative, how hopeful! From what have I +not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself--and not some +dissembling guardian presenting a false identity, to give the rule to +my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being! + +That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in such +retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or +is it owing to another cause; simply, that being without wife or +family, I have not learned to project myself enough out of myself; +and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon +memory and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favourite? If +these speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader--(a busy man, +perchance), if I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am +singularly-conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under +the phantom cloud of Elia. + +The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely +to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the +ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of +peculiar ceremony.--In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, +though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to +bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce +conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that +concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, +never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, +if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but +he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can +appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now, +shall I confess a truth?--I feel these audits but too powerfully. I +begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the +expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. +In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count +upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon +the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away "like a +weaver's shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the +unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the +tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the +inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the +face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the +sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am +content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my +friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to +be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the +grave.--Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, +puzzles and discomposes me. My household-gods plant a terrible fixed +foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek +Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun, and sky, and +breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of +fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and +the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and +innocent vanities, and jests, and _irony itself_--do these things go +out with life? + +Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant +with him? + +And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios! must I part with the intense +delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge +come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of +intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading? + +Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which +point me to them here,--the recognisable face--the "sweet assurance of +a look"--? + +In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying--to give it its +mildest name--does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial +August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. +At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. +Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant +again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips +and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to +the insubstantial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, +dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral +appearances,--that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus' sickly sister, +like that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles:--I am none of +her minions--I hold with the Persian. + +Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into +my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital +plague-sore.--I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such +hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of +the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a +pillow. Some have wooed death--but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, +ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give +thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused +or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, +proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest +thee, thou thin, melancholy _Privation_, or more frightful and +confounding _Positive!_' + +Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether +frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, +that he shall "lie down with kings and emperors in death," who in his +life-time never greatly coveted the society of such bed-fellows?--or, +forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear?"--why, to comfort +me, must Alice W----n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust +at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon +your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be +lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must +shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In +the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. +Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly +candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine--and while that turn-coat +bell, that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, +with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us attune to +its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. +Cotton.-- + +THE NEW YEAR + + Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star + Tells us, the day himself's not far; + And see where, breaking from the night, + He gilds the western hills with light. + With him old Janus doth appear, + Peeping into the future year, + With such a look as seems to say, + The prospect is not good that way. + Thus do we rise ill sights to see, + And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; + When the prophetic fear of things + A more tormenting mischief brings, + More full of soul-tormenting gall, + Than direst mischiefs can befall. + But stay! but stay! methinks my sight, + Better inform'd by clearer light, + Discerns sereneness in that brow, + That all contracted seem'd but now. + His revers'd face may show distaste, + And frown upon the ills are past; + But that which this way looks is clear, + And smiles upon the New-born Year. + He looks too from a place so high, + The Year lies open to his eye; + And all the moments open are + To the exact discoverer. + Yet more and more he smiles upon + The happy revolution. + Why should we then suspect or fear + The influences of a year, + So smiles upon us the first morn, + And speaks us good so soon as born? + Plague on't! the last was ill enough, + This cannot but make better proof; + Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through + The last, why so we may this too; + And then the next in reason shou'd + Be superexcellently good: + For the worst ills (we daily see) + Have no more perpetuity, + Than the best fortunes that do fall; + Which also bring us wherewithal + Longer their being to support, + Than those do of the other sort: + And who has one good year in three, + And yet repines at destiny, + Appears ungrateful in the case, + And merits not the good he has. + Then let us welcome the New Guest + With lusty brimmers of the best; + Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, + And renders e'en Disaster sweet: + And though the Princess turn her back, + Let us but line ourselves with sack, + We better shall by far hold out, + Till the next Year she face about. + +How say you, reader--do not these verses smack of the rough +magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not fortify like a +cordial; enlarging the heart, and productive of sweet blood, and +generous spirits, in the concoction? Where be those puling fears of +death, just now expressed or affected?--Passed like a cloud--absorbed +in the purging sunlight of clear poetry--clean washed away by a wave +of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries--And now +another cup of the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of them, +to you all, my masters! + + + + +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST + + +"A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game." This was +the celebrated _wish_ of old Sarah Battle (now with God) who, next +to her devotions, loved a good game at whist. She was none of your +lukewarm gamesters, your half and half players, who have no objection +to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that +they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game, +and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at +a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will +desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and +play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. +One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said, +that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. + +Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from +her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, +willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a +thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, +no concessions. She hated favours. She never made a revoke, nor +ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost +forfeiture. She fought a good fight: cut and thrust. She held not her +good sword (her cards) "like a dancer." She sate bolt upright; and +neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people +have their blind side--their superstitions; and I have heard her +declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. + +I never in my life--and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of +it--saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play; or +snuff a candle in the middle of a game; or ring for a servant, till it +was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous +conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, +cards were cards: and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine +last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a +literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; +and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that he thought there was +no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, +in recreations of that kind! She could not bear to have her noble +occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that +light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the +world to do,--and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards--over a +book. + +Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock her favourite +work. She once did me the favour to play over with me (with the cards) +his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem; and to explain to me how +far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ +from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant; and I +had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles: but +I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his ingenious notes +upon that author. + +Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love; but whist +had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy +and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty +and quick shifting of partners--a thing which the constancy of +whist abhors;--the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of +Spadille--absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of +whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his +brother-nobility of the Aces;--the giddy vanity, so taking to the +inexperienced, of playing alone:--above all, the overpowering +attractions of a _Sans Prendre Vole_,--to the triumph of which there +is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of +whist;--all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation +to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the _solider_ game: +that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast +of snatches. One or two rubbers might coextend in duration with an +evening. They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate +steady enmities. She despised the chance-started, capricious, and ever +fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she +would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the +little Italian states, depicted by Machiavel; perpetually changing +postures and connexions; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings +to-morrow; kissing and scratching in a breath;--but the wars of +whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational, +antipathies of the great French and English nations. + +A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. +There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage--nothing +superfluous. No _flushes_--that most irrational of all pleas that +a reasonable being can set up:--that any one should claim four by +virtue of holding cards of the same mark and colour, without reference +to the playing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions +of the cards themselves! She held this to be a solecism; as pitiful +an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised +superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of things.--Suits +were soldiers, she would say, and must have a uniformity of array to +distinguish them: but what should we say to a foolish squire, who +should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, +that never were to be marshalled--never to take the field?--She even +wished that whist were more simple than it is; and, in my mind, would +have stript it of some appendages, which, in the state of human +frailty, may be venially, and even commendably allowed of. She saw no +reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not +one suit always trumps?--Why two colours, when the mark of the suits +would have sufficiently distinguished them without it?-- + +"But the eye, my dear Madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. +Man is not a creature of pure reason he must have his senses +delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where +the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker +spirit of unsensualizing would have kept out.--You, yourself, have a +pretty collection of paintings--but confess to me, whether, walking +in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among the +Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with +an elegant delight, at all comparable to _that_ you have it in your +power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment +of the court cards?--the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a +procession--the gay triumph-assuring scarlets--the contrasting +deadly-killing sables--the 'hoary majesty of spades'--Pam in all his +glory!-- + +"All these might be dispensed with; and, with their naked names upon +the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very well, picture-less. +But the _beauty_ of cards would be extinguished for ever. Stripped +of all that is imaginative in them, they must degenerate into mere +gambling.--Imagine a dull deal board, or drum head, to spread them on, +instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena +for those courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys +in!--Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers--(work of Chinese +artist, unconscious of their symbol,--or as profanely slighting their +true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out +those little shrines for the goddess)--exchange them for little bits +of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate!"-- + +The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; +and to her approbation of my arguments on her favourite topic that +evening, I have always fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a +curious cribbage board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her +maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) +brought with him from Florence:--this, and a trifle of five hundred +pounds, came to me at her death. + +The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with +religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never +greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have +heard her say,--disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to +it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "_go_"--or +"_that's a go_." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging +teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar stake), +because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would +have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful +tenure of declaring "_two for his heels_." There is something +extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a +gentlewoman born. + +Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she +would ridicule the pedantry of the terms--such as pique--repique--the +capot--they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, +or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, +or square. She would argue thus:--Cards are warfare: the ends are +gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport: when +single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. +By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not +much bettered. No looker on can be interested, except for a bet, +and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck +_sympathetically_, or for your play.--Three are still worse; a mere +naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without +league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory +interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty +infractions of them, as in tradrille.--But in square games (_she +meant whist_) all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is +accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common +to every species--though the _latter_ can be but very imperfectly +enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a +participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals +too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not +wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist +abhors neutrality, or interest beyond its sphere. You glory in some +surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold--or even +an interested--by-stander witnesses it, but because your _partner_ +sympathises in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for +two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their +disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) +your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one +in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying +the channels. War becomes a civil game.--By such reasonings as these +the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime. + +No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where +chance entered into the composition, _for nothing_. Chance, she would +argue--and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion!--chance +is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious, +that cannot be _glory_. What rational cause of exultation could it +give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? +or before spectators, where no stake was depending?--Make a lottery +of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number--and what +possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it +gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a +prize?--Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, +where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and +those people idots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such +circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played +for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for +glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit,--his memory, or +combination-faculty rather--against another's; like a mock-engagement +at a review, bloodless and profitless.--She could not conceive a +_game_ wanting the spritely infusion of chance,--the handsome excuses +of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, +whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with +insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, +and Knights, the _imagery_ of the board, she would argue, (and I think +in this case justly) were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard +head-contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form +and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper +arena for such combatants. + +To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, +she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always +trying to get the better in something or other:--that this passion can +scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards +are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but _play_ +at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, +yet, during the illusion, we _are_ as mightily concerned as those +whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting; +much ado; great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for +disproportioned ends; quite as diverting, and a great deal more +innoxious, than many of those more serious _games_ of life, which men +play, without esteeming them to be such.-- + +With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these matters, I +think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at +cards _for nothing_ has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or +not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a +game at piquet _for love_ with my cousin Bridget--Bridget Elia. + +I grant there is something sneaking in it; but with a toothache, or a +sprained ancle,--when you are subdued and humble,--you are glad to put +up with an inferior spring of action. + +There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as _sick whist_.-- + +I grant it is not the highest style of man--I deprecate the manes of +Sarah Battle--she lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise.-- + +At such times, those _terms_ which my old friend objected to, come in +as something admissible.--I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though +they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows +of winning amuse me. + +That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her)--(dare I +tell thee, how foolish I am?)--I wished it might have lasted for ever, +though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade +of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The +pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive +to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over: +and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. +Bridget and I should be ever playing. + + + + +A CHAPTER ON EARS + + +I have no ear.-- + +Mistake me not, reader,--nor imagine that I am by nature destitute +of those exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and +(architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human capital. +Better my mother had never borne me.--I am, I think, rather delicately +than copiously provided with those conduits; and I feel no disposition +to envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, +in those ingenious labyrinthine inlets--those indispensable +side-intelligencers. + +Neither have I incurred, or done any thing to incur, with Defoe, +that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to draw upon +assurance--to feel "quite unabashed," and at ease upon that article. +I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them +aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I ever should be. + +When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will understand me +to mean--_for music_.--To say that this heart never melted at the +concourse of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel.--"_Water +parted from the sea_" never fails to move it strangely. So does "_In +Infancy_." But they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the +old-fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman--the +gentlest, sure, that ever merited the appellation--the sweetest--why +should I hesitate to name Mrs. S----, once the blooming Fanny +Weatheral of the Temple--who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, +small imp as he was, even in his long coats; and to make him glow, +tremble, and blush with a passion, that not faintly indicated the +day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, which was afterwards destined +to overwhelm and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W----n. + +I even think that _sentimentally_ I am disposed to harmony. But +_organically_ I am incapable of a tune. I have been practising "_God +save the King_" all my life; whistling and humming of it over to +myself in solitary corners; and am not yet arrived, they tell me, +within many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been +impeached. + +I am not without suspicion, that I have an undeveloped faculty of +music within me. For, thrumming, in my wild way, on my friend A.'s +piano, the other morning, while he was engaged in an adjoining +parlour,--on his return he was pleased to say, "_he thought it could +not be the maid_!" On his first surprise at hearing the keys touched +in somewhat an airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his +suspicions had lighted on _Jenny_. But a grace, snatched from a +superior refinement, soon convinced him that some being,--technically +perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle common to all +the fine arts,--had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all +her (less-cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. +I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any +view of disparaging Jenny. + +Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet have I taken +some pains) what a note in music is; or how one note should differ +from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a +tenor. Only sometimes the thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from +its being supereminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, +for my misapplication of the simplest terms of _that_ which I +disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to _say_ I +am ignorant of I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. _Sostenuto_ and _adagio_ +stand in the like relation of obscurity to me; and _Sol_, _Fa_, _Mi_, +_Re_, is as conjuring as _Baralipton_. + +It is hard to stand alone--in an age like this,--(constituted to the +quick and critical perception of all harmonious combinations, I verily +believe, beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the +gamut)--to remain, as it were, singly unimpressible to the magic +influences of an art, which is said to have such an especial stroke at +soothing, elevating, and refining the passions.--Yet rather than break +the candid current of my confessions, I must avow to you, that I have +received a great deal more pain than pleasure from this so cried-up +faculty. + +I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's hammer, in +a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But +those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of +music. The ear is passive to those single strokes; willingly enduring +stripes, while it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. +It will strive--mine at least will--'spite of its inaptitude, to thrid +the maze; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hieroglyphics. +I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and +inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of +the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was not +obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, +fruitless, barren attention! I take refuge in the unpretending +assemblage of honest common-life sounds;--and the purgatory of the +Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. + +I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the purposes of the +cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the auditory in the pit +(what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience!) immoveable, or +affecting some faint emotion,--till (as some have said, that our +occupations in the next world will be but a shadow of what delighted +us in this) I have imagined myself in some cold Theatre in Hades, +where some of the _forms_ of the earthly one should be kept up, with +none of the _enjoyment_; or like that-- + + --Party in a parlour, + All silent, and all DAMNED! + +Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, as +they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension.--Words are +something; but to be exposed to an endless battery of mere sounds; to +be long a dying, to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep up +languor by unintermitted effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar +upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound +with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty +frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a +book, _all stops_, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to +invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an +inexplicable rambling mime--these are faint shadows of what I have +undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this empty +_instrumental music_. + +I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experienced +something vastly lulling and agreeable:--afterwards followeth the +languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos; +or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth +music make her first insinuating approaches:--"Most pleasant it is +to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary +grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate +upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him +most, _amabilis insania_, and _mentis gratissimus error_. A most +incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to +themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, +and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done.--So delightsome +these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without +sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical +meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn +from them--winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and +still pleasing their humours, until at last the SCENE TURNS UPON A +SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary +places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but harsh and +distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, _subrusticus pudor_, +discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden, +and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner +are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on +them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to +their minds; which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions they +can avoid, they cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist." + +Something like this "SCENE-TURNING" I have experienced at the evening +parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend _Nov----_; who, by +the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players, +converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, +and these latter into minor heavens.[1] + +When my friend commences upon one of those solemn anthems, which +peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the side +aisles of the dim abbey, some five and thirty years since, waking +a new sense, and putting a soul of old religion into my young +apprehension--(whether it be _that_, in which the psalmist, weary of +the persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings--or _that +other_, which, with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth +by what means the young man shall best cleanse his mind)--a holy calm +pervadeth me.--I am for the time + + --rapt above earth, + And possess joys not promised at my birth. + +But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid a soul +prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss than lies in +her capacity to receive,--impatient to overcome her "earthly" with his +"heavenly,"--still pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and +fresh from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted _German_ ocean, +above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those +Arions _Haydn_ and _Mozart_, with their attendant tritons, _Bach_, +_Beethoven_, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up +would but plunge me again in the deeps,--I stagger under the weight +of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end;--clouds, as of +frankincense, oppress me--priests, altars, censers, dazzle before +me--the genius of _his_ religion hath me in her toils--a shadowy +triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so +ingenuous he is Pope, and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of +dreams, a she-Pope too,--tri-coroneted like himself!--I am converted, +and yet a Protestant;--at once _malleus hereticorum_, and myself grand +heresiarch: or three heresies centre in my person:--I am Marcion, +Ebion, and Cerinthus--Gog and Magog--what not?--till the coming in of +the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a draught of true +Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at +once reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith; and restores +to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced +host and hostess. + +[Footnote 1: + I have been there, and still would go; + 'Tis like a little heaven below.--_Dr. Watts_.] + + + + +ALL FOOLS' DAY + + +The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first +of 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 know +one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch +of _that same_--you understand me--a speck of the motley. Beshrew +the man who on such a day as this, the _general festival_, should +affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the +corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest +to-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 your +pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at +the 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 of +Amiens--_duc ad me_--_duc ad me_--how goes it? + + Here shall he see + Gross fools as he. + +Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who +was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in +a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much +difficulty 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 what +tune 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 a +salamander-gathering down Ætna. Worse than samphire-picking by some +odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios. + +Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the +bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the +disinterested sect of the Calenturists. + +Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring +in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at +my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if +I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or +thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you +must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the +low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by +a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on +Fish-street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat. + +What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?--cry, baby, put its finger +in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty +moppet! + +Mister Adams--'odso, I honour your coat--pray do us the favour to read +to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop--the twenty and +second in your portmanteau there--on Female Incontinence--the same--it +will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the +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. Remove +those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins +of his apprehension stumbling across them. + +Master Stephen, you are late.--Ha! Cokes, is it you?--Aguecheek, +my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.--Master Shallow, your +worship's poor servant to command.--Master Silence, I will use few +words with you.--Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in +somewhere.--You six will engross all the poor wit of the company +to-day.--I know it, I know it. + +Ha! honest R----, my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, +art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare +as thy stories:--what dost thou flitting about the world at this +rate?--Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to +read long ago.--Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, +thou canst hawk a volume or two.--Good Granville S----, thy last +patron, is flown. + + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapt in lead.-- + +Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between +Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic +smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly +ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise +sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of +Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy +singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy +with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I +forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now +to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if +Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands +of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have +given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied +and 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 +is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to +thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and +kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived +not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not +guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards +that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I +entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the +hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; +and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my +apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors--I +felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five +thoughtless virgins.--I have never made an acquaintance since, that +lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some +tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest +obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall +commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will +not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable +hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season +ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool +told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of +folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his +composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or +fish,--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh +thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such +whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the +kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, +minions of the goddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my +words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are +the _April Fool_. + +A QUAKER'S MEETING + + Still-born Silence! thou that art + Flood-gate of the deeper heart! + Offspring of a heavenly kind! + Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind! + Secrecy's confident, and he + Who makes religion mystery! + Admiration's speaking'st tongue! + Leave, thy desert shades among, + Reverend hermits' hallowed cells, + Where retired devotion dwells! + With thy enthusiasms come, + Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb![1] + +Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st +thou find a refuge from the noises and clamours of the multitude; +would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou +possess the depth of thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut +out from the consolatory faces of thy species; would'st thou be alone, +and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not +without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit in aggregate; a +simple in composite:--come with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made?" go +not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the +earth; shut not up thy casements; nor pour wax into the little cells +of thy ears, with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses.--Retire +with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it +is commendable; but for a multitude, it is great mastery. + +What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what +the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the goddess reigns and +revels.--"Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their +inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the +blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds--than their opposite (Silence +her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, +and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. +Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would +seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight. + +There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By +imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect +is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so +absolutely as in a Quaker's Meeting.--Those first hermits did +certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian +solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of +conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing +spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant +as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a friend +sitting by--say, a wife--he, or she, too, (if that be probable), +reading another, without interruption, or oral communication?--can +there be no sympathy without the gabble of words?--away with this +inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, +Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude. + +To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some cathedral, +time-stricken; + + Or under hanging mountains, + Or by the fall of fountains; + +is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those enjoy, who come +together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. This +is the loneliness "to be felt."--The Abbey Church of Westminster hath +nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches +of a Quaker's Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, + + --sands, ignoble things, + Dropt from the ruined sides of kings-- + +but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into +the fore-ground--SILENCE--eldest of things--language of old +Night--primitive Discourser--to which the insolent decays of +mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, +unnatural progression. + + How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, + Looking tranquillity! + +Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation +without intrigue! parliament without debate! what a lesson dost +thou read to council, and to consistory!--if my pen treat of you +lightly--as haply it will wander--yet my spirit hath gravely felt the +wisdom of your custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which +some out-welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have +reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed +by Fox and Dewesbury.--I have witnessed that, which brought before +my eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the rude jests and +serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, +sent to molest you--for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, +the out-cast and off-scowering of church and presbytery.--I have seen +the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle, with +the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of +the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye +as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, and +Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells +us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead men under his feet." + +Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend to you, +above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. +It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals of Fox, and the +primitive Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than any +thing you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to +stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, +no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here +read the true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps +hath been a by-word in your mouth,)--James Naylor: what dreadful +sufferings, with what patience, he endured even to the boring through +of his tongue with red-hot irons without a murmur; and with what +strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which they +stigmatised for blasphemy, had given way to clearer thoughts, he could +renounce his error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet +keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker still!--so different from +the practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they +apostatize, _apostatize all_, and think they can never get far enough +from the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of +some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not implicated. + +Get the Writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers. + +How far the followers of these good men in our days have kept to +the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have substituted +formality for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone determine. I have +seen faces in their assemblies, upon which the dove sate visibly +brooding. Others again I have watched, when my thoughts should have +been better engaged, in which I could possibly detect nothing but a +blank inanity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition to unanimity, +and the absence of the fierce controversial workings.--If the +spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they make +few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, in their preaching. +It is seldom indeed that you shall see one get up amongst them to hold +forth. Only now and then a trembling, female, generally _ancient_, +voice is heard--you cannot guess from what part of the meeting it +proceeds--with a low, buzzing, musical sound, laying out a few words +which "she thought might suit the condition of some present," with a +quaking diffidence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that any +thing of female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full of +tenderness, and a restraining modesty.--The men, for what I observed, +speak seldomer. + +Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a sample of the +old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant stature, who, as Wordsworth +phrases it, might have danced "from head to foot equipt in iron mail." +His frame was of iron too. But _he_ was malleable. I saw him shake +all over with the spirit--I dare not say, of delusion. The strivings +of the outer man were unutterable--he seemed not to speak, but to +be spoken from. I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees to +fail--his joints all seemed loosening--it was a figure to set off +against Paul Preaching--the words he uttered were few, and sound--he +was evidently resisting his will--keeping down his own word-wisdom +with more mighty effort, than the world's orators strain for theirs. +"He had been a WIT in his youth," he told us, with expressions of a +sober remorse. And it was not till long after the impression had begun +to wear away, that I was enabled, with something like a smile, to +recall the striking incongruity of the confession--understanding the +term in its worldly acceptation--with the frame and physiognomy of the +person before me. His brow would have scared away the Levities--the +Jocos Risus-que--faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at +Enna.--By _wit_, even in his youth, I will be sworn he understood +something far within the limits of an allowable liberty. + +More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a word having been +spoken. But the mind has been fed. You go away with a sermon, not made +with hands. You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; or as +in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, +the TONGUE, that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and +captive. You have bathed with stillness.--O when the spirit is sore +fretted, even tired to sickness of the janglings, and nonsense-noises +of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to go and seat yourself, +for a quiet half hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among +the gentle Quakers! + +Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uniformity, tranquil +and herd-like--as in the pasture--"forty feeding like one."-- + +The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of receiving a soil; +and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence of its +contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands +to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the +metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like +troops of the Shining Ones. + +[Footnote 1: From "Poems of all sorts," by Richard Fleckno, 1653.] + + + + +THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER + + +My reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. Odd, out of +the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most +of my notions, and ways of feeling. In every thing that relates to +_science_, I am a whole Encyclopædia behind the rest of the world. +I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country +gentlemen, in king John's days. I know less geography than a +school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as +authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into +Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divisions; +nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South +Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a +very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terræ Incognitæ. +I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or +Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of them at +sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness--and if the sun on +some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the West, I +verily believe, that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension +about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity +and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some +vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of +miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, +even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four +great monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, +floats as _first_ in my fancy. I make the widest conjectures +concerning Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My friend _M._, with great +painstaking, got me to think I understood the first proposition in +Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the second. I am entirely +unacquainted with the modern languages; and, like a better man than +myself, have "small Latin and less Greek." I am a stranger to the +shapes and texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers--not from +the circumstance of my being town-born--for I should have brought the +same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen it +in "on Devon's leafy shores,"--and am no less at a loss among purely +town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes.--Not that I affect +ignorance--but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have +been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold +without aching. I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation +with so little discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre +a stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little +knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company; every body is so +much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your +acquisitions. But in a _tête-à -tête_ there is no shuffling. The truth +will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left +alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, +that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.-- + +In one of my daily jaunts between Bishopsgate and Shacklewell, the +coach stopped to take up a staid-looking gentleman, about the wrong +side of thirty, who was giving his parting directions (while the +steps were adjusting), in a tone of mild authority, to a tall youth, +who seemed to be neither his clerk, his son, nor his servant, but +something partaking of all three. The youth was dismissed, and +we drove on. As we were the sole passengers, he naturally enough +addressed his conversation to me; and we discussed the merits of the +fare, the civility and punctuality of the driver; the circumstance of +an opposition coach having been lately set up, with the probabilities +of its success--to all which I was enabled to return pretty +satisfactory answers, having been drilled into this kind of etiquette +by some years' daily practice of riding to and fro in the stage +aforesaid--when he suddenly alarmed me by a startling question, +whether I had seen the show of prize cattle that morning in +Smithfield? Now as I had not seen it, and do not greatly care for +such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged to return a cold negative. He +seemed a little mortified, as well as astonished, at my declaration, +as (it appeared) he was just come fresh from the sight, and doubtless +had hoped to compare notes on the subject. However he assured me that +I had lost a fine treat, as it far exceeded the show of last year. We +were now approaching Norton Falgate, when the sight of some shop-goods +_ticketed_ freshened him up into a dissertation upon the cheapness of +cottons this spring. I was now a little in heart, as the nature of my +morning avocations had brought me into some sort of familiarity with +the raw material; and I was surprised to find how eloquent I was +becoming on the state of the India market--when, presently, he dashed +my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether I had +ever made any calculation as to the value of the rental of all the +retail shops in London. Had he asked of me, what song the Sirens sang, +or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, I +might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have hazarded a "wide solution."[1] My +companion saw my embarrassment, and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch +just coming in view, with great good-nature and dexterity shifted +his conversation to the subject of public charities; which led to +the comparative merits of provision for the poor in past and present +times, with observations on the old monastic institutions, and +charitable orders;--but, finding me rather dimly impressed with +some glimmering notions from old poetic associations, than strongly +fortified with any speculations reducible to calculation on the +subject, he gave the matter up; and, the country beginning to open +more and more upon us, as we approached the turnpike at Kingsland (the +destined termination of his journey), he put a home thrust upon me, in +the most unfortunate position he could have chosen, by advancing some +queries relative to the North Pole Expedition. While I was muttering +out something about the Panorama of those strange regions (which I had +actually seen), by way of parrying the question, the coach stopping +relieved me from any further apprehensions. My companion getting out, +left me in the comfortable possession of my ignorance; and I heard +him, as he went off, putting questions to an outside passenger, who +had alighted with him, regarding an epidemic disorder, that had been +rife about Dalston; and which, my friend assured him, had gone through +five or six schools in that neighbourhood. The truth now flashed upon +me, that my companion was a schoolmaster; and that the youth, whom he +had parted from at our first acquaintance, must have been one of the +bigger boys, or the usher.--He was evidently a kind-hearted man, who +did not seem so much desirous of provoking discussion by the questions +which he put, as of obtaining information at any rate. It did not +appear that he took any interest, either, in such kind of inquiries, +for their own sake; but that he was in some way bound to seek for +knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which he had on, forbade me to +surmise that he was a clergyman. The adventure gave birth to some +reflections on the difference between persons of his profession in +past and present times. + +Rest to the souls of those fine old Pedagogues; the breed, long +since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres: who believing that +all learning was contained in the languages which they taught, and +despising every other acquirement as superficial and useless, came to +their task as to a sport! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed +away all their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual +cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies; renewing +constantly the occupations which had charmed their studious childhood; +rehearsing continually the part of the past; life must have slipped +from them at last like one day. They were always in their first +garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, among their _Flori_ and +their _Spici-legia_; in Arcadia still, but kings; the ferule of their +sway not much harsher, but of like dignity with that mild sceptre +attributed to king Basileus; the Greek and Latin, their stately Pamela +and their Philoclea; with the occasional duncery of some untoward +Tyro, serving for a refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or a clown +Damætas! + +With what a savour doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it is sometimes +called) Paul's Accidence, set forth! "To exhort every man to the +learning of grammar, that intendeth to attain the understanding of +the tongues, wherein is contained a great treasury of wisdom and +knowledge, it would seem but vain and lost labour; for so much as it +is known, that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is either +feeble or faulty; and no building be perfect, whereas the foundation +and ground-work is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden of +the frame." How well doth this stately preamble (comparable to those +which Milton commendeth as "having been the usage to prefix to some +solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon, or Lycurgus") correspond +with and illustrate that pious zeal for conformity, expressed in a +succeeding clause, which would fence about grammar-rules with the +severity of faith-articles!--"as for the diversity of grammars, it +is well profitably taken away by the king majesties wisdom, who +foreseeing the inconvenience, and favourably providing the remedie, +caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be diligently +drawn, and so to be set out, only everywhere to be taught for the use +of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." What a +_gusto_ in that which follows: "wherein it is profitable that he can +orderly decline his noun, and his verb." _His_ noun! + +The fine dream is fading away fast; and the least concern of a teacher +in the present day is to inculcate grammar-rules. + +The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of every thing, +because his pupil is required not to be entirely ignorant of any +thing. He must be superficially, if I may so say, omniscient. He is to +know something of pneumatics; of chemistry; of whatever is curious, +or proper to excite the attention of the youthful mind; an insight +into mechanics is desirable, with a touch of statistics; the quality +of soils, &c. botany, the constitution of his country, _cum multis +aliis_. You may get a notion of some part of his expected duties by +consulting the famous Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib. + +All these things--these, or the desire of them--he is expected to +instil, not by set lessons from professors, which he may charge in the +bill, but at school-intervals, as he walks the streets, or saunters +through green fields (those natural instructors), with his pupils. +The least part of what is expected from him, is to be done in +school-hours. He must insinuate knowledge at the _mollia tempera +fandi_. He must seize every occasion--the season of the year--the time +of the day--a passing cloud--a rainbow--a wagon of hay--a regiment of +soldiers going by--to inculcate something useful. He can receive no +pleasure from a casual glimpse of Nature, but must catch at it as an +object of instruction. He must interpret beauty into the picturesque. +He cannot relish a beggar-man, or a gipsy, for thinking of the +suitable improvement. Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by the +sophisticating medium of moral uses. The Universe--that Great Book, as +it has been called--is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a +book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting +schoolboys.--Vacations themselves are none to him, he is only rather +worse off than before; for commonly he has some intrusive upper-boy +fastened upon him at such times; some cadet of a great family; some +neglected lump of nobility, or gentry; that he must drag after him to +the play, to the Panorama, to Mr. Bartley's Orrery, to the Panopticon, +or into the country, to a friend's house, or to his favourite +watering-place. Wherever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A +boy is at his board, and in his path, and in all his movements. He is +boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy. + +Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but +they are unwholesome companions for grown people. The restraint is +felt no less on the one side, than on the other.--Even a child, that +"plaything for an hour," tires _always_. The noises of children, +playing their own fancies--as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting +on the green before my window, while I am engaged in these grave +speculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shacklewell--by distance +made more sweet--inexpressibly take from the labour of my task. It is +like writing to music. They seem to modulate my periods. They ought at +least to do so--for in the voice of that tender age there is a kind of +poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of man's conversation.--I +should but spoil their sport, and diminish my own sympathy for them, +by mingling in their pastime. + +I would not be domesticated all my days with a person of very +superior capacity to my own--not, if I know myself at all, from any +considerations of jealousy or self-comparison, for the occasional +communion with such minds has constituted the fortune and felicity of +my life--but the habit of too constant intercourse with spirits above +you, instead of raising you, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of +original thinking from others, restrain what lesser portion of that +faculty you may possess of your own. You get entangled in another +man's mind, even as you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You +are walking with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to +lassitude. The constant operation of such potent agency would reduce +me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts from +others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are +cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, but not each man's +intellectual frame.-- + +As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged upwards, as +little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be stunted downwards +by your associates. The trumpet does not more stun you by its +loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility. + +Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a +schoolmaster?--because we are conscious that he is not quite at his +ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place, in the society of his +equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he +cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours. He cannot meet +you on the square. He wants a point given him, like an indifferent +whist-player. He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching +_you_. One of these professors, upon my complaining that these little +sketches of mine were any thing but methodical, and that I was unable +to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in the method by +which young gentlemen in _his_ seminary were taught to compose English +themes.--The jests of a schoolmaster are coarse, or thin. They do +not _tell_ out of school. He is under the restraint of a formal and +didactive hypocrisy in company, as a clergyman is under a moral one. +He can no more let his intellect loose in society, than the other +can his inclinations.--He is forlorn among his co-evals; his juniors +cannot be his friends. + +"I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this profession, +writing to a friend respecting a youth who had quitted his school +abruptly, "that your nephew was not more attached to me. But persons +in my situation are more to be pitied, than can well be imagined. We +are surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate +hearts, but _we_ can never hope to share an atom of their affections. +The relation of master and scholar forbids this. _How pleasing this +must be to you, how I envy your feelings_, my friends will sometimes +say to me, when they see young men, whom I have educated, return after +some years absence from school, their eyes shining with pleasure, +while they shake hands with their old master, bringing a present of +game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms +for my care of their education. A holiday is begged for the boys; +the house is a scene of happiness; I, only, am sad at heart--This +fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master +with gratitude for the care of his boyish years--this young man--in +the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never +could repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when +I praised; he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never +_love_ me--and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, +is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting +the scene of their boyish hopes and fears; and the seeing on equal +terms the man they were accustomed to look up to with reverence. +My wife too," this interesting correspondent goes on to say, "my +once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster.--When I married +her--knowing that the wife of a schoolmaster ought to be a busy +notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna would ill supply the +loss of my dear bustling mother, just then dead, who never sat still, +was in every part of the house in a moment, and whom I was obliged +sometimes to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save her from +fatiguing herself to death--I expressed my fears, that I was bringing +her into a way of life unsuitable to her; and she, who loved me +tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties +of her new situation. She promised, and she has kept her word. What +wonders will not woman's love perform?--My house is managed with a +propriety and decorum, unknown in other schools; my boys are well +fed, look healthy, and have every proper accommodation; and all this +performed with a careful economy, that never descends to meanness. But +I have lost my gentle, _helpless_ Anna!--When we sit down to enjoy an +hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listen +to what have been her useful (and they are really useful) employments +through the day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's task. Her +heart and her features are changed by the duties of her situation. To +the boys, she never appears other than the _master's wife_, and she +looks up to me as the _boys' master_; to whom all show of love and +affection would be highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her +situation and mine. Yet _this_ my gratitude forbids me to hint to +her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered creature, and can +I reproach her for it?"--For the communication of this letter, I am +indebted to my cousin Bridget. + +[Footnote 1: Urn Burial.] + + + + +VALENTINE'S DAY + + +Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy +name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen! Immortal +Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a +_name_, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to +seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with +thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? +Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other +mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril; +nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom +all mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop +Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with +thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is + + Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. + +Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and instead of +the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. + +In other words, this is the day on which those charming little +missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every +street and turning. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks +beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely +credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in +this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment +of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, +no emblem is so common as the _heart_,--that little three-cornered +exponent of all our hopes and fears,--the bestuck and bleeding heart; +it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations +than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology +for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this +anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we +have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might +easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed +for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover +addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam, +my _liver_ and fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting +a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a _midriff_ to bestow?" But +custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to +the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at +animal and anatomical distance. + +Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, +exceed in interest a _knock at the door_. It "gives a very echo to +the throne where Hope is seated." But its issues seldom answer to +this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to +see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations the welcomest in +expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a +Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal +entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, +airy, confident, and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is +less mechanical than on other days; you will say, "That is not the +post, I am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens!--delightful +eternal common-places, which "having been will always be;" which no +school-boy nor school-man can write away; having your irreversible +throne in the fancy and affections--what are your transports, when the +happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the +emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, +some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses-- + + Lovers all, + A madrigal, + +or some such device, not over abundant in sense--young Love disclaims +it,--and not quite silly--something between wind and water, a chorus +where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I +apprehend they did, in Arcadia. + +All Valentines are not foolish; and I shall not easily forget thine, +my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B.--E.B. lived +opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his +parlour window in C--e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, +and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a +temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humour. +E.B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of +designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom +of many a well executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no +further; for E.B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. E.B. +meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which +she had done him unknown; for when a kindly face greets us, though but +passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as +an obligation; and E.B. did. This good artist set himself at work to +please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years +since. He wrought, unseen and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need +not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders--full, not of +common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories +of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E.B. is a scholar.) +There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor +Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottos +and fanciful devices, such as beseemed,--a work in short of magic. +Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the +all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice--(O ignoble trust!)--of the +common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful +stand, the next morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by +and by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl +unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one +the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with +light love, or foolish expectations, for she had no lover; or, if she +had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which +delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as +our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the +benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good +for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a +specimen of E.B. and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness. + +Good-morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, +but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not +too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves +humble diocesans of old Bishop Valentine, and his true church. + + + + +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES + + + I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathized + with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any + thing. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with + prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch.--_Religio Medici_. + + +That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts +of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences; +in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of +the actual; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities +of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. +It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he +should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For +myself--earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities,-- + + Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, + +I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or +individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent +eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste +or distaste; or when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be +disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices--made up +of likings and dislikings--the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, +antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am +a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot +feel towards all equally. The more purely-English word that expresses +sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy +man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or _fellow_. I cannot +_like_ all people alike.[1] + +I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to +desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me--and in +truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There +is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. +We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect +intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its +constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the +sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than +comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision +in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their +intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. +They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She +presents no full front to them--a feature or side-face at the most. +Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost +they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure--and leave +it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. +The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and +shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. +They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content +to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as +if they were upon their oath--but must be understood, speaking +or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a +proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They +delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without +waiting for their full developement. They are no systematizers, and +would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, +are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not +mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is +born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their +growth--if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon +principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He +never hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his stock of ideas +in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into +company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He +never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence, to +share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or +not. You cannot cry _halves_ to any thing that he finds. He does not +find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. +His understanding is always at its meridian--you never see the first +dawn, the early streaks.--He has no falterings of self-suspicion. +Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, +partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no +place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls +upon him. Is he orthodox--he has no doubts. Is he an infidel--he has +none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no +border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of +truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps +the path. You cannot make excursions with him--for he sets you right. +His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot +compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right +and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the +sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops +a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy +book!"--said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give +that appellation to John Buncle,--"did I catch rightly what you said? +I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I +do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above +all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. +Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest +with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print +of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing +off to Mr. ****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to +ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my +friends)--when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable +respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but +had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal +pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much +to disconcert him.--Persons of this nation are particularly fond +of affirming a truth--which nobody doubts. They do not so properly +affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of +truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth +becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that contains it be +new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of +disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, +where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly +expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father +instead of the son--when four of them started up at once to inform +me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable +wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. Swift has hit off +this part of their character, namely their love of truth, in his +biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the +passage to the margin.[2] The tediousness of these people is certainly +provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another!--In my early life +I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes +foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing +it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration +of his compatriot, even more than he would your contempt of him. The +latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the +words which he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presumption +in you to suppose that you can admire him.--Thomson they seem to have +forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his +delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction +to our metropolis.--peak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will +retort upon you Hume's History compared with _his_ Continuation of it. +What if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? + +I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of +stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. +They date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits +of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I +have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cling +about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries +of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side,--of cloaked revenge, +dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and their fathers, +must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I cannot believe +it can run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as +candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up +the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial +to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change--for the mercantile spirit +levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly +confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, +which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to +me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see +the Church and Synagogue kissing and congeeing in awkward postures of +an affected civility. If _they_ are converted, why do they not come +over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the +life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they +keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites. Jews +christianizing--Christians judaizing--puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. +A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly than a wet +Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially _separative_. B---- +would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his +forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to +be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of +his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, +when he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!" +The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides +over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him.--B---- has a +strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by +his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings +with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the +Commandments, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. +His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How +should they?--but you seldom see a silly expression among them. +Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard +of an idiot being born among them.--Some admire the Jewish female +physiognomy. I admire it--but with trembling. Jael had those full dark +inscrutable eyes. + +In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of +benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these +faces--or rather masks--that have looked out kindly upon one in casual +encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully +calls--these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like +to associate with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with +them--because they are black. + +I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker +principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any +of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any +occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a +ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. +But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with +them." I am all over sophisticated--with humours, fancies, craving +hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, +scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their +simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive +banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to +Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited + + To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a +question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar +assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than +other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and +are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar +character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their +veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom +of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all +religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into +the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth--the one +applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the +common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the +conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirmations +of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected, and conceded +upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than truth +satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to +speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness +and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary +conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, +where clergy-truth--oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, +is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple +affirmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without +any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use +upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, +with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He +knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, +for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows +that his syllables are weighed--and how far a consciousness of this +particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to +produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest +means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more +sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The +admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all +contingencies, might be traced to this imposed self-watchfulness--if +it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock +of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive +Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of +judge or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. "You will +never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till +midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been +putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers +may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people +is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances.--I was +travelling in a stagecoach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the +straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, +where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before +us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way +took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my +companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was +resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild +arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated +mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard +came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out +their money, and formally tendered it.--so much for tea--I, in humble +imitation, tendering mine--for the supper which I had taken. She +would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their +silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and +gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought +I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and +warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove +off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously +pronounced, became after a time inaudible--and now my conscience, +which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give +some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be +offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their +conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the +subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of +them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour, "Hast thee +heard how indigos go at the India House?" and the question operated as +a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. + +[Footnote 1: I would be understood as confining myself to the subject +of _imperfect sympathies_. To nations or classes of men there can be +no direct _antipathy_. There may be individuals born and constellated +so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot +hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the +story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in +their lives) and instantly fighting. + + --We by proof find there should be + Twixt man and man such an antipathy, + That though he can show no just reason why + For any former wrong or injury, + Can neither find a blemish in his fame, + Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, + Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, + Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. + +The lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," and he +subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted +to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack +could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy +which he had taken to the first sight of the King. + + --The cause which to that act compell'd him + Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.] + +[Footnote 2: There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit +themselves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no +consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as +happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the +Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the +minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if +it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as +well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly +tolerable.--_Hints towards an Essay on Conversation_.] + + + + +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS + + +We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for +fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved +in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible +world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an +historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world +was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits +assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fitness, or +proportion--of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable +absurd--could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission +of any particular testimony?--That maidens pined away, wasting +inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire--that corn was +lodged, and cattle lamed--that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry +the oaks of the forest--or that spits and kettles only danced a +fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no wind +was stirring--were all equally probable where no law of agency was +understood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the +flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to the +weak fantasy of indigent eld--has neither likelihood nor unlikelihood +_à priori_ to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, or +standard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in the +devil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolized by +a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that _he_ should come +sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor.--That the intercourse +was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps the mistake--but +that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested story +of this nature more than another on the score of absurdity. There +is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be +criticised. + +I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of +received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where +one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more +obtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in +league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their +muttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled +issuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon them--as if they +should subpoena Satan!--Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand +about him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy of his +enemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, we +think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to the +non-resistance of witches to the constituted powers.--What stops the +Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces--or who had made it a +condition of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious +bait--we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country. + +From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and +witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good +store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity +originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History +of the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. The +pictures with which it abounds--one of the ark, in particular, +and another of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity +of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the +spot--attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of +the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. We +shall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes--and +there was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, with +infinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from the situation +which they occupied upon an upper shelf. I have not met with the work +from that time to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament +stories, orderly set down, with the _objection_ appended to each +story, and the _solution_ of the objection regularly tacked to that. +The _objection_ was a summary of whatever difficulties had been +opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness of +ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimentary +excess of candour. The _solution_ was brief, modest, and satisfactory. +The bane and antidote were, both before you. To doubts so put, and so +quashed, there seemed to be an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, for +the foot of the veriest babe to trample on. But--like as was rather +feared than realised from that slain monster in Spenser--from the womb +of those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, exceeding the +prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to vanquish. The habit +of expecting objections to every passage, set me upon starting more +objections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own for them. I +became staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. The pretty +Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their +purity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so many +historic or chronologic theses to be defended against whatever +impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but--the next thing to +that--I was to be quite sure that some one or other would or had +disbelieved them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the letting +him know that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man's +weakness, but the child's strength. O, how ugly sound scriptural +doubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling!--I should have lost +myself in these mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfit +sustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of +ill-fortune, which about this time befel me. Turning over the picture +of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in its +ingenious fabric--driving my inconsiderate fingers right through the +two larger quadrupeds--the elephant, and the camel--that stare (as +well they might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in +that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was henceforth +locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, the +_objections_ and _solutions_ gradually cleared out of my head, and +have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.--But there was +one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or +bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nerves +rather more seriously.--That detestable picture! + +I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-time solitude, +and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature +would justify 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 as memory serves in things so long ago--without an assurance, +which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be +old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture +of the Witch raising up Samuel--(O that old man covered with a +mantle!) I owe--not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy--but +the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for +me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow--a sure bed-fellow, when +my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, while the book was +permitted me, I dreamed waking over his delineation, and at night +(if I may use so bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found +the vision true. I durst not, even in the day-light, once enter the +chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the window, aversely +from the bed where my witch-ridden pillow was.--Parents do not know +what they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the +dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm--the hoping for a familiar +voice--when they wake screaming--and find none to soothe them--what a +terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves! The keeping them up till +midnight, through candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are +called,--would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the +better caution.--That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the +fashion to my dreams--if dreams they were--for the scene of them was +invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never met with the picture, +the fears would 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, +or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these +terrors in children. They can at most but give them a direction. Dear +little T.H. who of all children has been brought up with the most +scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition--who was never +allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad +men, or to read or hear of any distressing story--finds all this world +of fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded _ab extra_, in his +own "thick-coming fancies;" and from his little midnight pillow, this +nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, +in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer are +tranquillity. + +Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras--dire stories of Celæno and the +Harpies--may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition--but +they were there before. They are transcripts, types--the archetypes +are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which we +know 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, considered +in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?--O, +least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond +body--or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the +cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante--tearing, mangling, +choking, stifling, scorching demons--are they one half so fearful +to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied +following 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.[1] + +That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual--that it +is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth--that it +predominates in the period of sinless infancy--are difficulties, +the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our +antemundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of +pre-existence. + +My night-fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess an +occasional night-mare; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of +them. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished taper, will come and look +at me; but I know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude their +presence, and I fight and grapple with them. For the credit of my +imagination, I am almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreams +are grown. They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of +architecture and of buildings--cities abroad, which I have never seen, +and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, for the seeming length +of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon--their churches, +palaces, squares, market-places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an +inexpressible sense of delight--a map-like distinctness of trace--and +a day-light vividness of vision, that was all but being awake.--I have +formerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells--my highest Alps,--but +they are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recognition; +and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual struggles of the +inner eye, to make out a shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. +Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. The +poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Coleridge, at his will +can conjure up icy domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and +Abyssinian maids, and songs of Abara, and caverns, + + Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, + +to solace his night solitudes--when I cannot muster a fiddle. Barry +Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling before him in +nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune--when my +stretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, +raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat a +mortifying light--it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet, +that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and the poor +plastic power, such as it is, within me set to work, to humour my +folly in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was upon the +ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the +customary train sounding their conchs before me, (I myself, you may be +sure, the _leading god_,) and jollily we went careering over the main, +till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think it was +Ino) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell from +a sea-roughness to a sea-calm, and thence to a river-motion, and that +river (as happens in the familiarization of dreams) was no other than +the gentle Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave +or two, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth +palace. + +The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish no +whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the +same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humorist, +used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of +his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first question +would be,--"Young man, what sort of dreams have you?" I have so much +faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein +returning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of +prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious +inland landing. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.] + + + + +MY RELATIONS + + +I am arrived at that point of life, at which a man may account it a +blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either of his parents +surviving. I have not that felicity--and sometimes think feelingly of +a passage in Browne's Christian Morals, where he speaks of a man that +hath lived sixty or seventy years in the world. "In such a compass of +time," he says, "a man may have a close apprehension what it is to +be forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could remember his +father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may sensibly see +with what a face in no long time OBLIVION will look upon himself." + +I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom single +blessedness had soured to the world. She often used to say, that I +was the only thing in it which she loved; and, when she thought I was +quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality +quite so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She was from +morning till night poring over good books, and devotional exercises. +Her favourite volumes were Thomas à Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; +and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the _matins_ and _complines_ +regularly set down,--terms which I was at that time too young to +understand. She persisted in reading them, although admonished daily +concerning their Papistical tendency; and went to church every +Sabbath, as a good Protestant should do. These were the only books +she studied; though, I think, at one period of her life, she told me, +she had read with great satisfaction the Adventures of an Unfortunate +Young Nobleman. Finding the door of the chapel in Essex-street open +one day--it was in the infancy of that heresy--she went in, liked the +sermon, and the manner of worship, and frequented it at intervals +for some time after. She came not for doctrinal points, and never +missed them. With some little asperities in her constitution, which +I have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly being, and a +fine _old Christian_. She was a woman of strong sense, and a shrewd +mind--extraordinary at a _repartee;_ one of the few occasions of her +breaking silence--else she did not much value wit. The only secular +employment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was, the splitting +of French beans, and dropping them into a China basin of fair water. +The odour of those tender vegetables to this day comes back upon my +sense, redolent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most +delicate of culinary operations. + +Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none--to remember. By the +uncle's side I may be said to have been born an orphan. Brother, or +sister, I never had any--to know them. A sister, I think, that should +have been Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort, +or what a care, may I not have missed in her!--But I have cousins, +sprinkled about in Hertfordshire--besides _two_, with whom I have been +all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may term +cousins _par excellence_. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are +older than myself by twelve, and ten, years; and neither of them seems +disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the +prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in +the same mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, +years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my +grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or younger brother! + +James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, which not +every critic can penetrate; or, if we feel, we cannot explain them. +The pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have drawn J.E. +entire--those fine Shandian lights and shades, which make up his +story. I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates +have given me grace and talent. J.E. then--to the eye of a common +observer at least--seemeth made up of contradictory principles.--The +genuine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence--the +phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his +temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new project +in his brain, J.E. is the systematic opponent of innovation, and crier +down of every thing that has not stood the test of age and experiment. +With a hundred fine notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, +he is startled at the least approach to the romantic in others; and, +determined by his own sense in every thing, commends _you_ to the +guidance of common sense on all occasions.--With a touch of the +eccentric in all which he does, or says, he is only anxious that _you_ +should not commit yourself by doing any thing absurd or singular. +On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a certain +popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to _say_ so--for the world +would think me mad. He disguises a passionate fondness for works of +high art (whereof he hath amassed a choice collection), under the +pretext of buying only to sell again--that his enthusiasm may give no +encouragement to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece of +tender, pastoral Dominichino hang still by his wall?--is the ball of +his sight much more dear to him?--or what picture-dealer can talk like +him? + +Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp their speculative +conclusions to the bent of their individual humours, _his_ theories +are sure to be in diametrical opposition to his constitution. He is +courageous as Charles of Sweden, upon instinct; chary of his person, +upon principle, as a travelling Quaker.--He has been preaching up to +me, all my life, the doctrine of bowing to the great--the necessity +of forms, and manner, to a man's getting on in the world. He himself +never aims at either, that I can discover,--and has a spirit, that +would stand upright in the presence of the Cham of Tartary. It is +pleasant to hear him discourse of patience--extolling it as the truest +wisdom--and to see him during the last seven minutes that his dinner +is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless +piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous cousin--and +Art never turned out a more elaborate orator than he can display +himself to be, upon his favourite topic of the advantages of quiet, +and contentedness in the state, whatever it may be, that we are +placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he has you safe in +one of those short stages that ply for the western road, in a very +obstructing manner, at the foot of John Murray's street--where you get +in when it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath +completed her just freight--a trying three quarters of an hour to some +people. He wonders at your fidgetiness,--"where could we be better +than we are, _thus silting, thus consulting_?"--"prefers, for his +part, a state of rest to locomotion,"--with an eye all the while upon +the coachman--till at length, waxing out of all patience, at _your +want of it_, he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow +for detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, and +declares peremptorily, that "the gentleman in the coach is determined +to get out, if he does not drive on that instant." + +Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a sophistry, he is +incapable of attending _you_ in any chain of arguing. Indeed he makes +wild work with logic; and seems to jump at most admirable conclusions +by some process, not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this, +he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists +such a faculty at all in man as _reason_; and wondereth how man came +first to have a conceit of it--enforcing his negation with all the +might of _reasoning_ he is master of. He has some speculative notions +against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural +to _him_--when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall crow +like Chanticleer. He says some of the best things in the world--and +declareth that wit is his aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing +the Eton boys at play in their grounds--_What a pity to think, that +these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into +frivolous Members of Parliament!_ + +His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous--and in age he discovereth +no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate +people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that +inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.--It does +me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some +fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, +with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that +indicates some purchase in his eye--a Claude--or a Hobbima--for much +of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's, and Phillips's--or +where not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these occasions +he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a +person like me possesses above himself, in having his time occupied +with business which he _must do_--assureth me that he often feels +it hang heavy on his hands--wishes he had fewer holidays--and goes +off--Westward Ho!--chanting a tune, to Pall Mall--perfectly convinced +that he has convinced me--while I proceed in my opposite direction +tuneless. + +It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indifference doing the +honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly housed it. You must +view it in every light, till _he_ has found the best--placing it at +this distance, and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight +to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the +aërial perspective--though you assure him that to you the landscape +shows much more agreeable without that artifice. Wo be to the luckless +wight, who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who should +drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of his anterior +bargains to the present!--The last is always his best hit--his +"Cynthia of the minute."--Alas! how many a mild Madonna have I +known to _come in_--a Raphael!--keep its ascendancy for a few brief +moons--then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front +drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlour,--adopted +in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions +of filiation, mildly breaking its fall--consigned to the oblivious +lumber-room, _go out_ at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo +Maratti!--which things when I beheld--musing upon the chances and +mutabilities of fate below, hath made me to reflect upon the altered +condition of great personages, or that woful Queen of Richard the +Second-- + + --set forth in pomp, + She came adorned hither like sweet May. + Sent back like Hollowmass or shortest day. + +With great love for _you_, J.E. hath but a limited sympathy with what +you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, and makes slender +guesses at what passes in your mind. He never pierces the marrow of +your habits. He will tell an old established play-goer, that Mr. +Such-a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very +lively comedian--as a piece of news! He advertised me but the other +day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, +_knowing me to be a great walker_, in my own immediate vicinity--who +have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years! He has +not much respect for that class of feelings which goes by the name +of sentimental. He applies the definition of real evil to bodily +sufferings exclusively--and rejecteth all others as imaginary. He +is affected by the sight, or the bare supposition, of a creature in +pain, to a degree which I have never witnessed out of womankind. A +constitutional acuteness to this class of sufferings may in part +account for this. The animal tribe in particular he taketh under his +especial protection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to +find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for ever. He +is the apostle to the brute kind--the never-failing friend of those +who have none to care for them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, +or eels skinned _alive_, will wring him so, that "all for pity he +could die." It will take the savour from his palate, and the rest from +his pillow, for days and nights. With the intense feeling of Thomas +Clarkson, he wanted only the steadiness of pursuit, and unity of +purpose, of that "true yolk-fellow with Time," to have effected as +much for the _Animal_, as _he_ hath done for the _Negro Creation_. But +my uncontrollable cousin is but imperfectly formed for purposes which +demand co-operation. He cannot wait. His amelioration-plans must be +ripened in a day. For this reason he has cut but an equivocal figure +in benevolent societies, and combinations for the alleviation of human +sufferings. His zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his +coadjutors. He thinks of relieving,--while they think of debating. +He was black-balled out of a society for the Relief of **********, +because the fervor of his humanity toiled beyond the formal +apprehension, and creeping processes, of his associates. I shall +always consider this distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia +family! Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at, or +upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all good manners, and +the understanding that should be between kinsfolk, forbid!--With all +the strangenesses of this _strangest of the Elias_--I would not have +him in one jot or tittle other than he is; neither would I barter or +exchange my wild kinsman for the most exact, regular, and everyway +consistent kinsman breathing. + +In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some account of my cousin +Bridget--if you are not already surfeited with cousins--and take you +by the hand, if you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which +we made a summer or two since, in search of _more cousins_-- + + Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. + + + + +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE + + +Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have +obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We +house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; +with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in +myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the +rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well +in our tastes and habits--yet so, as "with a difference." We are +generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings--as it should be +among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood, than +expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind +than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was +altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am +hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or +one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern +tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with +assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teazes me. I have little concern +in the progress of events. She must have a story--well, ill, or +indifferently told--so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of +good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction--and +almost in real life--have ceased to interest, or operate but dully +upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions--heads with some +diverting twist in them--the oddities of authorship please me most. My +cousin has a native disrelish of any thing that sounds odd or bizarre. +Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the +road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I can pardon +her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici; but +she must apologise to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which +she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals +of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one--the thrice +noble, chaste, and virtuous,--but again somewhat fantastical, and +original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle. + +It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I +could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, +free-thinkers--leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies and +systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. +That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its +authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with +her understanding. + +We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have +observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this--that +in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out, that I was +in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed +upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone; +whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out +with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way +of thinking. + +I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, +for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an +awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which +times she will answer _yes_ or _no_ to a question, without fully +understanding its purport--which is provoking, and derogatory in the +highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her +presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but +will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose +requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; +but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been +known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. + +Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily +missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name +of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into +a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection +or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome +pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in +this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be +diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst +come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. + +In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the +teazing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the +_will_ to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess +of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon +the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your +satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; +but best, when she goes a journey with you. + +We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, +to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that +fine corn country. + +The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it +is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; +a farm-house,--delightfully situated within a gentle walk from +Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a +great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I +have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could +throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might +share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at +that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married +my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a +Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still +flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost +extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; +and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the +other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery +End--kindred or strange folk--we were afraid almost to conjecture, but +determined some day to explore. + +By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in +our way from Saint Alban's, we arrived at the spot of our anxious +curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every +trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a +pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though _I_ +had forgotten it, _we_ had never forgotten being there together, and +we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my +part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the +aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to _that_, +which I had conjured up so many times instead of it! + +Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart +of June," and I could say with the poet, + + But them, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her delicate creation! + +Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered +her old acquaintance again--some altered features, of course, a little +grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; +but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections--and she +traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the +orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds +were alike flown)--with a breathless impatience of recognition, which +was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But +Bridget in some things is behind her years. + +The only thing left was to get into the house--and that was a +difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I +am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date +kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without +me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to +a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the +Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the +old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, +were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this +adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all--more comely. She +was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early +life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing +a style. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those +slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere +of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, +loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted +as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to +the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should +call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her--it was like the +meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, +an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this +farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace--or so we thought +it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally--we, and our +friend that was with us--I had almost forgotten him--but B.F. will not +so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the +far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made +ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; +and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget +with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to +Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her +mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of +us, at a time when she almost knew nothing.--With what corresponding +kindness we were received by them also--how Bridget's memory, exalted +by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections +of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own--and to +the astoundment of B.F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not +a cousin there,--old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names +and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in +lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth,--when I forget +all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more +remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender +charge--as I have been her care in foolish manhood since--in those +pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. + + + + +MODERN GALLANTRY + + +In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment +ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or +deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as +females. + +I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can +forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date +our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent +practice of whipping females in public, in common with the coarsest +male offenders. + +I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the +fact, that in England women are still occasionally--hanged. + +I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be +hissed off a stage by gentlemen. + +I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the +kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, +which some unlucky dray has just dissipated. + +I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would +be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act +upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not +observed--when I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part +with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders +of the poor woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the +same stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain--when I shall no +longer see a woman standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till +she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated +at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till one, that seems to +have more manners or conscience than the rest, significantly declares +"she should be welcome to his seat, if she were a little younger and +handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle +of their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not +seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury. + +Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle +influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and +coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women. + +Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be +any thing more than a conventional fiction; a pageant got up between +the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which +both find their account equally. + +I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of +life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid +to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse +complexions as to clear--to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she +is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. + +I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a +well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the +topic of _female old age_ without exciting, and intending to excite, +a sneer:--when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one +has "overstoocl her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise +immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken. + +Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, merchant, and one of the Directors +of the South-Sea company--the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare +commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet--was the only pattern of +consistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at +an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts +and example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not +much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit +more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was +the finest gentleman of his time. He had not _one_ system of attention +to females in the drawing-room, and _another_ in the shop, or at the +stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction. But he never lost +sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous +situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed--smile if you please--to +a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to +some street--in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to +embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He +was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women: +but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before +him, _womanhood_. I have seen him--nay, smile not--tenderly escorting +a marketwoman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his +umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no +damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the +reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to +an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show +our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, +or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend +them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in +those withered and yellow cheeks. + +He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the +beautiful Susan Winstanley--old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton--who +dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the +resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short +courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress +with a profusion of civil speeches--the common gallantries--to which +kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance--but in +this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent +acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. +He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown +herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, +finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her +coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that +she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even +endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her +situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to +her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of +insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young +women: but that--a little before he had commenced his compliments--she +had overheard him by accident, in rather rough language, rating +a young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to the +appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan +Winstanley, and a young lady--a reputed beauty, and known to be a +fortune,--I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth +of this very fine gentleman who is courting me--but if I had been poor +Mary Such-a-one (_naming the milliner_),--and had failed of bringing +home the cravats to the appointed hour--though perhaps I had sat up +half the night to forward them--what sort of compliments should I have +received then?--And my woman's pride came to my assistance; and I +thought, that if it were only to do _me_ honour, a female, like +myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined +not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the +belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and title to +them." + +I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of +thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have +sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which +through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards +all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this +seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. + +I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these +things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something +of the spirit of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the +anomaly of the same man--a pattern of true politeness to a wife--of +cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister--the idolater of his female +mistress--the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or +unfortunate--still female--maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a +woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed--her +handmaid, or dependent--she deserves to have diminished from herself +on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and +beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their +attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after +it, is first--respect for her as she is a woman;--and next to that--to +be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon +her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions, +incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and +ornaments--as many, and as fanciful, as you please--to that main +structure. Let her first lesson be--with sweet Susan Winstanley--to +_reverence her sex_. + + + + +THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE + + +I was born, and passed the first seven years of my life, in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, +I had almost said--for in those young years, what was this king of +rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are +of my oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself +more frequently, or with kindlier emotion, than those of Spenser, +where he speaks of this spot. + + There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, + The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, + Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, + There whylome wont the Templer knights to bide; + Till they decayd through pride. + +Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a +transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time--the +passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet-street, by unexpected +avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its classic green +recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it, +which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden: that goodly +pile + + Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, + +confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more +fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful +Crown-office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the +stately stream, which washes the garden-foot with her yet scarcely +trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from her Twickenham +Naiades! a man would give something to have been born in such places. +What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the +fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times! +to the astoundment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, +not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost +tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic! What an antique air had +the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, +seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take +their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding +correspondence with the fountain of light! How would the dark line +steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to +detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or +the first arrests of sleep! + + Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand + Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived! + +What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead +and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with +the simple altar-like structure, and silent heart-language of the +old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it +almost every where vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more +elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded +for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not +protracted after sun-set, of temperance, and good-hours. It was the +primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce +have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet +plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their +silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The +shepherd "carved it out quaintly in the sun;" and, turning philosopher +by the very occupation, provided it with mottos more touching than +tombstones. It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by +Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out of +herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, for +they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. +They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and +sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes: + + What wondrous life in this I lead! + Ripe apples drop about my head. + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon my mouth do crush their wine. + The nectarine, and curious peach, + Into my hands themselves do reach. + Stumbling on melons, as I pass, + Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. + Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less + Withdraws into its happiness. + The mind, that ocean, where each kind + Does straight its own resemblance find; + Yet it creates, transcending these, + Far other worlds, and other seas; + Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade. + Here at the fountain's sliding foot, + Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, + Casting the body's vest aside, + My soul into the boughs does glide: + There, like a bird, it sits and sings, + Then whets and claps its silver wings; + And, till prepared for longer flight, + Waves in its plumes the various light. + How well the skilful gardener drew, + Of flowers and herbs, this dial new! + Where, from above, the milder sun + Does through a fragrant zodiac run: + And, as it works, the industrious bee + Computes its time as well as we. + How could such sweet and wholesome hours + Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers?[1] + +The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, fast +vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or bricked over. Yet, where one +is left, as in that little green nook behind the South-Sea House, +what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile! Four little winged +marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever +fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of +Lincoln's-inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured. They are +gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by, +and these things are esteemed childish. Why not then gratify children, +by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They +are awakening images to them at least. Why must every thing smack of +man, and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is +there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the child's +heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments? The figures were +grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still flitter and +chatter about that area, less gothic in appearance? or is the splutter +of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as the +little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered? + +They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner Temple-hall, and +the library front, to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the +hall, which they do not at all resemble. What is become of the winged +horse that stood over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed +those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized the end of the +Paper-buildings?--my first hint of allegory! They must account to me +for these things, which I miss so greatly. + +The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the parade; but +the traces are passed away of the footsteps which made its pavement +awful! It is become common and profane. The old benchers had it almost +sacred to themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They might +not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. +You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on +even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J----ll, ever +ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie +a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated +Thomas Coventry?--whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and +elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and +path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the +scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and superiors, +who made a solitude of children wherever he came, for they fled his +insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear. His +growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth +or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the most +repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, aggravating the natural terrors +of his speech, broke from each majestic nostril, darkening the air. He +took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under +the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat +red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by +adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. + +By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive +gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had nothing but +that and their benchership in common. In politics Salt was a whig, +and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter +cast out--for Coventry had a rough spinous humour--at the political +confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom +of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel +Salt. + +S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent +discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I suspect his +knowledge did not amount to much. When a case of difficult disposition +of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily +handed it over with a few instructions to his man Lovel, who was +a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the +light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. +It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere +trick of gravity. He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a +minute--indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet men would +give him credit for vast application in spite of himself. He was not +to be trusted with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a +dinner party but he forgot his sword--they wore swords then--or some +other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on +all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was +anything which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it.--He +was to dine at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day +of her execution;--and L. who had a wary foresight of his probable +hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him with great anxiety not +in any possible manner to allude to her story that day. S. promised +faithfully to observe the injunction. He had not been seated in the +parlour, where the company was expecting the dinner summons, four +minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked +out of window, and pulling down his ruffles--an ordinary motion with +him--observed, "it was a gloomy day," and added, "Miss Blandy must +be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were +perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time +a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the +law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct--from +force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had the same good +fortune among the female world,--was a known toast with the ladies, +and one or two are said to have died for love of him--I suppose, +because he never trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, +indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and person, but +wanted, methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with +advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre.--Not so, thought Susan +P----; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold +evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of B----d Row, with +tears that fell in drops which might be heard, because her friend had +died that day--he, whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for +the last forty years--a passion, which years could not extinguish or +abate; nor the long resolved, yet gently enforced, puttings off of +unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild +Susan P----, thou hast now thy friend in heaven! + +Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that name. He +passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early +those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so +that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was +master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, +or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite +the pump in Serjeant's-inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is doing +self-imposed penance in it, for what reason I divine not, at this day. +C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he seldom spent above +a day or two at a time in the summer; but preferred, during the hot +months, standing at his window in this damp, close, well-like mansion, +to watch, as he said, "the maids drawing water all day long." I +suspect he had his within-door reasons for the preference. _Hic currus +et arma fuêre_. He might think his treasures more safe. His house had +the aspect of a strong box. C. was a close hunks--a hoarder rather +than a miser--or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes breed, who have +brought discredit upon a character, which cannot exist without certain +admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a +true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking +care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, +upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an +immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away 30,000_l_. at once in his +life-time to a blind charity. His house-keeping was severely looked +after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He would know who came +in and who went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never +suffered to freeze. + +Salt was his opposite in this, as in all--never knew what he was worth +in the world; and having but a competency for his rank, which his +indolent habits were little calculated to improve, might have suffered +severely if he had not had honest people about him. Lovel took care of +every thing. He was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, +his friend, his "flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. +He did nothing without consulting Lovel, or failed in any thing +without expecting and fearing his admonishing. He put himself almost +too much in his hands, had they not been the purest in the world. He +resigned his title almost to respect as a master, if L. could ever +have forgotten for a moment that he was a servant. + +I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. +A good fellow withal, and "would strike." In the cause of the +oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number +of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of +quality that had drawn upon him; and pommelled him severely with the +hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female--an occasion +upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference +of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed to the same person, +modestly to excuse his interference--for L. never forgot rank, where +something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow +breathing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly +to resemble (I have a portrait of him which confirms it), possessed a +fine turn for humorous poetry--next to Swift and Prior--moulded heads +in clay or plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural +genius merely; turned cribbage boards, and such small cabinet toys, +to perfection; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility; +made punch better than any man of his degree in England; had the +merriest quips and conceits, and was altogether as brimful of +rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the +angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. +Isaac Walton would have chosen to go a fishing with. I saw him in his +old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad +stage of human weakness--"a remnant most forlorn of what he was,"--yet +even then his eye would light up upon the mention of his favourite +Garrick. He was greatest, he would say, in Bayes--"was upon the stage +nearly throughout the whole performance, and as busy as a bee." At +intervals, too, he would speak of his former life, and how he came up +a little boy from Lincoln to go to service, and how his mother cried +at parting with him, and how he returned, after some few years' +absence, in his smart new livery to see her, and she blessed herself +at the change, and could hardly be brought to believe that it was "her +own bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he would weep, till I +have wished that sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay +its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us all in no long time +after received him gently into hers. + +With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the terrace, most +commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make up a third. They did not +walk linked arm in arm in those days--"as now our stout triumvirs +sweep the streets,"--but generally with both hands folded behind them +for state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a cane. +P. was a benevolent, but not a pre-possessing man. He had that in +his face which you could not term unhappiness; it rather implied +an incapacity of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, even to +whiteness. His look was uninviting, resembling (but without his +sourness) that of our great philanthropist. I know that he _did_ good +acts, but I could never make out what _he_ was. Contemporary with +these, but subordinate, was Daines Barrington--another oddity--he +walked burly and square--in imitation, I think, of Coventry--howbeit +he attained not to the dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he +did pretty well, upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, +and having a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's +treasurership came to be audited, the following singular charge was +unanimously disallowed by the bench: "Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the +gardener, twenty shillings, for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my +orders." Next to him was old Barton--a jolly negation, who took upon +him the ordering of the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, +where the benchers dine--answering to the combination rooms at +college--much to the easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know +nothing more of him.--Then Read, and Twopenny--Read, good-humoured +and personable--Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and felicitous in +jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and +fleeting. Many must remember him (for he was rather of later date) +and his singular gait, which was performed by three steps and a jump +regularly succeeding. The steps were little efforts, like that of a +child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vigorous, as a foot to +an inch. Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could +never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor seemed to +answer the purpose any better than common walking. The extreme tenuity +of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. +Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him as +Brother Lusty; but W. had no relish of a joke. His features were +spiteful. I have heard that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, +when any thing had offended him. Jackson--the omniscient Jackson he +was called--was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing +more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. He was the +Friar Bacon of the less literate portion of the Temple. I remember a +pleasant passage, of the cook applying to him, with much formality of +apology, for instructions how to write down _edge_ bone of beef in his +bill of commons. He was supposed to know, if any man in the world did. +He decided the orthography to be--as I have given it--fortifying his +authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the manciple (for +the time) learned and happy. Some do spell it yet perversely, _aitch_ +bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its shape, and that of the +aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron +hand--but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some +accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he wielded +with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was +old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember +the astonishment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking +person; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of +power--somewhat like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo's +Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in the +costume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect +recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple. + +Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of you exist, +why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable, half-understood +appearances, why comes in reason to tear away the preternatural mist, +bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure +in my relation, who made up to me--to my childish eyes--the mythology +of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as "old men covered with a +mantle," walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry +perish,--extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary +fabling,--in the heart of childhood, there will, for ever, spring up a +well of innocent or wholesome superstition--the seeds of exaggeration +will be busy there, and vital--from every-day forms educing the +unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light, +when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and +materiality. While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, +shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings +totally to fly the earth. + + * * * * * + +P.S. I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel Salt. See +what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the erring notices of +childhood! Yet I protest I always thought that he had been a bachelor! +This gentleman, R.N. informs me, married young, and losing his lady +in child-bed, within the first year of their union, fell into a deep +melancholy, from the effects of which, probably, he never thoroughly +recovered. In what a new light does this place his rejection (O +call it by a gentler name!) of mild Susan P----, unravelling +into beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring +character!--Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for +true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact-verisimilitudes, +not verities--or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of +history. He is no such honest chronicler as R.N., and would have done +better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, before he sent these +incondite reminiscences to press. But the worthy sub-treasurer--who +respects his old and his new masters--would but have been puzzled +at the indecorous liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, +peradventure, of the license which _Magazines_ have arrived at in this +plain-speaking age, or hardly dreams of their existence beyond the +_Gentleman's_--his furthest monthly excursions in this nature having +been long confined to the holy ground of honest _Urban's_ obituary. +May it be long before his own name shall help to swell those columns +of unenvied flattery!--Meantime, O ye New Benchers of the Inner +Temple, cherish him kindly, for he is himself the kindliest of human +creatures. Should infirmities over-take him--he is yet in green and +vigorous senility--make allowances for them, remembering that "ye +yourselves are old." So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge +and cognisance, still flourish! so may future Hookers and Seldens +illustrate your church and chambers! so may the sparrows, in default +of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your walks! so may +the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery maid, who, by leave, airs her +playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing +curtsy as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion! so may the +younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with +the same superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on +the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye! + +[Footnote 1: From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.] + + + + +GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + +The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the +early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners +were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a +common blessing; when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like +a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, +after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's +flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of +the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the +blessing of food--the act of eating--should have had a particular +expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied +and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon +the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of +existence. + +I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in +the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out +upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, +or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual +repasts--a grace before Milton--a grace before Shakspeare--a +devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy +Queen?--but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the +solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to +the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called; +commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand +philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now +compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a certain snug +congregation of Utopian Rabelæsian Christians, no matter where +assembled. + +The form then of the benediction before eating has its beauty at +a poor man's table, or at the simple and unprovocative repasts of +children. It is here that the grace becomes exceedingly graceful. +The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the +next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of the +blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose +minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some +extreme theory, have entered. The proper end of food--the animal +sustenance--is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's bread is +his daily bread, literally his bread for the day. Their courses are +perennial. + +Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the +grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind +most free for foreign considerations. A man may feel thankful, +heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and have +leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating; +when he shall confess a perturbation o f mind, inconsistent with the +purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I +have sate (a _rarus hospes_) at rich men's tables, with the savoury +soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips +of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the +introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous +orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious +sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a +mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of +devotion. The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly-god +intercepts it for his own. The very excess of the provision beyond the +needs, takes away all sense of proportion between the end and means. +The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice +of returning thanks--for what?--for having too much, while so many +starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. + +I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously perhaps, +by the good man who says the grace. I have seen it in clergymen and +others--a sort of shame--a sense of the co-presence of circumstances +which unhallow the blessing. After a devotional tone put on for a few +seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice, +helping himself or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy +sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was +not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt in +his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and the viands before +him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude. + +I hear somebody exclaim,--Would you have Christians sit down at table, +like hogs to their troughs, without remembering the Giver?--no--I +would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, +and less like hogs. Or if their appetites must run riot, and they +must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are +ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter +season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be +heard, and the reason of the grace returns--with temperate diet and +restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for +thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil +knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celasno +any thing but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the +deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a +meaner and inferior gratitude: but the proper object of the grace is +sustenance, not relishes; daily bread, not delicacies; the means of +life, and not the means of pampering the carcass. With what frame or +composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction +at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding +pious word--and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he +preaches--is but the signal for so many impatient harpies to commence +their foul orgies, with as little sense of true thankfulness (which +is temperance) as those Virgilian fowl! It is well if the good man +himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy +sensuous steams mingling with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice. + +The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the banquet which +Satan, in the Paradise Regained, provides for a temptation in the +wilderness: + + A table richly spread in regal mode, + With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort + And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, + In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, + Gris-amber-steamed; all fish from sea or shore, + Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained + Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. + +The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without +the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short +graces where the devil plays the host.--I am afraid the poet wants his +usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury, +or of a gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a temptation fitter for a +Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and the +accompaniments altogether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy +scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend conjures +up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the +guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have +been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of +God, what sort of feasts presented themselves?--He dreamed indeed, + + --As appetite is wont to dream, + Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. + +But what meats?-- + + Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, + And saw the ravens with their horny beaks + Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn; + Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought: + He saw the prophet also how he fled + Into the desert, and how there he slept + Under a juniper; then how awaked + He found his supper on the coals prepared, + And by the angel was bid rise and eat, + And ate the second time after repose, + The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: + Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, + Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of +the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think +you, would the introduction of what is called the grace have been most +fitting and pertinent? + +Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically I own that +(before meat especially) they seem to involve something awkward and +unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another kind, are excellent +spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the +great ends of preserving and continuing the species. They are fit +blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude; +but the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will apprehend me) +is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers who +go about their business, of every description, with more calmness +than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I +have always admired their silent grace, and the more because I have +observed their applications to the meat and drink following to be +less passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor +wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopt hay, +with indifference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They neither +grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and +tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. + +I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the +kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to +be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows +it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in +higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to +like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes +for food. C---- holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses +apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of +my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those +innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with +me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle +thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappointments, +as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some +savoury mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter +ill melted--that commonest of kitchen failures--puts me beside my +tenour.--The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal +noises over a favourite food. Was this the music quite proper to +be preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have done better +to postpone his devotions to a season when the blessing plight be +contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, +nor would set my thin face against those excellent things, in their +way, jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable, +have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should be sure, +before he ventures so to grace them, that while he is pretending his +devotions otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some +great fish--his Dagon--with a special consecration of no ark but the +fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the +banquets of angels and children; to the roots and severer repasts +of the Chartreuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, +refection of the poor and humble man: but at the heaped-up boards of +the pampered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less +timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those +better befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, at +Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in +the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or +engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be +common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To +be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add +hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes +the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most +tables. In houses where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, +who has not seen that never settled question arise, as to _who shall +say it_; while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or +some other guest belike of next authority from years or gravity, shall +be bandying about the office between them as a matter of compliment, +each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an +equivocal duty from his own shoulders? + +I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different +persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce to each other for the +first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of +these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, +whether he chose to _say any thing_. It seems it is the custom with +some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His +reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an +explanation, with little less importance he made answer, that it was +not a custom known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other +acquiescing for good manner's sake, or in compliance with a weak +brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With +what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of _his_ +religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing +or omitting a sacrifice,--the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his +incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and +(as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. + +A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long +one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do +not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that +equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C.V.L., when importuned +for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is +there no clergyman here?"--significantly adding, "thank G----." Nor do +I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to +preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, connecting +with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful +and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. _Non +tunc illis erat locus._ I remember we were put to it to reconcile the +phrase "good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the +fare set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low +and animal sense,--till some one recalled a legend, which told how +in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to +have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till +some pious benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the +palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave +us--_horresco referens_--trowsers instead of mutton. + + + + +MY FIRST PLAY + + +At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some +architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at +present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if +you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance +to old Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it +without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring +to the evening when I passed through it to see _my first play_. The +afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder +folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating +heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of +which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to +remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it. + +We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the +oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone-building, +in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had +pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John +Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if +John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of +his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, +Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought +his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at +Bath--the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a +quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious +charge.--From either of these connexions it may be inferred that +my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane +theatre at pleasure--and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those +cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say +was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years' +nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that +theatre--and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's +familiarity--or supposed familiarity--was better to my godfather than +money. + +F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. +His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had +two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin +from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled +me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded +_vice versâ_--but in those young years they impressed me with more awe +than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro--in his own +peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicized, +into something like _verse verse_. By an imposing manner, and the help +of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the +highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow. + +He is dead--and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for +my first orders (little wondrous talismans!--slight keys, and +insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian +paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came +into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call +my own--situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in +Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted +foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon +me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over +my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion +in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all +betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more +prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it. + +In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who +abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at +the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door +in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again!--with the cry +of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those +days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of +the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase +some numparels, chase a bill of the play;"--chase _pro_ chuse. But +when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven +to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed--the breathless +anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate +prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakspeare--the tent scene +with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a +measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full +of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the +pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance +(I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling--a homely +fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised +imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a +glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those +"fair Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once +again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in +a sort 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 was +Artaxerxes! + +I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of +it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight +of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for +I understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was +in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous +vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not +players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol +of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was +awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more +than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such +pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin's Invasion +followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates +into 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 the +legend of St. Denys. + +The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of +which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left +in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost--a +satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my +apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of +antiquity as Lud--the father, of a line of Harlequins--transmitting +his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw +the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of +white patch-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 the +World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I +remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me +like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in which +Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in +the story.--The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have +clean 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 the +grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout +meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old +Round Church (my church) of the Templars. + +I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven +years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for +at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors +of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in +my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same +occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, +than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! +At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated +nothing. 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. The +same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, +was gone!--The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two +worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present +"a royal ghost,"--but a certain quantity of green baize, which was +to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their +fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The +lights--the orchestra lights--came up a clumsy machinery. The first +ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's +bell--which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a +voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. +The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in +them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many +centuries--of six short twelve-months--had wrought in me.--Perhaps +it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an +indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable +expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions +with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance +to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon +yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became +to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations. + + + + +DREAM-CHILDREN + +A REVERIE + + +Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when _they_ +were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a +traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in +this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to +hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house +in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa +lived) which had been the scene--so at least it was generally believed +in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which they had +lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the +Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their +cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the +chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin +Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a +marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. +Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be +called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good +their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by every +body, though she was not indeed 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 it too) committed to her by the owner, who +preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had +purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it +in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the +great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, +and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and +carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and +looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they +had seen lately at the 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 by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the +gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their +respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious +woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, +and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread +her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their +great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was +esteemed the best dancer--here Alice's little right foot played an +involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted--the +best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called +a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend +her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, +because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used +to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and +how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen +at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she +slept, but she said, "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how +frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep +with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she--and +yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eye-brows and +tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her +grand-children, having us to the great-house in the holydays, where I +in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the +old busts of the Twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till +the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into +marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that +huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, +fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost +rubbed out--sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I +had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening +man would cross me--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the +walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were +forbidden fruit, unless now and then,--and because I had more pleasure +in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the +firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were +good for nothing but to look at--or in lying about upon the fresh +grass, with all the fine garden smells around me--or basking in the +orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the +oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth--or in watching the dace +that 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 water +in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings,--I +had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet +flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits +of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch +of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing +with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present +as irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, +though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, +yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John +L----, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to +the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like +some 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 half +over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any +out--and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had +too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries--and how +their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to +the admiration of every body, but of their great-grandmother Field +most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was +a lame-footed boy--for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile +when I could not walk for pain;--and how in after life he became +lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough +for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently +how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how +when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he +had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and +death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but +afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take +it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had +died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much +I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, +and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for +we quarreled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as +uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the +doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked +if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, +and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but +to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told +how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, +yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W--n; and, as much as +children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and +difficulty, and denial meant in maidens--when suddenly, turning to +Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a +reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood +there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood +gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, +and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features +were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely +impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor +of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called +Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We +are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores +of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name"--and +immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor +arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget +unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. + + + + +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS + +IN A LETTER TO B.F. ESQ. AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES + + +My dear F.--When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the +world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which +you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at +my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a +correspondence at our distance. The weary world of waters between us +oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl +of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption +to expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing +for posterity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's superscriptions, +"Alcander to Strephon, in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel is no more +than would be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at +Lombard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets +it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a +long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself +at one end, and _the man_ at the other; it would be some balk to the +spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with +that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a +higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some +parasangs nigher that primitive idea--Plato's man--than we in England +here have the honour to reckon ourselves. + +Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; news, sentiment, +and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or +subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, +non-seriously.--And first, for news. In them the most desirable +circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be true. But what security +can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not before you +get it unaccountably turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend +P. is at this present writing--_my Now_--in good health, and enjoys +a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is +natural and friendly. But at this present reading--_your Now_--he may +possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in reason ought +to abate something of your transport (_i.e._ at hearing he was well, +&c.), or at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the play +this evening, to have a laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, I +think you told me, in your land of d----d realities. You naturally +lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you +will correct the hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning with +you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of _two +presents_, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent you +word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat +this evening, though at the moment you received the intelligence my +full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two +after, as you would well know, a smack, a relish left upon my mental +palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a +portion at least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my +intention to produce. But ten months hence your envy or your sympathy +would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does +truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is +harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction for the fear that it may +ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I +put upon you, some three years since ---- of Will Weatherall having +married a servant-maid! I remember gravely consulting you how we +were to receive her--for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected; +and your no less serious replication in the matter; how tenderly you +advised an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady, +with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters +more within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, +or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks, and spits, and +mops, could with propriety be introduced as subjects; whether the +conscious avoiding of all such matters in discourse would not have a +worse look than the taking of them casually in our way; in what manner +we should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall +being by; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of +respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chiding +before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky as +to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a +humble station. There were difficulties, I remember, on both sides, +which you did me the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, +united to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your +solemn pleadings, when lo! while I was valuing myself upon this +flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous +possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, +has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the +commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your +diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to +take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news from +me must become history to you; which I neither profess to write, nor +indeed care much for reading. No person, under a diviner, can with any +prospect of veracity conduct a correspondence at such an arm's length. +Two prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; +the epoch of the writer (Habbakuk) falling in with the true present +time of the receiver (Daniel); but then we are no prophets. + +Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind +of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot; or sent off in +water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself. +If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. +I have often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems that +travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, +or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so fantastically and +invitingly over a stream--was it?--or a rock?--no matter--but the +stillness and the repose, after a weary journey 'tis likely, in a +languid moment of his lordship's hot restless life, so took his fancy, +that he could imagine no place so proper, in the event of his death, +to lay his bones in. This was all very natural and excusable as a +sentiment, and shows his character in a very pleasing light. But when +from a passing sentiment it came to be an act; and when, by a positive +testamentary disposal, his remains were actually carried all that way +from England; who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, +that did not ask the question, Why could not his lordship have found +a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, +with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or +in Devon? Conceive the sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the +Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted +into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and handled between the rude +jests of tarpaulin ruffians--a thing of its delicate texture--the +salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. +Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about +sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory +shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign +to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy +consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing--at Lyons shall +we say?--I have not the map before me--jostled upon four men's +shoulders--baiting at this town--stopping to refresh at t'other +village--waiting a passport here, a license there; the sanction of the +magistracy in this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in +that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out +and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or +tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am +afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite sea-worthy. + +Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though contemptible +in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a +right friendly epistle--your puns and small jests are, I apprehend, +extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. They are so far +from a capacity of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will +scarce endure to be transported by hand from this room to the next. +Their vigour is as the instant of their birth. Their nutriment +for their brief existence is the intellectual atmosphere of the +bystanders: or this last, is the fine slime of Nilus--the _melior +Lutis_,--whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the _sol pater_ +to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present +ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more transmit it in its pristine +flavour, than you can send a kiss.--Have you not tried in some +instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has +it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem +to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like picking up +at a village ale-house a two days old newspaper. You have not seen +it before, but you resent the stale thing as an affront. This sort +of merchandise above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its +recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The one is the brisk +lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the +link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a +mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface +were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve-months, my dear F.) +in giving back its copy? + +I cannot image to myself where about you are. When I try to fix it, +Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Sometimes you seem to be in +the _Hades_ of _Thieves_. I see Diogenes prying among you with his +perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to +give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten +how _we_ look. And tell me, what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng +all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such +a depredation! The kangaroos--your Aborigines--do they keep their +primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short +fore-puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! +Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided _a +priori_; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair +a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony.--We +hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that +the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils +their scanning?--It must look very odd; but use reconciles. For their +scansion, it is less to be regretted, for if they take it into their +heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the greater part of +them, vile plagiarists.--Is there much difference to see to between +the son of a th**f, and the grandson? or where does the taint stop? Do +you bleach in three or in four generations?--I have many questions to +put, but ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it +will take to satisfy my scruples.--Do you grow your own hemp?--What is +your staple trade, exclusive of the national profession, I mean? Your +lock-smiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists. + +I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used +to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous windows, in +pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet +corner?--Why did I?--with its complement of four poor elms, from whose +smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first +lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in +a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a +length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English +letters before they can reach you. But while I talk, I think you hear +me,--thoughts dallying with vain surmise-- + + Aye me! while thee the seas and sounding shores + Hold far away. + +Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall +hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you +left children have become sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. +The blooming Miss W----r (you remember Sally W----r) called upon us +yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die off every year. +Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,--I stood ramparted +about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J.W., two springs +back corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. +If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet +you, of me, or mine. + + + + +THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS + + +I like to meet a sweep--understand me--not a grown sweeper--old +chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive--but one of those tender +novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings +not quite effaced from the cheek--such as come forth with the dawn, or +somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like +the _peep peep_ of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should +I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the +sun-rise? + +I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks--poor +blots--innocent blacknesses-- + +I reverence these young Africans of our own growth--these almost +clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from +their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a +December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. + +When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their +operation! to see a chit no bigger than one's-self enter, one knew not +by what process, into what seemed the _fauces Averni_--to pursue him +in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling +caverns, horrid shades!--to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, +he must be lost for ever!"--to revive at hearing his feeble shout of +discovered day-light--and then (O fulness of delight) running out of +doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in +safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag +waved 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 indicate +which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much +unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of a +child crowned with a tree in his hand rises." + +Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early +rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him +two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of +his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) +be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a +tester. + +There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to +be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind +of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some +tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate +may 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 he +avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant +beverage, on the south side of Fleet-street, as thou approachest +Bridge-street--_the only Salopian house_,"--I have never yet +adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended +ingredients--a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly +whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due +courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not +uninstructed 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 surprisingly +gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper--whether the oily +particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften +the 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 bitter +wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth +her sassafras for a sweet lenitive--but so it is, that no possible +taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a +delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they +will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify +one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic +animals--cats--when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. +There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can +inculcate. + +Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the +_only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art +one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant +of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from +stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler +customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the +rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan +leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, +not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the +honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the +expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our +fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake, +who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in more grateful +coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stops +to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. + +This is _Saloop_--the precocious herb-woman's darling--the delight of +the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of +day from Hammersmith to Covent-garden's famed piazzas--the delight, +and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him +shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the +grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee +but three half-pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an +added halfpenny)--so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged +secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter +volume to the welkin--so may the descending soot never taint thy +costly well-ingredienced soups--nor the odious cry, quickreaching from +street to street, of the _fired chimney_, invite the rattling engines +from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy +peace and pocket! + +I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers +and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over +the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I +endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than +forgiveness.--In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with +my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide +brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and +shame enough--yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had +happened--when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered +me. 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 +the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked +themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a +previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with +such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has +got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, +grinning at the pye-man--there he stood, as he stands in the picture, +irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever--with such a maximum +of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth--for the grin of a +genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it--that I could have +been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have +remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. + +I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine +set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is +a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should +take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or +fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must +I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to +ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as +an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It +is, 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 +better days; a hint of nobility:--and, doubtless, under the obscuring +darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes +lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, +and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender +victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and +almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, +so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be +accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble +Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the +fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and +the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of, good +fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless _defiliations_. + +In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since--under a +ducal canopy--(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to +visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially +a connoisseur)--encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with +starry coronets inwoven--folded between a pair of sheets whiter and +softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius--was discovered by +chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast +asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow +confounded 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 the +delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, +creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the +pillow, and slept like a young Howard. + +Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.--But I cannot +help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted +at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am +mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with +whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under +such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets +of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, +when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far +above his pretensions--is this probable, I would ask, if the great +power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within +him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for +such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, +not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, +when he was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such +sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as +into his proper _incunabula_, and resting-place.--By no other theory, +than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can +I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so +indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. + +My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief of +metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to +reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted +an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure +to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in +Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. +Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the +metropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and +then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly +winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, +indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into +our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be +no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out +of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the +wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The +place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side +of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable +hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the +interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled +about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were +spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a +comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils +of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head +waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty +companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was +clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first +table--for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the +humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some +general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, +his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame +Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, +half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint upon her +chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a +shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled +the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the +sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with _his_ more unctuous +sayings--how he would fit the tit bits to the puny mouths, reserving +the lengthier links for the seniors--how he would intercept a morsel +even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to +the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's +eating"--how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or +that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them +all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best +patrimony,--how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it +were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, +he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe +the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts--"The King,"--the +"Cloth,"--which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting +and flattering;--and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, +"May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other +fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, +would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment +with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a +prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then stuffing +into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) +indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them +mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the +entertainment. + + 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 +my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, +missing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the +glory of Smithfield departed for ever. + + + + +A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS + + +The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation--your only +modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses--is uplift with +many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the +bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags--staves, +dogs, and crutches--the whole mendicant fraternity with all their +baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh +persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets +and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing +sent." + +I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent +crusado, or _bellum ad exterminationem_, proclaimed against a species. +Much good might be sucked from these Beggars. + +They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their +appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to an ingenuous mind +than to be a suppliant to the particular humours or caprice of any +fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. +Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the +assessment. + +There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; +as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go +in livery. + +The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and when +Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards +him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a picture of him, swaying +a ferula for a sceptre, which would have affected our minds with the +same heroic pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we +regard his Belisarius begging for an _obolum_? Would the moral have +been more graceful, more pathetic? + +The Blind Beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy--whose +story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or +attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit will shine +through the disguisements--this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he +was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence +of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green +of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side, +illumining his rags and his beggary--would the child and parent have +cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating +their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some +sempstering shop-board? + +In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King. +The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would +call them) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse +of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good +earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates +the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented +to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. +Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till +he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, +must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, +supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish. + +The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when +they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us +an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up +foul linen. + +How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined +his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the +imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King +Cophetua wooes the beggar maid? + +Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed +with contempt. No one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a +comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour +grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. +Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts +to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his +trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the +streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a +shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally +comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. +He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of +property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No +one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him +of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him +for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour +seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes +to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, +rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a +poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness +of my mind, to be a Beggar. + +Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and +graceful _insignia_ of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the +suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never +out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required +to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His +costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only +man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups +and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth +in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The +fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, +or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become +bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his +religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The +Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I +can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. No corner of +a street is complete without them. They are as indispensable as the +Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the +Signs of old London. They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos, +dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary +checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry-- + + --Look + Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there. + +Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of +Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled them, +casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible) +of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet,--whither are +they fled? or into what corners, blind as themselves, have they been +driven, out of the wholesome air and sun-warmth? immersed between +four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the penalty +of double darkness, where the chink of the dropt half-penny no more +consoles their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful +and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless +staves? and who will farm their dogs?--Have the overseers of St. L---- +caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into +the Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----? + +Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most classical, and +at the same time, most English, of the Latinists!--who has treated +of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship, +in the sweetest of his poems, the _Epitaphium in Canem_, or, _Dog's +Epitaph_. Reader, peruse it; and say, if customary sights, which could +call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more +harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily +thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis. + + Pauperis hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, + Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectæ, + Dux cæco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat, + Prætenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum + Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus, + Quæ dubios regerent passûs, vestigia tuta + Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile + In nudo nactus saxo, qua prætereuntium + Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras + Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam. + Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter, + Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. + Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, + Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa + Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice + Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei + Tædia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. + + Hi mores, hæc vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, + Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senectâ; + Quæ tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite cæcum + Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti + Ne tola intereat, longos deleta per annos, + Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, + Etsi inopis, non ingratæ, munuscula dextræ; + Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque + Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum. + + * * * * * + + Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, + That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, + His guide and guard: nor, while my service lasted, + Had he occasion for that staff, with which + He now goes picking out his path in fear + Over the highways and crossings; but would plant, + Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, + A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd + His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide + Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd: + To whom with loud and passionate laments + From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. + Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, + The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. + I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; + Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear + Prick'd up at his least motion; to receive + At his kind hand ray customary crums, + And common portion in his feast of scraps; + Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent + With our long day and tedious beggary. + + These were my manners, this my way of life, + Till age and slow disease me overtook, + And sever'd from my sightless master's side. + But lest the grace of so good deeds should die. + Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, + This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, + Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand, + And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, + In long and lasting union to attest, + The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. + +These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well-known +figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to glide his comely +upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling along with most +ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood; a spectacle to natives, +to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a +florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and +sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the scientific, +a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man +brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise his +own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart, +of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the +accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780, +and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antæus, +and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He +was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which +should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only +retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a +tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, +and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that +had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his +just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was +as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been +cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could +have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left +him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly +countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this +out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service, +but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to +exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house, +he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically +christened) of Correction. + +Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called +for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a +touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? Among her shows, +her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but +an accumulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for +what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not +_Naturæ_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years' +going about, the man had scraped together enough to give a portion +to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he +injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their +_sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the +heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly +trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to +retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over +a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought +against him by a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons' +Committee--was _this_, or was his truly paternal consideration, which +(if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is +inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which +he has been slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his +chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in hoary +age for a sturdy vagabond?-- + +There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed to have sate +down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction, +ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost +thy breed."-- + +Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by begging +are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in +the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable inferences +deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announcement of +a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a +stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham +(or some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had +been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half-penny +duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms +by the way-side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his +daily benefactor by the voice only; and, when he died, left all the +amassings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the +accumulating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up +people's hearts, and pennies, against giving an alms to the blind?--or +not rather a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, +and noble gratitude upon the other? + +I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. + +I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, and +looking up with his no eyes in the sun--Is it possible I could have +steeled my purse against him? + +Perhaps I had no small change. + +Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, +imposture--_give, and ask no questions_. Cast thy bread upon the +waters. Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels. + +Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a +charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) +comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small +children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable +existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save +a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he +pretendeth, _give_, and under a personate father of a family, think +(if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent bachelor. When +they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, think them +players. You pay your money to see a comedian feign these things, +which, concerning these poor people, thou canst not certainly tell +whether they are feigned or not. + + + + +A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG + + +Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging +enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages +ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just +as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely +hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his +Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the +term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on +to say, that the art of roasting, 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 his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who +being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, +let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, +spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, +till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry +antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of +much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than +nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all +over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in +the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake +of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again +with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any +time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he +should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking +remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his +nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What +could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he had smelt that +smell before--indeed this was by no means the first accident of the +kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young +fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, +or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his +nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel +the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, +and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. +Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, +and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for +before him no man had known it) he tasted--_crackling_! Again he felt +and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he +licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke +into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and +the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the +newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched +skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in +his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, +armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to +rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, +which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The +tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had +rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in +those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat +him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming +a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following +dialogue ensued. + +"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not +enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's +tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know +not what--what have you got there, I say?" + +"O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig +eats." + +The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he +cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt +pig. + +Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since moming, soon raked +out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser +half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out "Eat, +eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste--O Lord,"--with such like +barbarous ejaculations, 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 unnatural +young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had +done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn +tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for +a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion +(for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son +fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had +despatched all that remained of the litter. + +Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the +neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable +wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which +God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was +observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than +ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out +in 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, seemed +to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, +the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take +their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was +given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about +to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the +burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into +the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their +fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature +prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all +the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,--to +the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and +all present--without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation +whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. + +The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity +of the decision: and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and +bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few +days his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing +took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every +direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. +The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter +and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of +architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this +custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my +manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that +the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked +(_burnt_, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a +whole 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, +I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the +manuscript, 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 must +be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as +setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in +favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found +in ROAST PIG. + +Of all the delicacies in the whole _mundus edibilis_, I will maintain +it to be the most delicate--_princeps obsoniorum_. + +I speak not of your grown porkers--things between pig and pork--those +hobbydehoys--but a young and tender suckling--under a moon +old--guiltless as yet of the sty--with no original speck of the +_amor immunditiæ_, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet +manifest--his voice as yet not broken, but something between a +childish treble, and a grumble--the mild forerunner, or _præludium_, +of a grunt. + +_He must be roasted._ I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them +seethed, 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 well +called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure +at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance--with the +adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but an indefinable sweetness +growing up to it--the tender blossoming of fat--fat cropped in the +bud--taken in the shoot--in the first innocence--the cream and +quintessence 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 be so) so +blended and running into each other, that both together make but 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 he +twirleth round the string!--Now he is just done. To see the extreme +sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty +eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars-- + +See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!--wouldst +thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility +which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would +have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable +animal--wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation--from these +sins 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 half +rejecteth, the rank bacon--no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking +sausages--he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the +judicious epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die. + +He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost +too transcendent--a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, +that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause--too +ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips +that approach her--like lovers' kisses, she biteth--she is a pleasure +bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish--but +she stoppeth at the palate--she meddleth not with the appetite--and +the 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 the weakling refuseth not his +mild juices. + +Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, +inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he +is--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 the +least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. + +I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the +good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in +this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my +friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine +own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, +partridges, snipes, barn-door chicken (those "tame villatic fowl"), +capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as +I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue +of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like +Lear, "give every thing." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an +ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, +or send out of the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, +or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I +may say, to my individual palate--It argues an insensibility. + +I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good +old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without +stuffing a sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had +dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the +oven. In my way to school (it was over London bridge) a grey-headed +old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was +a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity +of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, +I made him a present of--the whole cake! I walked on a little, +buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of +self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, +my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how +ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift +away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a +bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt +would be taking in thinking that I--I myself, and not another--would +eat her nice cake--and what should I say to her the next time I saw +her--how naughty I was to part with her pretty present--and the odour +of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure +and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy +when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel +that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last--and I blamed +my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of +goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that +insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. + +Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender +victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, +as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is +gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light +merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and +dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh +of young, pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be +cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom +of the practice. It might impart a gusto-- + +I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I +was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on +both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained +his death by whipping (_per flagellationem extremam_) superadded a +pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible +suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using +that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision. + +His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crums, done up +with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear +Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole +hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with +plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or +make them stronger than they are--but consider, he is a weakling--a +flower. + + + + +A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE + + +As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in noting down +the infirmities of Married People, to console myself for those +superior pleasures, which they tell me I have lost by remaining as I +am. + +I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever made any +great impression upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen me in +those anti-social resolutions, which I took up long ago upon more +substantial considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses +of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different +description;--it is that they are too loving. + +Not too loving neither: that does not explain my meaning. Besides, +why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from +the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's +society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world. + +But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so +undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so +shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being +made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that _you_ are not +the object of this preference. Now there are some things which give +no offence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but expressed, +there is much offence in them. If a man were to accost the first +homely-featured or plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and +tell her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, +and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill +manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and +opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought +fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it +were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of +making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a +married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less +plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,--the lady's choice. +It is enough that I know I am not: I do not want this perpetual +reminding. + +The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently +mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is +brought out to insult me, may accidentally improve me; and in the rich +man's houses and pictures,--his parks and gardens, I have a temporary +usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of +these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified +insult. + +Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least +invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive +privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, +that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, +may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married +monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our +faces. + +Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and +satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple, +in that of the lady particularly: it tells you, that her lot is +disposed of in this world: that _you_ can have no hopes of her. +It is true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps: but this is +one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for +granted, not expressed. The excessive airs which those people give +themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be +more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them to +understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better than we +who have not had the happiness to be made free of the company: but +their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person +presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most +indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent +person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best +of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight +before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from +her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London +market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old +Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about such matters. + +But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these +creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, +to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children +are,--that every street and blind alley swarms with them,--that the +poorest people commonly have them in most abundance,--that there +are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these +bargains,--how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes +of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, +disgrace, the gallows, &c.--I cannot for my life tell what cause +for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young +phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a +pretext. But when they are so common-- + +I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their +husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. But why _we_, who +are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our +spices, myrrh, and incense,--our tribute and homage of admiration,--I +do not see. + +"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young +children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed +for the churching of women. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver +full of them:" So say I; but then don't let him discharge his +quiver upon us that are weaponless;--let them be arrows, but not to +gall and stick us. I have generally observed that these arrows are +double-headed: they have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the +other. As for instance, when you come into a house which is full of +children, if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking +of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent +caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of +children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually +engaging,--if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about +in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure +to be found for sending them out of the room: they are too noisy or +boisterous, or Mr. ---- does not like children. With one or other of +these forks the arrow is sure to hit you. + +I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their +brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be +called upon to _love_ them, where I see no occasion,--to love a whole +family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,--to love all +the pretty dears, because children are so engaging. + +I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always +so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease +you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,--any +inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or +the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long +absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing +that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and +apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a +real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable +or unamiable _per se_; I must love or hate them as I see cause for +either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to +admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and +to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own +stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is +an attractive age,--there is something in the tender years of infancy +that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice +about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, +not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the +prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it +should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another +in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.--I was +always rather squeamish in my women and children. + +But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity +at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, +and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom +you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,--if you did not +come in on the wife's side,--if you did not sneak into the house in +her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before +their courtship was so much as thought on,--look about you--your +tenure is precarious--before a twelve-month shall roll over your head, +you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards +you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have +scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I +can rely, whose friendship did not commence _after the period of his +marriage_. With some limitations they can endure that: but that the +good man should have dared to enter into a solemn league of friendship +in which they were not consulted, though it happened before they +knew him,--before they that are now man and wife ever met,--this +is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic +intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with +their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that +was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new +marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will +let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally +befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these _new mintings_. + +Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm you out +of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you say with a kind of +wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, +_but an oddity_, is one of the ways;--they have a particular kind of +stare for the purpose;--till at last the husband, who used to defer to +your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of understanding +and manner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite +vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to suspect whether you are +not altogether a humorist,--a fellow well enough to have consorted +with in his bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced +to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is that which has +oftenest been put in practice against me. + +Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony: that is, +where they find you an object of especial regard with their husband, +who is not so easily to be shaken from the lasting attachment founded +on esteem which he has conceived towards you; by never-qualified +exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, +who understands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him, +grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so much candour, +and by relaxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two +in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level of moderate +esteem,--that "decent affection and complacent kindness" towards you, +where she herself can join in sympathy with him without much stretch +and violence to her sincerity. + +Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable +a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, +continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond +of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your moral character +was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, upon any +imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she +will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, Mr. ---- as +a great wit." If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm +in your conversation that he first grew to like you, and was content +for this to overlook some trifling irregularities in your moral +deportment, upon the first notice of any of these she as readily +exclaims, "This, my dear, is your good Mr. ----." One good lady whom +I took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me quite so +much respect as I thought due to her husband's old friend, had the +candour to confess to me that she had often heard Mr. ---- speak +of me before marriage, and that she had conceived a great desire +to be acquainted with me, but that the sight of me had very much +disappointed her expectations; for from her husband's representations +of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, +officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of +which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility +not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of +personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so +much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible +approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which +I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no more than +myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character in his air or +countenance. + +These are some of the mortifications which I have encountered in the +absurd attempt to visit at their houses. To enumerate them all would +be a vain endeavour: I shall therefore just glance at the very common +impropriety of which married ladies are guilty,--of treating us as if +we were their husbands, and _vice versâ_. I mean, when they use us +with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony. _Testacea_, for +instance, kept me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual +time of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. ---- did not come +home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be +guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was +reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an invention to +take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to +be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some +other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in +little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to +deny in the greater. Had _Testacea_ kept the oysters back for me, and +withstood her husband's importunities to go to supper, she would have +acted according to the strict rules of propriety. I know no ceremony +that ladies are bound to observe to their husbands, beyond the point +of a modest behaviour and decorum: therefore I must protest against +the vicarious gluttony of _Cerasia_, who at her own table sent away a +dish of Morellas, which I was applying to with great good will, to her +husband at the other end of the table, and recommended a plate of +less extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in their stead. +Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of ----. + +But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaintance by Roman +denominations. Let them amend and change their manners, or I promise +to record the full-length English of their names, to the terror of all +such desperate offenders in future. + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + + +The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which I picked up the other +day--I know not by what chance it was preserved so long--tempts me to +call to mind a few of the Players, who make the principal figure in +it. It presents the cast of parts in the Twelfth Night, at the old +Drury-lane Theatre two-and-thirty years ago. There is something very +touching in these old remembrances. They make us think how we _once_ +used to read a Play Bill--not, as now peradventure, singling out a +favorite performer, and casting a negligent eye over the rest; but +spelling out every name, down to the very mutes and servants of +the scene;--when it was a matter of no small moment to us whether +Whitfield, or Packer, took the part of Fabian; when Benson, and +Burton, and Phillimore--names of small account--had an importance, +beyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best +actors.--"Orsino, by Mr. Barrymore."--What a full Shakspearian sound +it carries! how fresh to memory arise the image, and the manner, of +the gentle actor! + +Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten or fifteen +years, can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as +Ophelia; Helena, in All's Well that Ends Well; and Viola in this play. +Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough +with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steady +melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts--in which her memory now +chiefly lives--in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There +is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her +love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to +weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line, +to make up the music--yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather _read_, +not without its grace and beauty--but, when she had declared her +sister's history to be a "blank," and that she "never told her love," +there was a pause, as if the story had ended--and then the image of +the "worm in the bud" came up as a new suggestion--and the heightened +image of "Patience" still followed after that, as by some growing (and +not mechanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would +almost say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine +lines-- + + Write loyal cantos of contemned love-- + Hollow your name to the reverberate hills-- + +there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which +was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature's +own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without +rule or law. + +Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the pride of her beauty, made +an admirable Olivia. She was particularly excellent in her unbending +scenes in conversation with the Clown. I have seen some Olivias--and +those very sensible actresses too--who in these interlocutions have +seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him +in downright emulation. But she used him for her sport, like what +he was, to trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then to be +dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady still. She touched the +imperious fantastic humour of the character with nicety. Her fine +spacious person filled the scene. + +The part of Malvolio has in my judgment been so often misunderstood, +and the _general merits_ of the actor, who then played it, so unduly +appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon, if I am a little prolix +upon these points. + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which he +threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports of +the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city. His voice had +the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. +His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by affectation; +and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in every movement. He +seized the moment of passion with the greatest truth; like a faithful +clock, never striking before the time; never anticipating or leading +you to anticipate. He was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He +seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and he +did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios in Homer deliver the +errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment do its own +work without prop or bolstering. He would have scorned to mountebank +it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which is the bane of +serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only endurable one +which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his action could +divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to do. His +confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the mystery. +There were no by-intimations to make the audience fancy their own +discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who commonly stands +like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, and a quantity of +barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago of Bensley did +not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone about the +character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but none of +that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon any +little successful stroke of its knavery--as is common with your small +villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not clap or crow +before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a child, and +winking all the while at other children who are mightily pleased at +being let into the secret; but a consummate villain entrapping a noble +nature into toils, against which no discernment was available, where +the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed dark, and without +motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, was performed by +Bensley, with a richness and a dignity, of which (to judge from some +recent castings of that character) the very tradition must be worn out +from the stage. No manager in those days would have dreamed of giving +it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley was occasionally +absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it no derogation to +succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially ludicrous. He becomes +comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, repelling; but dignified, +consistent, and, for what appears, rather of an over-stretched +morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; and he might have +worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old round-head families, +in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. But his morality and +his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed to the proper +_levities_ of the piece, and falls in the unequal contest. Still his +pride, or his gravity, (call it which you will) is inherent, and +native to the man, not mock or affected, which latter only are the +fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at the best unlovely, +but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing is lofty, a little +above his station, but probably not much above his deserts. We see no +reason why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished. +His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he was +commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity of birth +and feeling. His dialect on all occasions is that of a gentleman, and +a man of education. We must not confound him with the eternal old, low +steward of comedy. He is master of the household to a great Princess; +a dignity probably conferred upon him for other respects than age or +length of service. Olivia, at the first indication of his supposed +madness, declares that she "would not have him miscarry for half of +her dowry." Does this look as if the character was meant to appear +little or insignificant? Once, indeed, she accuses him to his face--of +what?--of being "sick of self-love,"--but with a gentleness and +considerateness which could not have been, if she had not thought +that this particular infirmity shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the +knight, and his sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when +we take into consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, +and the strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled +mourning would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, +Malvolio might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his +keeping; as it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or +kinsmen, to look to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice +respects at the buttery hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be +represented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression of the +Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost infers. "Pursue +him, and entreat him to a peace." Even in his abused state of chains +and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert him. He +argues highly and well with the supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises +gallantly upon his straw.[1] There must have been some shadow of worth +about the man; he must have been something more than a mere vapour--a +thing of straw, or Jack in office--before Fabian and Maria could have +ventured sending him upon a courting-errand to Olivia. There was some +consonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the jest would +have been too bold even for that house of misrule. + +Bensley, accordingly, threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. +He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, +spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed +upon a sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. +It was big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. +You might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's affection, gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, who +came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few seasons +ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, as it +came out of Nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in puris +naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom, from +his grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning +full upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon +close inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[2] + +If few can remember Dodd, many yet living will not easily forget the +pleasant creature, who in those days enacted the part of the Clown +to Dodd's Sir Andrew.--Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in +his life-time he delighted to be called, and time hath ratified the +appellation--lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy +Paul, to whose service his nonage and tender years were dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable to +an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I could +never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one +of us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype of,--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt +or a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose and shambling gait, a slippery +tongue, this last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; +in words, light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest +rhymes tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, +or Sir Toby at the buttery-hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as Shakspeare says of Love, too +young to know what conscience is. He put us into Vesta's days. Evil +fled before him--not as from Jack, as from an antagonist,--but because +it could not touch him, any more than a cannon-ball a fly. He was +delivered from the burthen of that death; and, when Death came +himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is recorded of him by +Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he received the +last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, nor tune, +with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in his +epitaph--_O La! O La! Bobby!_ + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[3] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied +the handsome fellow in his topknot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personas were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson._ Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben._ Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all.--Well, father, +and how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson._ Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben._ Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gives us--but a piece of satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as +a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to it +a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personæ, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain but in the first or second gallery. + +[Footnote 1:_Clown_. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild + fowl? +_Mal_. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. +_Clown_. What thinkest thou of his opinion? +_Mal_. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 2: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 3: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years +only, to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear +them. Is it for a few wild speeches, an occasional license of +dialogue? I think not altogether. The business of their dramatic +characters will not stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to +that. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of +an evening, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications +of profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent +or guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic interests +left. We see a stage libertine playing his loose pranks of two hours' +duration, and of no after consequence, with the severe eyes which +inspect real vices with their bearings upon two worlds. We are +spectators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to the point +of strict morality) and take it all for truth. We substitute a real +for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. We try him in our +courts, from which there is no appeal to the _dramatis personæ_, his +peers. We have been spoiled with--not sentimental comedy--but a tyrant +far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the +exclusive and all devouring drama of common life; where the moral +point is every thing; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed +personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy) we recognise +ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, +enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in what is going on +so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our moral judgment, +in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise or slumber for +a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no modification is made +to affect us in any other manner than the same events or characters +would do in our relationships of life. We carry our fire-side concerns +to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, like our ancestors, +to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our +experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. +We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful +privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral +ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in +fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in +question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual +moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted +casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to the +interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer +for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of +the strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the +law-courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a +world with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired +the breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as fairy-land. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of the right and the wrong. The standard of _police_ +is the measure of _political justice_. The atmosphere will blight +it, it cannot live here. It has got into a moral world, where it has +no business, from which it must needs fall headlong; as dizzy, and +incapable of making a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or Angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?--The +Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact they do not +appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They +break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. +They have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call +it?--of cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, +and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene +of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No +good person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good +person suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in +in these plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike +essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is +especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from his +scenes,--some little generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps +excepted,--not only any thing like a faultless character, but any +pretensions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did +this designedly, or instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the +design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder at the strange power +which his Way of the World in particular possesses of interesting you +all along in the pursuits of characters, for whom you absolutely care +nothing--for you neither hate nor love his personages--and I think it +is owing to this very indifference for any, that you endure the whole. +He has spread a privation of moral light, I will call it, rather +than by the ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations; and +his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. Had +he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a +revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual duties, the +impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the discovery of +deformities, which now are none, because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children. + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But, like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite +as impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out +of which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that it +should be now _acted_, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +play-goers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did not +believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed in +Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities: the gaiety +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealise, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to say have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Church-yard memory--(an exhibition +as venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has past from the stage +in good time, that he did not live to this our age of seriousness. +The pleasant old Teazle _King_, too, is gone in good time. His +manner would scarce have past current in our day. We must love or +hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our detestable +coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph Surface, to go +down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no compromise--his +first appearance must shock and give horror--his specious +plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our fathers +welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm (dramatic +harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must inspire a +cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person of the +scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate ends, +but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in downright +self-satisfaction) must be _loved_ and Joseph _hated_. To balance one +disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must be no longer +the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, whose teasings +(while King acted it) were evidently as much played off at you, as +they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must be a real +person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person towards whom +duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con antagonist of the +villanous seducer Joseph. To realise him more, his sufferings under +his unfortunate match must have the downright pungency of life--must +(or should) make you not mirthful but uncomfortable, just as the same +predicament would move you in a neighbour or old friend. The delicious +scenes which give the play its name and zest, must affect you in +the same serious manner as if you heard the reputation of a dear +female friend attacked in your real presence. Crabtree, and Sir +Benjamin--those poor snakes that live but in the sunshine of your +mirth--must be rippened by this hot-bed process of realization +into asps or amphisbænas; and Mrs. Candour--O! frightful! become a +hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and Dodd--the wasp and +butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two characters; and +charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as distinguished +from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would forego +the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But, as far as I could +judge, the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal +incapacity than he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part +came steeped and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a +grace. His exact declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served +to convey the points of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed +to head the shafts to carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling +sentences was lost. I remember minutely how he delivered each in +succession, and cannot by any effort imagine how any of them could be +altered for the better. No man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the +dialogue of Congreve or of Wycherley--because none understood it--half +so well as John Kemble. His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my +recollection, faultless. He flagged sometimes in the intervals of +tragic passion. He would slumber over the level parts of an heroic +character. His Macbeth has been known to nod. But he always seemed +to me to be particularly alive to pointed and witty dialogue. The +relaxing levities of tragedy have not been touched by any since +him--the playful court-bred spirit in which he condescended to the +players in Hamlet--the sportive relief which he threw into the darker +shades of Richard--disappeared with him. He had his sluggish moods, +his torpors--but they were the halting-stones and resting-places of +his tragedy-politic savings, and fetches of the breath--husbandry of +the lungs, where nature pointed him to be an economist--rather, I +think, than errors of the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful +than the eternal tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless +dragon eyes," of present fashionable tragedy. + + + + +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN + + +Not many nights ago I had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when I retired to my pillow, his whimsical +image still stuck by me, in a manner as to threaten sleep. In vain +I tried to divest myself of it, by conjuring up the most opposite +associations. I resolved to be serious. I raised up the gravest topics +of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod, swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But I was not to escape so easily. No sooner did I fall into slumbers, +than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed me in the shape +of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing before me, +like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when you have been +taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this strangest of +all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance into, from the +day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the town for the loss +of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power of the pencil +to have fixed them when I awoke! A season or two since there was +exhibited a Hogarth gallery. I do not see why there should not be a +Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not fall far +short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but what a one +it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin down, +and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, +in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an +entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion. +Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied +like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, +literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the phrase is a +mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human countenance. +Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his friend +Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. I should not be +surprised to see him some day put out the head of a river horse; or +come forth a pewitt, or lapwing, some feathered metamorphosis. + +I have seen this gifted actor, in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. I have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in the grand grotesque of farce, Munden stands out as single and +unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had no followers. +The school of Munden began, and must end with himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--"SESSA"--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobbler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him. Who like him +can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over +the commonest daily-life objects? A table, or a joint stool, in his +conception, rises into a dignity equivalent to Cassiopeia's chair. It +is invested with constellatory importance. You could not speak of it +with more deference, if it were mounted into the firmament. A beggar +in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose the Patriarch of +Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and ennobles what it +touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal as the +seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. A tub of butter, +contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg +of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the common-place +materials of life, like primæval man with the sun and stars about him. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition_, 1833) + + + + +PREFACE + +BY A FRIEND OF THE LATE ELIA + + +This poor gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining +way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. + +To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humour of the thing, if +there was ever much in it, was pretty well exhausted; and a two years' +and a half existence has been a tolerable duration for a phantom. + +I am now at liberty to confess, that much which I have heard objected +to my late friend's writings was well-founded. Crude they are, I grant +you--a sort of unlicked, incondite things--villainously pranked in an +affected array of antique modes and phrases. They had not been _his_, +if they had been other than such; and better it is, that a writer +should be natural in a self-pleasing quaintness, than to affect a +naturalness (so called) that should be strange to him. Egotistical +they have been pronounced by some who did not know, that what he tells +us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) of another; as +in a former Essay (to save many instances)--where under the _first +person_ (his favourite figure) he shadows forth the forlorn estate +of a country-boy placed at a London school, far from his friends and +connections--in direct opposition to his own early history. If it +be egotism to imply and twine with his own identity the griefs and +affections of another--making himself many, or reducing many unto +himself--then is the skilful novelist, who all along brings in his +hero, or heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; +who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that narrowness. And how +shall the intenser dramatist escape being faulty, who doubtless, under +cover of passion uttered by another, oftentimes gives blameless vent +to his most inward feelings, and expresses his own story modestly? + +My late friend was in many respects a singular character. Those who +did not like him, hated him; and some, who once liked him, afterwards +became his bitterest haters. The truth is, he gave himself too little +concern what he uttered, and in whose presence. He observed neither +time nor place, and would e'en out with what came uppermost. With the +severe religionist he would pass for a free-thinker; while the other +faction set him down for a bigot, or persuaded themselves that he +belied his sentiments. Few understood him; and I am not certain that +at all times he quite understood himself. He too much affected that +dangerous figure--irony. He sowed doubtful speeches, and reaped +plain, unequivocal hatred.--He would interrupt the gravest discussion +with some light jest; and yet, perhaps, not quite irrelevant in ears +that could understand it. Your long and much talkers hated him. The +informal habit of his mind, joined to an inveterate impediment of +speech, forbade him to be an orator; and he seemed determined that, +no one else should play that part when he was present. He was _petit_ +and ordinary in his person and appearance. I have seen him sometimes +in what is called good company, but where he has been a stranger, sit +silent, and be suspected for an odd fellow; till some unlucky occasion +provoking it, he would stutter out some senseless pun (not altogether +senseless perhaps, if rightly taken), which has stamped his character +for the evening. It was hit or miss with him; but nine times out of +ten, he contrived by this device to send away a whole company his +enemies. His conceptions rose kindlier than his utterance, and his +happiest _impromptus_ had the appearance of effort. He has been +accused of trying to be witty, when in truth he was but struggling +to give his poor thoughts articulation. He chose his companions for +some individuality of character which they manifested.--Hence, not +many persons of science, and few professed _literati_, were of his +councils. They were, for the most part, persons of an uncertain +fortune; and, as to such people commonly nothing is more obnoxious +than a gentleman of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with +most of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was a mistake. +His _intimados_, to confess a truth, were in the world's eye a ragged +regiment. He found them floating on the surface of society; and the +colour, or something else, in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck +to him--but they were gbod and loving burrs for all that. He never +greatly cared for the society of what are called good people. If any +of these were scandalised (and offences were sure to arise), he could +not help it. When he has been remonstrated with for not making more +concessions to the feelings of good people, he would retort by asking, +what one point did these good people ever concede to him? He was +temperate in his meals and diversions, but always kept a little on +this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he +might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as +a solvent of speech. Marry--as the friendly vapour ascended, how +his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which +tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist! + +I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that my old friend +is departed. His jests were beginning to grow obsolete, and his +stories to be found out. He felt the approaches of age; and while he +pretended to cling to life, you saw how slender were the ties left to +bind him. Discoursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed +himself with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him. In our +walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at Shacklewell, +some children belonging to a school of industry had met us, and bowed +and curtseyed, as he thought, in an especial manner to _him_. "They +take me for a visiting governor," he muttered earnestly. He had +a horror, which he carried to a foible, of looking like anything +important and parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to that +stamp daily.. He had a general aversion from being treated like a +grave or respectable character, and kept a wary eye upon the advances +of age that should so entitle him. He herded always, while it was +possible, with people younger than himself. He did not conform to the +march of time, but was dragged along in the procession. His manners +lagged behind his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The _toga +virilis_ never sate gracefully on his shoulders. The impressions +of infancy had burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence of +manhood. These were weaknesses; but such as they were, they are a key +to explicate some of his writings. + + + + +BLAKESMOOR IN H-----SHIRE + + +I do not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will +over the deserted apartments of some fine old family mansion. The +traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy: and +contemplations on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession +to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible +with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present +aristocracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us +between entering an empty and a crowded church. In the latter it is +chance but some present human frailty--an act of inattention on the +part of some of the auditory--or a trait of affectation, or worse, +vain-glory, on that of the preacher--puts us by our best thoughts, +disharmonising the place and the occasion. But would'st thou know the +beauty of holiness?--go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys of +good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church: +think of the piety that has kneeled there--the congregations, old +and young, that have found consolation there--the meek pastor--the +docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting +comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself +become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and +weep around thee. + +Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles +out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with +which I had been impressed in this way in infancy. I was apprised that +the owner of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague notion +that it could not all have perished, that so much solidity with +magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere +dust and rubbish which I found it. + +The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand indeed, and the +demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to--an antiquity. + +I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood +the great gates? What bounded the court-yard? Whereabout did the +out-houses commence? a few bricks only lay as representatives of that +which was so stately and so spacious. + +Death does not shrink up his human victim at this rate. The burnt +ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion. + +Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process of +destruction, at the plucking of every pannel I should have felt the +varlets at my heart. I should have cried out to them to spare a plank +at least out of the cheerful store-room, in whose hot window-seat I +used to sit and read Cowley, with the grass-plat before, and the hum +and flappings of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it about +me--it is in mine ears now, as oft as summer returns; or a pannel of +the yellow room. + +Why, every plank and pannel of that house for me had magic in it. +The tapestried bed-rooms--tapestry so much better than painting--not +adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots--at which childhood ever +and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as +quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter +with those stern bright visages, staring reciprocally--all Ovid on the +walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Actæon in mid sprout, +with the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still more provoking, +and almost culinary coolness of Dan Phoebus, eel-fashion, deliberately +divesting of Marsyas. + +Then, that haunted room--in which old Mrs. Battle died--whereinto I +have crept, but always in the day-time, with a passion of fear; and +a sneaking curiosity, terror-tainted, to hold communication with the +past.--_How shall they build it up again?_ + +It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but that +traces of the splendour of past inmates were everywhere apparent. +Its furniture was still standing--even to the tarnished gilt leather +battledores, and crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, +which told that children had once played there. But I was a lonely +child, and had the range at will of every apartment, knew every nook +and corner, wondered and worshipped everywhere. + +The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as +it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration, So strange a +passion for the place possessed me in those years, that, though there +lay--I shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion--half hid +by trees, what I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which +bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to pass its strict +and proper precincts, that the idle waters lay unexplored for me; and +not till late in life, curiosity prevailing over elder devotion, I +found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawling brook had been the Lacus +Incognitus of my infancy. Variegated views, extensive prospects--and +those at no great distance from the house--I was told of such--what +were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my Eden?--So far from +a wish to roam, I would have drawn, methought, still closer the fences +of my chosen prison; and have been hemmed in by a yet securer cincture +of those excluding garden walls. I could have exclaimed with that +garden-loving poet-- + + Bind me, ye woodbines, in your 'twines, + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh so close your circles lace, + That I may never leave this place; + But, lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briars, nail me through! + +I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides--the low-built +roof--parlours ten feet by ten--frugal boards, and all the homeliness +of home--these were the condition of my birth--the wholesome soil +which I was planted in. Yet, without impeachment to their tenderest +lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of something beyond; +and to have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting +accidents of a great fortune. + +To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to have been +born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be had on cheaper terms than +to be obliged to an importunate race of ancestors; and the coatless +antiquary in his unemblazoned cell, revolving the long line of a +Mowbray's or De Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding names may warm +himself into as gay a vanity as those who do inherit them. The claims +of birth are ideal merely, and what herald shall go about to strip me +of an idea? Is it trenchant to their swords? can it be hacked off as a +spur can? or torn away like a tarnished garter? + +What, else, were the families of the great to us? what pleasure should +we take in their tedious genealogies, or their capitulatory brass +monuments? What to us the uninterrupted current of their bloods, +if our own did not answer within us to a cognate and correspondent +elevation? + +Or wherefore, else, O tattered and diminished 'Scutcheon that hung +upon the time-worn walls of thy princely stairs, BLAKESMOOR! have +I in childhood so oft stood poring upon thy mystic characters--thy +emblematic supporters, with their prophetic "Resurgam"--till, every +dreg of peasantry purging off, I received into myself Very Gentility? +Thou wert first in my morning eyes; and of nights, hast detained my +steps from bedward, till it was but a step from gazing at thee to +dreaming on thee. + +This is the only true gentry by adoption; the veritable change of +blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by transfusion. + +Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid trophy, I know not, +I inquired not; but its fading rags, and colours cobweb-stained, told +that its subject was of two centuries back. + +And what if my ancestor at that date was some Damoetas--feeding +flocks, not his own, upon the hills of Lincoln--did I in less +earnest vindicate to myself the family trappings of this once proud +Ægon?--repaying by a backward triumph the insults he might possibly +have heaped in his life-time upon my poor pastoral progenitor. + +If it were presumption so to speculate, the present owners of the +mansion had least reason to complain. They had long forsaken the +old house of their fathers for a newer trifle; and I was left to +appropriate to myself what images I could pick up, to raise my fancy, +or to soothe my vanity. + +I was the true descendant of those old W----s; and not the present +family of that name, who had fled the old waste places. + +Mine was that gallery of good old family portraits, which as I have +gone over, giving them in fancy my own family name, one--and then +another--would seem to smile, reaching forward from the canvas, to +recognise the new relationship; while the rest looked grave, as +it seemed, at the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts of fled +posterity. + +That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and a lamb--that hung +next the great bay window--with the bright yellow H----shire hair, and +eye of watchet hue--so like my Alice!--I am persuaded she was a true +Elia--Mildred Elia, I take it. + +Mine too, BLAKESMOOR, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic +pavements, and its Twelve Cæsars--stately busts in marble--ranged +round: of whose countenances, young reader of faces as I was, the +frowning beauty of Nero, I remember, had most of my wonder; but the +mild Galba had my love. There they stood in the coldness of death, yet +freshness of immortality. + +Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority, +high-backed and wickered, once the terror of luckless poacher, or +self-forgetful maiden--so common since, that bats have roosted in it. + +Mine too--whose else?--thy costly fruit-garden, with its sun-baked +southern wall; the ampler pleasure-garden, rising backwards from the +house in triple terraces, with flower-pots now of palest lead, save +that a speck here and there, saved from the elements, bespeak their +pristine state to have been gilt and glittering; the verdant quarters +backwarder still; and, stretching still beyond, in old formality, +thy firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day-long +murmuring woodpigeon, with that antique image in the centre, God or +Goddess I wist not; but child of Athens or old Rome paid never a +sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus in their native groves, than I +to that fragmental mystery. + +Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too fervently in your +idol worship, walks and windings of BLAKESMOOR! for this, or what sin +of mine, has the plough passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes +think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their +extinguished habitations there may be a hope--a germ to be revivified. + + + + +POOR RELATIONS + + +A poor relation--is the most irrelevant thing in nature,--a piece of +impertinent correspondency,--an odious approximation,--a haunting +conscience,--a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of +your prosperity,--an unwelcome remembrancer,--a perpetually recurring +mortification,--a drain on your purse,--a more intolerable dun upon +your pride,--a drawback upon success,--a rebuke to your rising,--a +stain in your blood,--a blot on your scutcheon,--a rent in your +garment,--a death's head at your banquet,--Agathocles' pot,--a +Mordecai in your gate,--a Lazarus at your door,--a lion in your +path,--a frog in your chamber,--a fly in your ointment,--a mote in +your eye,--a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,--the +one thing not needful,--the hail in harvest,--the ounce of sour in a +pound of sweet. + +He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. +----." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, +at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth +smiling, and--embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, +and--draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner +time--when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you +have company--but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your +visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never +cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, +"My dear, perhaps Mr. ---- will drop in to-day." He remembereth +birth-days--and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. +He declareth against fish, the turbot being small--yet suffereth +himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. +He sticketh by the port--yet will be prevailed upon to empty the +remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is +a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, +or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him +before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part +take 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 +familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the +familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness +he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too +humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a +client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he +bringeth up no rent--yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that +your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist +table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and--resents being left +out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach--and +lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust +in some mean, and quite unimportant anecdote of--the family. He +knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in +seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what +he calleth--favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of +congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and +insults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He +is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, +there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle--which +you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in +having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not +so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did +not know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the +family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk +a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss +his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly +rid of two nuisances. + +There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is--a female Poor +Relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off +tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is +an old humourist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His +circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are +fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But +in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No +woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without +shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L----s; or what does she at +their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine +times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something +between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently +predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously +sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed +sometimes--_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_--but there is no raising +her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped--after the +gentlemen. Mr. ---- requests the honour of taking wine with her; she +hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former--because +he does. She calls the servant _Sir_; and insists on not troubling +him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's +governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the +piano for a harpsichord. + +Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the +disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity +constituting a claim to acquaintance_, may subject the spirit of a +gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and +a lady of great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the +malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him +"her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his +indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under +which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink +him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amlet +in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W---- +was of my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of +promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality +was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and +serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off +derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried +as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he +would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have +you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had +with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us +more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not +thread 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 this +sneering 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 a +passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion from the +society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to +him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under +which Latimer must have walked erect; and in which Hooker, in his +young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. +In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor +student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which +insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. +He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond +his domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, +to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when the +waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse +malignity. The father of W---- had hitherto exercised the humble +profession of house-painter at N----, near Oxford. A supposed interest +with some of the heads of the colleges had now induced him to take +up his abode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some +public works which were talked of. From that moment I read in the +countenance of the young man, the determination which at length tore +him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with +our Universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, +as they are called--the trading part of the latter especially--is +carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The +temperament of W----'s father was diametrically the reverse of his +own. Old W---- was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his +son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to +any-thing that wore the semblance of a gown--insensible to the winks +and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or +equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously +ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W---- must change +the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the +sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high +as they can bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the +struggle. I stood with W----, the last afternoon I ever saw him, under +the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading +from the High-street to the back of ***** college, where W---- kept +his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to +rally him--finding him in a better mood--upon a representation of the +Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to +flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his +really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge of +gratitude 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 +the next morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in a +regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who +perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. + +I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating half +seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful; +but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for +tragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep +the account distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which +I received on this matter, are certainly not attended with anything +painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my father's table +(no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious +figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet +comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his +words few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I +had little inclination to have done so--for my cue was to admire in +silence. A particular elbow chair was appropriated to him, which was +in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which +appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. +I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of +him was, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at +Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place +where all the money was coined--and I thought he was the owner of +all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his +presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort +of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I +fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a +captive--a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often +have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an +habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards +him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some +argument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient +city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the +dwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked distinction +formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however +brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal +residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in +the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading +Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in +skill and hardihood, of the _Above Boys_ (his own faction) over the +_Below Boys_ (so were they called), of which party his contemporary +had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this +topic--the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought +out--and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement +(so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to +insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation +upon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the general +preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the +dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating +level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw +the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the +thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." +He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have +already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He +had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigour--when my aunt, +an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with +my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of +season--uttered the following memorable application--"Do take another +slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old +gentleman said nothing at the time--but he took occasion in the course +of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to +utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me +now as I write it--"Woman, you are superannuated." John Billet did not +survive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survived +long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I +remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the +place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint +(Anno 1781) where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable +independence; 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 never +been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was--a Poor Relation. + + + + +STAGE ILLUSION + + +A play is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the scenical +illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect, +is not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is, when +the actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators. +In tragedy--in all which is to affect the feelings--this undivided +attention to his stage business, seems indispensable. Yet it is, in +fact, dispensed with every day by our cleverest tragedians; and while +these references to an audience, in the shape of rant or sentiment, +are not too frequent or palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion +for the purposes of dramatic interest may be said to be produced in +spite of them. But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in +certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little +extravagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral +sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when, +without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit +understanding with them; and makes them, unconsciously to themselves, +a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of +doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession. + +The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, +or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward +_done to the life_ upon a stage would produce anything but mirth. +Yet we most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could any thing +be more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues. How was +this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual +sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the +shaking fit, that he was not half such a coward as we took him for? We +saw all the common symptoms of the malady upon him; the quivering lip, +the cowering knees, the teeth chattering; and could have sworn "that +man was frightened." But we forgot all the while--or kept it almost a +secret to ourselves--that he never once lost his self-possession; that +he let out by a thousand droll looks and gestures--meant at _us_, and +not at all supposed to be visible to his fellows in the scene, that +his confidence in his own resources had never once deserted him. Was +this a genuine picture of a coward? or not rather a likeness, which +the clever artist contrived to palm upon us instead of an original; +while we secretly connived at the delusion for the purpose of greater +pleasure, than a more genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, +helplessness, and utter self-desertion, which we know to be +concomitants of cowardice in real life, could have given us? + +Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, +but because the skilful actor, by a sort of sub-reference, rather than +direct appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its +odiousness, by seeming to engage _our_ compassion for the insecure +tenure by which he holds his money bags and parchments? By this subtle +vent half of the hatefulness of the character--the self-closeness +with which in real life it coils itself up from the sympathies of +men--evaporates. The miser becomes sympathetic; _i.e._ is no genuine +miser. Here again a diverting likeness is substituted for a very +disagreeable reality. + +Spleen, irritability--the pitiable infirmities of old men, which +produce only pain to behold in the realities, counterfeited upon a +stage, divert not altogether for the comic appendages to them, but in +part from an inner conviction that they are _being acted_ before us; +that a likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They +please by being done under the life, or beside it; not _to the life_. +When Gatty acts an old man, is he angry indeed? or only a pleasant +counterfeit, just enough of a likeness to recognise, without pressing +upon us the uneasy sense of reality? + +Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too natural. It was the +case with a late actor. Nothing could be more earnest or true than the +manner of Mr. Emery; this told excellently in his Tyke, and characters +of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of +attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion of +everything before the curtain into his comedy, it produced a harsh and +dissonant effect. He was out of keeping with the rest of the _Personæ +Dramatis_. There was as little link between him and them as betwixt +himself and the audience. He was a third estate, dry, repulsive, and +unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execution was masterly. +But comedy is not this unbending thing; for this reason, that the same +degree of credibility is not required of it as to serious scenes. The +degrees of credibility demanded to the two things may be illustrated +by the different sort of truth which we expect when a man tells us a +mournful or a merry story. If we suspect the former of falsehood in +any one tittle, we reject it altogether. Our tears refuse to flow at a +suspected imposition. But the teller of a mirthful tale has latitude +allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth. 'Tis the +same with dramatic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see an +audience naturalised behind the scenes, taken in into the interest +of the drama, welcomed as by-standers however. There is something +ungracious in a comic actor holding himself aloof from all +participation or concern with those who are come to be diverted by +him. Macbeth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of +it; but an old fool in farce may think he _sees something_, and by +conscious words and looks express it, as plainly as he can speak, to +pit, box, and gallery. When an impertinent in tragedy, an Osric, for +instance, breaks in upon the serious passions of the scene, we approve +of the contempt with which he is treated. But when the pleasant +impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and +raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, worries the studious man +with taking up his leisure, or making his house his home, the same +sort of contempt expressed (however _natural_) would destroy the +balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion comic, +the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature; he +must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much +dissatisfaction and peevishness as is consistent with the pleasure of +comedy. In other words, his perplexity must seem half put on. If he +repel the intruder with the sober set face of a man in earnest, and +more especially if he deliver his expostulations in a tone which in +the world must necessarily provoke a duel; his real-life manner will +destroy the whimsical and purely dramatic existence of the other +character (which to render it comic demands an antagonist comicality +on the part of the character opposed to it), and convert what was +meant for mirth, rather than belief, into a downright piece of +impertinence indeed, which would raise no diversion in us, but rather +stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest upon any unworthy person. A +very judicious actor (in most of his parts) seems to have fallen into +an error of this sort in his playing with Mr. Wrench in the farce of +Free and Easy. + +Many instances would be tedious; these may suffice to show that comic +acting at least does not always demand from the performer that strict +abstraction from all reference to an audience, which is exacted of +it; but that in some cases a sort of compromise may take place, and +all the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by a judicious +understanding, not too openly announced, between the ladies and +gentlemen--on both sides of the curtain. + + + + +TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON + + +Joyousest of once embodied spirits, whither at length hast thou flown? +to what genial region are we permitted to conjecture that thou has +flitted. + +Art thou sowing thy WILD OATS yet (the harvest time was still to come +with thee) upon casual sands of Avernus? or art thou enacting ROVER +(as we would gladlier think) by wandering Elysian streams? + +This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us, +was in truth any thing but a prison to thee, as the vain Platonist +dreams of this _body_ to be no better than a county gaol, forsooth, or +some house of durance vile, whereof the five senses are the fetters. +Thou knewest better than to be in a hurry to cast off those gyves; and +had notice to quit, I fear, before thou wert quite ready to abandon +this fleshly tenement. It was thy Pleasure House, thy Palace of Dainty +Devices; thy Louvre, or thy White Hall. + +What new mysterious lodgings dost thou tenant now? or when may we +expect thy aërial house-warming? + +Tartarus we know, and we have read of the Blessed Shades; now cannot I +intelligibly fancy thee in either. + +Is it too much to hazard a conjecture, that (as the school-men +admitted a receptacle apart for Patriarchs and un-chrisom Babes) there +may exist--not far perchance from that storehouse of all vanities, +which Milton saw in visions--a LIMBO somewhere for PLAYERS? and that + + Up thither like aërial vapours fly + Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things + Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame? + All the unaccomplish'd works of Authors' hands, + Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, + Damn'd upon earth, fleet thither-- + Play, Opera, Farce, with all their trumpery-- + +There, by the neighbouring moon (by some not improperly supposed +thy Regent Planet upon earth) mayst thou not still be acting thy +managerial pranks, great disembodied Lessee? but Lessee still, and +still a Manager. + +In Green Rooms, impervious to mortal eye, the muse beholds thee +wielding posthumous empire. + +Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) circle thee in +endlessly, and still their song is _Fye on sinful Phantasy_. + +Magnificent were thy capriccios on this globe of earth, ROBERT WILLIAM +ELLISTON! for as yet we know not thy new name in heaven. + +It irks me to think, that, stript of thy regalities, thou shouldst +ferry over, a poor forked shade, in crazy Stygian wherry. Methinks I +hear the old boatman, paddling by the weedy wharf, with raucid voice, +bawling "SCULLS, SCULLS:" to which, with waving hand, and majestic +action, thou deignest no reply, other than in two curt monosyllables, +"No: OARS." + +But the laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king, +and cobbler; manager, and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life +were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by +cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently +departed candle-snuffer. + +But mercy! what strippings, what tearing off of histrionic robes, +and private vanities! what denudations to the bone, before the surly +Ferryman will admit you to set a foot within his battered lighter! + +Crowns, sceptres; shield, sword, and truncheon; thy own coronation +robes (for thou hast brought the whole property man's wardrobe with +thee, enough to sink a navy); the judge's ermine; the coxcomb's wig; +the snuff-box _à la Foppington_--all must overboard, he positively +swears--and that ancient mariner brooks no denial; for, since the +tiresome monodrame of the old Thracian Harper, Charon, it is to be +believed, hath shown small taste for theatricals. + +Aye, now 'tis done. You are just boat weight; _pura et puta anima_. + +But bless me, how _little_ you look! + +So shall we all look--kings, and keysars--stript for the last voyage. + +But the murky rogue pushes off. Adieu, pleasant, and thrice pleasant +shade! with my parting thanks for many a heavy hour of life lightened +by thy harmless extravaganzas, public or domestic. + +Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below, leaving to his +two brethren the heavy calendars--honest Rhadamanth, always partial +to players, weighing their parti-coloured existence here upon +earth,--making account of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy +_real life_ as we call it, (though, substantially, scarcely less a +vapour than thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury,) as but of +so many echoes, natural repercussions, and results to be expected from +the assumed extravagancies of thy _secondary_ or _mock life_, nightly +upon a stage--after a lenient castigation, with rods lighter than +of those Medusean ringlets, but just enough to "whip the offending +Adam out of thee"--shall courteously dismiss thee at the right +hand gate--the O.P. side of Hades--that conducts to masques, and +merry-makings, in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine. + +PLAUDITO, ET VALETO + + + + +ELLISTONIANA + + +My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we all deplore, +was but slight. + +My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into an +acquaintance a little on this side of intimacy, was over a counter +of the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered upon by a branch +of his family. E., whom nothing misbecame--to auspicate, I suppose, +the filial concern, and set it a going with a lustre--was serving in +person two damsels fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to +inquire for some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of +the illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an air did +he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his opinion upon the +worth of the work in question, and launching out into a dissertation +on its comparative merits with those of certain publications of a +similar stamp, its rivals! his enchanted customers fairly hanging on +his lips, subdued to their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a +gentleman in comedy _acting_ the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves +in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he contrived to +carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from the occupation he had +so generously submitted to; and from that hour I judged him, with no +after repentance, to be a person, with whom it would be a felicity to +be more acquainted. + +To descant upon his merits as a Comedian would be superfluous. With +his blended private and professional habits alone I have to do; +that harmonious fusion of the manners of the player into those of +every day life, which brought the stage boards into streets, and +dining-parlours, and kept up the play when the play was ended.--"I +like Wrench," a friend was saying to him one day, "because he is the +same natural, easy creature, _on_ the stage, that he is _off_." "My +case exactly," retorted Elliston--with a charming forgetfulness, +that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same +conclusion--"I am the same person _off_ the stage that I am _on_." The +inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, +and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the other +always, _acting_. + +And in truth this was the charm of Elliston's private deportment. +You had a spirited performance always going on before your eyes, +with nothing to pay. As where a monarch takes up his casual abode for +a night, the poorest hovel which he honours by his sleeping in it, +becomes _ipso facto_ for that time a palace; so where-ever Elliston +walked, sate, or stood still, there was the theatre. He carried about +with him his pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his portable +playhouse at corners of streets, and in the market-places. Upon +flintiest pavements he trod the boards still; and if his theme chanced +to be passionate, the green baize carpet of tragedy spontaneously rose +beneath his feet. Now this was hearty, and showed a love for his art. +So Apelles _always_ painted--in thought. So G.D. _always_ poetises. +I hate a lukewarm artist. I have known actors--and some of them of +Elliston's own stamp--who shall have agreeably been amusing you in +the part of a rake or a coxcomb, through the two or three hours of +their dramatic existence; but no sooner does the curtain fall with +its leaden clatter, but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their +faculties. They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their +families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding your heart +with generous deeds and sentiments, till it even beats with yearnings +of universal sympathy; you absolutely long to go home, and do some +good action. The play seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of +the house, and realise your laudable intentions. At length the final +bell rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable +in human breasts steps forth--a miser. Elliston was more of a piece. +Did he _play_ Ranger? and did Ranger fill the general bosom of the +town with satisfaction? why should _he_ not be Ranger, and diffuse +the same cordial satisfaction among his private circles? with _his_ +temperament, _his_ animal spirits, _his_ good-nature, _his_ follies +perchance, could he do better than identify himself with his +impersonation? Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the +stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical character +presented to us in actual life? or what would the performer have +gained by divesting himself of the impersonation? Could the man +Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he +had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the +airy briskness, the forwardness, and 'scape goat trickeries of his +prototype? + +"But there is something not natural in this everlasting _acting_; we +want the real man." + +Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom you cannot, or +will not see, under some adventitious trappings, which, nevertheless, +sit not at all inconsistently upon him? What if it is the nature of +some men to be highly artificial? The fault is least reprehensible in +_players_. Cibber was his own Foppington, with almost as much wit as +Vanburgh could add to it. + +"My conceit of his person,"--it is Ben Jonson speaking of Lord +Bacon,--"was never increased towards him by his _place_ or _honours_. +But I have, and do reverence him for the _greatness_, that was only +proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever one of the _greatest_ +men, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that +heaven would give him strength; for _greatness_ he could not want." + +The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicuous in the +subject of these idle reminiscences, than in my Lord Verulam. Those +who have imagined that an unexpected elevation to the direction of a +great London Theatre, affected the consequence of Elliston, or at all +changed his nature, knew not the essential _greatness_ of the man whom +they disparage. It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan's +Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more than dust +and a shadow), on the morning of his election to that high office. +Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,--"Have +you heard the news?"--then with another look following up +the blow, he subjoined, "I am the future Manager of Drury Lane +Theatre."--Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation +or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his +new-blown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could be said to +it. Expressive silence alone could muse his praise. This was in his +_great_ style. + +But was he less _great_, (be witness, O ye Powers of Equanimity, +that supported in the ruins of Carthage the consular exile, and +more recently transmuted for a more illustrious exile the barren +constableship of Elba into an image of Imperial France), when, in +melancholy after-years, again, much near the same spot, I met him, +when that sceptre had been wrested from his hand, and his dominion was +curtailed to the petty managership, and part proprietorship, of the +small Olympic, _his Elba?_ He still played nightly upon the boards +of Drury, but in parts alas! allotted to him, not magnificently +distributed by him. Waiving his great loss as nothing, and +magnificently sinking the sense of fallen _material_ grandeur in +the more liberal resentment of depreciations done to his more +lofty _intellectual_ pretensions, "Have you heard" (his customary +exordium)--"have you heard," said he, "how they treat me? they put me +in _comedy_." Thought I--but his finger on his lips forbade any verbal +interruption--"where could they have put you better?" Then, after a +pause--"Where I formerly played Romeo, I now play Mercutio,"--and so +again he stalked away, neither staying, nor caring for, responses. + +O, it was a rich scene,--but Sir A---- C----, the best of +story-tellers and surgeons, who mends a lame narrative almost as +well as he sets a fracture, alone could do justice to it--that I was +witness to, in the tarnished room (that had once been green) of that +same little Olympic. There, after his deposition from Imperial Drury, +he substituted a throne. That Olympic Hill was his "highest heaven;" +himself "Jove in his chair." There he sat in state, while before +him, on complaint of prompter, was brought for judgment--how shall +I describe her?--one of those little tawdry things that flirt at +the tails of choruses--a probationer for the town, in either of its +senses--the pertest little drab--a dirty fringe and appendage of the +lamps' smoke--who, it seems, on some disapprobation expressed by a +"highly respectable" audience, had precipitately quitted her station +on the boards, and withdrawn her small talents in disgust. + +"And how dare you," said her Manager--assuming a censorial severity +which would have crushed the confidence of a Vestris, and disarmed +that beautiful Rebel herself of her professional caprices--I verily +believe, he thought _her_ standing before him--"how dare you, Madam, +withdraw yourself, without a notice, from your theatrical duties?" "I +was hissed, Sir." "And you have the presumption to decide upon the +taste of the town?" "I don't know that, Sir, but I will never stand +to be hissed," was the subjoinder of young Confidence--when gathering +up his features into one significant mass of wonder, pity, and +expostulatory indignation--in a lesson never to have been lost upon a +creature less forward than she who stood before him--his words were +these: "They have hissed _me_." + +'Twas the identical argument _a fortiori_, which the son of Peleus +uses to Lycaon trembling under his lance, to persuade him to take his +destiny with a good grace. "I too am mortal." And it is to be believed +that in both cases the rhetoric missed of its application, for want +of a proper understanding with the faculties of the respective +recipients. + +"Quite an Opera pit," he said to me, as he was courteously conducting +me over the benches of his Surrey Theatre, the last retreat, and +recess, of his every-day waning grandeur. + +Those who knew Elliston, will know the _manner_ in which he pronounced +the latter sentence of the few words I am about to record. One proud +day to me he took his roast mutton with us in the Temple, to which +I had superadded a preliminary haddock. After a rather plentiful +partaking of the meagre banquet, not unrefreshed with the humbler sort +of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of the fare, +observing that for my own part I never ate but of one dish at dinner. +"I too never eat but one thing at dinner"--was his reply--then after +a pause--"reckoning fish as nothing." The manner was all. It was as +if by one peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all +the savory esculents, which the pleasant and nutritious-food-giving +Ocean pours forth upon poor humans from her watery bosom. This was +_greatness_, tempered with considerate _tenderness_ to the feelings of +his scanty but welcoming entertainer. + +_Great_ wert thou in thy life, Robert William Elliston! and _not +lessened_ in thy death, if report speak truly, which says that +thou didst direct that thy mortal remains should repose under no +inscription but one of pure _Latinity_. Classical was thy bringing +up! and beautiful was the feeling on thy last bed, which, connecting +the man with the boy, took thee back in thy latest exercise +of imagination, to the days when, undreaming of Theatres and +Managerships, thou wert a scholar, and an early ripe one, under the +roofs builded by the munificent and pious Colet. For thee the Pauline +Muses weep. In elegies, that shall silence this crude prose, they +shall celebrate thy praise. + + + + +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING + + + To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with + the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of + quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts + of his own. + + _Lord Foppington in the Relapse._ + + +An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this +bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, +to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of +losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no +inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream +away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other +men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and +think. Books think for me. + +I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor +Jonathan Wild too low. I can read any thing which I call a _book_. +There are things in that shape which I cannot allow for such. + +In this catalogue of _books which are no books--biblia a-biblia_--I +reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught Boards +bound and lettered at the back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, +Statutes at Large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, +Soame Jenyns, and, generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's +library should be without:" the Histories of Flavins Josephus (that +learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I +can read almost any thing. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, +so unexcluding. + +I confess that it moves my spleen to see these _things in books' +clothing_ perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true +shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate +occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and +hope it is some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what "seem its +leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a +Steele, or a Farquhar, and find--Adam Smith. To view a well-arranged +assortment of blockheaded Encyclopædias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) +set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that +good leather would comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios; would +renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like +himself again in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to +strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. + +To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. +Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be +lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress +a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or +half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is _our_ costume. A Shakespeare, +or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were mere foppery to trick +out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinction. The +exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to +say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the +owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little +torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading +are the sullied leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the very +odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in +fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones, or Vicar +of Wakefield! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned +over their pages with delight!--of the lone sempstress, whom they may +have cheered (milliner, or harder-working mantua-maker) after her long +day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an +hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean +cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a +whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them +in? + +In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from +binding. Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually +self-reproductive volumes--Great Nature's Stereotypes--we see them +individually perish with less regret, because we know the copies +of them to be "eterne." But where a book is at once both good and +rare--where the individual is almost the species, and when _that_ +perishes, + + We know not where is that Promethean torch + That can its light relumine-- + +such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by +his Duchess--no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, +to honour and keep safe such a jewel. + +Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to +be reprinted; but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sydney, +Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose-works, Fuller--of whom we _have_ +reprints, yet the books themselves, though they go about, and are +talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened themselves +(nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to become stock +books--it is good to possess these in durable and costly covers. I do +not care for a First Folio of Shakspeare. I rather prefer the common +editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with _plates_, which, +being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the +text; and without pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are +so much better than the Shakspeare gallery _engravings_, which _did_. +I have a community of feeling with my countrymen about his Plays, and +I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled +about and handled.--On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and +Fletcher but in Folio. The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I +have no sympathy with them. If they were as much read as the current +editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the +older one. I do not know a more heartless sight than the reprint of +the Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones +of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of +the newest fashion to modern censure? what hapless stationer could +dream of Burton ever becoming popular?--The wretched Malone could not +do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him +white-wash the painted effigy of old Shakspeare, which stood there, +in rude but lively fashion depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, +the eye, the eye-brow, hair, the very dress he used to wear--the only +authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, of these curious parts +and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of white paint. +By ----, if I had been a justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would +have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair +of meddling sacrilegious varlets. + +I think I see them at their work--these sapient trouble-tombs. + +Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some +of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear--to +mine, at least--than that of Milton or of Shakspeare? It may be, that +the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The +sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit +Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. + +Much depends upon _when_ and _where_ you read a book. In the five or +six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would +think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of +Bishop Andrewes' sermons? + +Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before +you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, +had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. + +Winter evenings--the world shut out--with less of ceremony the gentle +Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's +Tale-- + +These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud--to yourself, or (as +it chances) to some single person listening. More than one--and it +degenerates into an audience. + +Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye +to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never +listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme +irksomeness. + +A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices +it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the +clerks--who is the best scholar--to commence upon the Times, or the +Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud _pro bono publico_. +With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly +vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will get up, +and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. +Another follows with _his_ selection. So the entire journal transpires +at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without +this expedient no one in the company would probably ever travel +through the contents of a whole paper. + +Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without +a feeling of disappointment. + +What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the +paper! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, "the +Chronicle is in hand, Sir." + +Coming in to an inn at night--having ordered your supper--what can be +more delightful than to find lying in the window-seat, left there time +out of mind by the carelessness of some former guest--two or three +numbers of the old Town and Country Magazine, with its amusing +_tête-à -tête_ pictures--"The Royal Lover and Lady G----;" "The Melting +Platonic and the old Beau,"--and such like antiquated scandal? Would +you exchange it--at that time, and in that place--for a better book? + +Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so much for the +weightier kinds of reading--the Paradise Lost, or Comus, he could have +_read_ to him--but he missed the pleasure of skimming over with his +own eye a magazine, or a light pamphlet. + +I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some +cathedral alone, and reading _Candide_. + +I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having been once +detected--by a familiar damsel--reclined at my ease upon the grass, on +Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading--_Pamela_. There was nothing in +the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she +seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, +I could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very +sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her +taste, she got up, and--went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee +to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was +the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you +shall never get the secret. + +I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my +spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who was generally to be +seen upon Snow-hill (as yet Skinner's-street _was not_), between the +hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. +I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I +used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular contacts. +An illiterate encounter with a porter's knot, or a bread basket, would +have quickly put to flight all the theology I am master of, and have +left me worse than indifferent to the five points. + +There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate +without affection--the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy +or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls--the owner, +with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and +thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after +page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, +and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they "snatch +a fearful joy." Martin B----, in this way, by daily fragments, +got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped +his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) +whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares, that under no +circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the +satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess +of our day has moralised upon this subject in two very touching but +homely stanzas. + + I saw a boy with eager eye + Open a book upon a stall, + And read, as he'd devour it all; + Which when the stall-man did espy, + Soon to the boy I heard him call, + "You, Sir, you never buy a book, + Therefore in one you shall not look." + The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh + He wish'd he never had been taught to read, + Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. + + Of sufferings the poor have many, + Which never can the rich annoy: + I soon perceiv'd another boy, + Who look'd as if he'd not had any + Food, for that day at least--enjoy + The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. + This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, + Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, + Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat: + No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat. + + + + +THE OLD MARGATE HOY + + +I am fond of passing my vacations (I believe I have said so before) at +one or other of the Universities. Next to these my choice would fix +me at some woody spot, such as the neighbourhood of Henley affords in +abundance, upon the banks of my beloved Thames. But somehow or other +my cousin contrives to wheedle me once in three or four seasons to a +watering place. Old attachments cling to her in spite of experience. +We have been dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton another, +dullest at Eastbourn a third, and are at this moment doing dreary +penance at--Hastings!--and all because we were happy many years ago +for a brief week at--Margate. That was our first sea-side experiment, +and many circumstances combined to make it the most agreeable holyday +of my life. We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been +from home so long together in company. + +Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, +sun-burnt captain, and his rough accommodations--ill exchanged for the +foppery and fresh-water niceness of the modern steam-packet? To the +winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage, and didst +ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons. With +the gales of heaven thou wentest swimmingly; or, when it was their +pleasure, stoodest still with sailor-like patience. Thy course was +natural, not forced, as in a hot-bed; nor didst thou go poisoning +the breath of ocean with sulphureous smoke--a great sea-chimæra, +chimneying and furnacing the deep; or liker to that fire-god parching +up Scamander. + +Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy reluctant +responses (yet to the suppression of anything like contempt, to the +raw questions, which we of the great city would be ever and anon +putting to them, as to the uses of this or that strange naval +implement?) 'Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade +of refuge between us and them, conciliating interpreter of their skill +to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador between sea and land!--whose +sailor-trowsers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted +denizen of the former, than thy white cap, and whiter apron over them, +with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee +to have been of inland nurture heretofore--a master cook of Eastcheap? +How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, +attendant, chamberlain; here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at +once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier ministrations--not +to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our +infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might +haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing +billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we +had stiff and blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, +still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more +cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of +thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, nor very inviting, little +cabin! + +With these additaments to boot, we had on board a fellow-passenger, +whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we +meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. +He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, remarkably handsome, +with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of +assertion. He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, +or since. He was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most +painful description of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and +only giving you as much as they see you can swallow at a time--the +nibbling pickpockets of your patience--but one who committed +downright, daylight depredations upon his neighbour's faith. He did +not stand shivering upon the brink, but was a hearty thoroughpaced +liar, and plunged at once into the depths of your credulity. I partly +believe, he made pretty sure of his company. Not many rich, not +many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common stowage +of a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set of as unseasoned +Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse name) as Aldermanbury, or +Watling-street, at that time of day could have supplied. There might +be an exception or two among us, but I scorn to make any invidious +distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's company, as +those were whom I sailed with. Something too must be conceded to the +_Genius Loci_. Had the confident fellow told us half the legends on +land, which he favoured us with on the other element, I flatter myself +the good sense of most of us would have revolted. But we were in a new +world, with everything unfamiliar about us, and the time and place +disposed us to the reception of any prodigious marvel whatsoever. Time +has obliterated from my memory much of his wild fablings; and the +rest would appear but dull, as written, and to be read on shore. He +had been Aid-de-camp (among other rare accidents and fortunes) to +a Persian prince, and at one blow had stricken off the head of the +King of Carimania on horseback. He, of course, married the Prince's +daughter. I forget what unlucky turn in the politics of that court, +combining with the loss of his consort, was the reason of his quitting +Persia; but with the rapidity of a magician he transported himself, +along with his hearers, back to England, where we still found +him in the confidence of great ladies. There was some story of a +Princess--Elizabeth, if I remember--having intrusted to his care an +extraordinary casket of jewels, upon some extraordinary occasion--but +as I am not certain of the name or circumstance at this distance of +time, I must leave it to the Royal daughters of England to settle the +honour among themselves in private. I cannot call to mind half his +pleasant wonders; but I perfectly remember, that in the course of his +travels he had seen a phoenix; and he obligingly undeceived us of +the vulgar error, that there is but one of that species at a time, +assuring us that they were not uncommon in some parts of Upper Egypt. +Hitherto he had found the most implicit listeners. His dreaming +fancies had transported us beyond the "ignorant present." But when +(still hardying more and more in his triumphs over our simplicity) he +went on to affirm that he had actually sailed through the legs of the +Colossus at Rhodes, it really became necessary to make a stand. And +here I must do justice to the good sense and intrepidity of one of our +party, a youth, that had hitherto been one of his most deferential +auditors, who, from his recent reading, made bold to assure the +gentleman, that there must be some mistake, as "the Colossus in +question had been destroyed long since;" to whose opinion, delivered +with all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede thus much, +that "the figure was indeed a little damaged." This was the only +opposition he met with, and it did not at all seem to stagger him, for +he proceeded with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swallow +with still more complacency than ever,--confirmed, as it were, by the +extreme candour of that concession. With these prodigies he wheedled +us on till we came in sight of the Reculvers, which one of our own +company (having been the vogage before) immediately recognising, and +pointing out to us, was considered by us as no ordinary seaman. + +All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a different +character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, very infirm, and very +patient. His eye was ever on the sea, with a smile: and, if he caught +now and then some snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, +and they seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whispered more +pleasant stories. He was as one, being with us, but not of us. He +heard the bell of dinner ring without stirring; and when some of +us pulled out our private stores--our cold meat and our salads--he +produced none, and seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had +laid in; provision for the one or two days and nights, to which these +vessels then were oftentimes obliged to prolong their voyage Upon a +nearer acquaintance with him, which he seemed neither to court nor +decline, we learned that he was going to Margate, with the hope of +being admitted into the Infirmary there for sea-bathing. His disease +was a scrofula, which appeared to have eaten all over him. He +expressed great hopes of a cure; and when we asked him, whether he had +any friends where he was going, he replied, "he _had_ no friends." + +These pleasant, and some mournful passages, with the first sight +of the sea, co-operating with youth, and a sense of holydays, and +out-of-door adventure, to me that had been pent up in populous cities +for many months before,--have left upon my mind the fragrance as of +summer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for +cold and wintry hours to chew upon. + +Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some unwelcome +comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the _dissatisfaction_ +which I have heard so many persons confess to have felt (as I did +myself feel in part on this occasion), _at the sight of the sea for +the first time?_ I think the reason usually given--referring to the +incapacity of actual objects for satisfying our preconceptions of +them--scarcely goes deep enough into the question. Let the same person +see a lion, an elephant, a mountain, for the first time in his life, +and he shall perhaps feel himself a little mortified. The things do +not fill up that space, which the idea of them seemed to take up in +his mind. But they have still a correspondency to his first notion, +and in time grow up to it, so as to produce a very similar impression: +enlarging themselves (if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the sea +remains a disappointment.--Is it not, that in _the latter_ we had +expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but, I am afraid, by the law of +imagination unavoidably) not a definite object, as those wild beasts, +or that mountain compassable by the eye, but _all the sea at once_, +THE COMMENSURATE ANTAGONIST OF THE EARTH! I do not say we, tell +ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is to be satisfied with +nothing less. I will suppose the case of a young person of fifteen +(as I then was) knowing nothing of the sea, but from description. He +comes to it for the first time--all that he has been reading of it all +his life, and _that_ the most enthusiastic part of life,--all he has +gathered from narratives of wandering seamen; what he has gained from +true voyages, and what he cherishes as credulously from romance and +poetry; crowding their images, and exacting strange tributes from +expectation.--He thinks of the great deep, and of those who go down +unto it; of its thousand isles, and of the vast continents it washes; +of its receiving the mighty Plata, or Orellana, into its bosom, +without disturbance, or sense of augmentation; of Biscay swells, and +the mariner + + For many a day, and many a dreadful night, + Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape; + +of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Bermoothes;" of great whirlpools, +and the water-spout; of sunken ships, and sumless treasures swallowed +up in the unrestoring depths: of fishes and quaint monsters, to which +all that is terrible on earth-- + + Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal, + Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral; + +of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and shells; of coral +beds, and of enchanted isles; of mermaids' grots-- + +I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be shown all these +wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny of a mighty faculty, +which haunts him with confused hints and shadows of all these; and +when the actual object opens first upon him, seen (in tame weather too +most likely) from our unromantic coasts--a speck, a slip of sea-water, +as it shows to him--what can it prove but a very unsatisfying and +even diminutive entertainment? Or if he has come to it from the mouth +of a river, was it much more than the river widening? and, even out +of sight of land, what had he but a flat watery horizon about him, +nothing comparable to the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his familiar +object, seen daily without dread or amazement?--Who, in similar +circumstances, has not been tempted to exclaim with Charoba, in the +poem of Gebir,-- + + Is this the mighty ocean?--is this _all_? + +I love town, or country; but this detestable Cinque Port is neither. I +hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting out their starved foliage from +between the horrid fissures of dusty innutritious rocks; which the +amateur calls "verdure to the edge of the sea." I require woods, and +they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and +pant for fresh streams, and inland murmurs. I cannot stand all day on +the naked beach, watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting +like the colours of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out at the +windows of this island-prison. I would fain retire into the interior +of my cage. While I gaze upon the sea, I want to be on it, over it, +across it. It binds me in with chains, as of iron. My thoughts are +abroad. I should not so feel in Staffordshire. There is no home for me +here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive +resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stock-brokers, +Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If +it were what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to +have remained, a fair honest fishing town, and no more, it were +something--with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, +artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it +were something. I could abide to dwell with Meschek; to assort with +fisher-swains, and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, many +of this latter occupation here. Their faces become the place. I like +a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the +revenue,--an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out +with them in their mackarel boats, or about their less ostensible +business, with some satisfaction. I can even tolerate those poor +victims to monotony, who from day to day pace along the beach, +in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their illicit +countrymen--townsfolk or brethren perchance--whistling to the +sheathing and unsheathing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who +under the mild name of preventive service, keep up a legitimated civil +warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, to show their +detestation of run hollands, and zeal for old England. But it is the +visitants from town, that come here to _say_ that they have been here, +with no more relish of the sea than a pond perch, or a dace might be +supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a foolish dace +in these regions, and have as little toleration for myself here, as +for them. What can they want here? if they had a true relish of the +ocean, why have they brought all this land luggage with them? or why +pitch their civilised tents in the desert? What mean these scanty +book-rooms--marine libraries as they entitle them--if the sea were, as +they would have us believe, a book "to read strange matter in?" what +are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain be +thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves? All is false and +hollow pretention. They come, because it is the fashion, and to +spoil the nature of the place. They are mostly, as I have said, +stockbrokers; but I have watched the better sort of them--now and +then, an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity of his +heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea +breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it +in their countenance. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, +picking up cockleshells, and thinking them great things; but, in a +poor week, imagination slackens: they begin to discover that cockles +produce no pearls, and then--O then!--if I could interpret for the +pretty creatures (I know they have not the courage to confess it +themselves) how gladly would they exchange their sea-side rambles +for a Sunday walk on the green-sward of their accustomed Twickenham +meadows! + +I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, who think they +truly love the sea, with its wild usages, what would their feelings +be, if some of the unsophisticated aborigines of this place, +encouraged by their courteous questionings here, should venture, on +the faith of such assured sympathy between them, to return the visit, +and come up to see--London. I must imagine them with their fishing +tackle on their back, as we carry our town necessaries. What a +sensation would it cause in Lothbury? What vehement laughter would it +not excite among + + The daughters of Cheapside, and wives of Lombard-street. + +I am sure that no town-bred, or inland-born subjects, can feel their +true and natural nourishment at these sea-places. Nature, where she +does not mean us for mariners and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The +salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. I am not half so good-natured +as by the milder waters of my natural river. I would exchange these +sea-gulls for swans, and scud a swallow for ever about the banks of +Thamesis. + + + + +THE CONVALESCENT + + +A pretty severe fit of indisposition which, under the name of a +nervous fever, has made a prisoner of me for some weeks past, and is +but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an incapacity of reflecting +upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy conclusions from +me this month, reader; I can offer you only sick men's dreams. + +And truly the whole state of sickness is such; for what else is it +but a magnificent dream for a man to lie a-bed, and draw day-light +curtains about him; and, shutting out the sun, to induce a total +oblivion of all the works which are going on under it? To become +insensible to all the operations of life, except the beatings of one +feeble pulse? + +If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the patient lords +it there! what caprices he acts without controul! how kinglike he +sways his pillow--tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, +and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it, to the ever varying +requisitions of his throbbing temples. + +He changes _sides_ oftener than a politician. Now he lies full length, +then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across +the bed; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four +curtains he is absolute. They are his Mare Clausum. + +How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he +is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon +him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has +nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or +within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. + +A little while ago he was greatly concerned in the event of a +law-suit, which was to be the making or the marring of his dearest +friend. He was to be seen trudging about upon this man's errand to +fifty quarters of the town at once, jogging this witness, refreshing +that solicitor. The cause was to come on yesterday. He is absolutely +as indifferent to the decision, as if it were a question to be tried +at Pekin. Peradventure from some whispering, going on about the +house, not intended for his hearing, he picks up enough to make him +understand, that things went cross-grained in the Court yesterday, +and his friend is ruined. But the word "friend," and the word "ruin," +disturb him no more than so much jargon. He is not to think of any +thing but how to get better. + +What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorbing +consideration! + +He has put on the strong armour of sickness, he is wrapped in the +callous hide of suffering; he keeps his sympathy, like some curious +vintage, under trusty lock and key, for his own use only. + +He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself; he yearneth +over himself; his bowels are even melted within him, to think what he +suffers; he is not ashamed to weep over himself. + +He is for ever plotting how to do some good to himself; studying +little stratagems and artificial alleviations. + +He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable +fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and +sorrowing members. Sometimes he meditates--as of a thing apart from +him--upon his poor aching head, and that dull pain which, dozing or +waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance +of pain, not to be removed without opening the very scull, as it +seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated +fingers. He compassionates himself all over; and his bed is a very +discipline of humanity, and tender heart. + +He is his own sympathiser; and instinctively feels that none can so +well perform that office for him. He cares for few spectators to his +tragedy. Only that punctual face of the old nurse pleases him, that +announces his broths, and his cordials. He likes it because it is +so unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations +before it as unreservedly as to his bed-post. + +To the world's business he is dead. He understands not what the +callings and occupations of mortals are; only he has a glimmering +conceit of some such thing, when the doctor makes his daily call: +and even in the lines of that busy face he reads no multiplicity of +patients, but solely conceives of himself as _the sick man_. To what +other uneasy couch the good man is hastening, when he slips out of +his chamber, folding up his thin douceur so carefully for fear of +rustling--is no speculation which he can at present entertain. He +thinks only of the regular return of the same phenomenon at the same +hour to-morrow. + +Household rumours touch him not. Some faint murmur, indicative of life +going on within the house, soothes him, while he knows not distinctly +what it is. He is not to know any thing, not to think of any thing. +Servants gliding up or down the distant staircase, treading as +upon velvet, gently keep his ear awake, so long as he troubles not +himself further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter +knowledge would be a burthen to him: he can just endure the pressure +of conjecture. He opens his eye faintly at the dull stroke of the +muffled knocker, and closes it again without asking "who was it?" He +is flattered by a general notion that inquiries are making after him, +but he cares not to know the name of the inquirer. In the general +stillness, and awful hush of the house, he lies in state, and feels +his sovereignty. + +To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare the silent +tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only, with which he is +served--with the careless demeanour, the unceremonious goings in +and out (slapping of doors, or leaving them open) of the very same +attendants, when he is getting a little better--and you will confess, +that from the bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the +elbow chair of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to a +deposition. + +How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature! where +is now the space, which he occupied so lately, in his own, in the +family's eye? The scene of his regalities, his sick room, which was +his presence chamber, where he lay and acted his despotic fancies--how +is it reduced to a common bedroom! The trimness of the very bed has +something petty and unmeaning about it. It is _made_ every day. +How unlike to that wavy, many-furrowed, oceanic surface, which it +presented so short a time since, when to _make_ it was a service not +to be thought of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when +the patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while +out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome neatness, and +decencies which his shaken frame deprecated; then to be lifted into it +again, for another three or four days' respite, to flounder it out of +shape again, while every fresh furrow was a historical record of some +shifting posture, some uneasy turning, some seeking for a little ease; +and the shrunken skin scarce told a truer story than the crumpled +coverlid. + +Hushed are those mysterious sighs--those groans--so much more awful, +while we knew not from what caverns of vast hidden suffering they +proceeded. The Lernean pangs are quenched. The riddle of sickness is +solved; and Philoctetes is become an ordinary personage. + +Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness survives in +the still lingering visitations of the medical attendant. But how +is he too changed with everything else! Can this be he--this man of +news--of chat--of anecdote--of every thing but physic--can this be he, +who so lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as on some +solemn embassy from Nature, erecting herself into a high mediating +party? Pshaw!'tis some old woman. + +Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous--the spell that +hushed the household--the desart-like stillness, felt throughout +its inmost chambers--the mute attendance--the inquiry by looks--the +still softer delicacies of self-attention--the sole and single eye of +distemper alonely fixed upon itself--world-thoughts excluded--the man +a world unto himself--his own theatre-- + + What a speck is he dwindled into! + +In this flat swamp of convalescence, left by the ebb of sickness, yet +far enough from the terra firma of established health, your note, +dear Editor, reached me, requesting--an article. In Articulo Mortis, +thought I; but it is something hard--and the quibble, wretched as it +was, relieved me. The summons, unseasonable as it appeared, seemed to +link me on again to the petty businesses of life, which I had lost +sight of; a gentle call to activity, however trivial; a wholesome +weaning from that preposterous dream of self-absorption--the puffy +state of sickness--in which I confess to have lain so long, insensible +to the magazines and monarchies, of the world alike; to its laws, and +to its literature. The hypochondriac flatus is subsiding; the acres, +which in imagination I had spread over--for the sick man swells in +the sole contemplation of his single sufferings, till he becomes +a Tityus to himself--are wasting to a span; and for the giant of +self-importance, which I was so lately, you have me once again in my +natural pretensions--the lean and meagre figure of your insignificant +Essayist. + + + + +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS + + +So far from the position holding true, that great wit (or genius, in +our modern way of speaking), has a necessary alliance with insanity, +the greatest wits, on the contrary, will ever be found to be the +sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad +Shakspeare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here +chiefly to be understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of +all the faculties. Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess +of any one of them. "So strong a wit," says Cowley, speaking of a +poetical friend, + + "--did Nature to him frame, + As all things but his judgment overcame, + His judgment like the heavenly moon did show, + Tempering that mighty sea below." + +The ground of the mistake is, that men, finding in the raptures of +the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no +parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of +it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the +poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by +his subject, but has dominion over it. In the groves of Eden he walks +familiar as in his native paths. He ascends the empyrean heaven, and +is not intoxicated. He treads the burning marl without dismay; he wins +his flight without self-loss through realms of chaos "and old night." +Or if, abandoning himself to that severer chaos of a "human mind +untuned," he is content awhile to be mad with Lear, or to hate mankind +(a sort of madness) with Timon, neither is that madness, nor this +misanthropy, so unchecked, but that,--never letting the reins of +reason wholly go, while most he seems to do so,--he has his better +genius still whispering at his ear, with the good servant Kent +suggesting saner counsels, or with the honest steward Flavius +recommending kindlier resolutions. Where he seems most to recede from +humanity, he will be found the truest to it. From beyond the scope of +Nature if he summon possible existences, he subjugates them to the +law of her consistency. He is beautifully loyal to that sovereign +directress, even when he appears most to betray and desert her. His +ideal tribes submit to policy; his very monsters are tamed to his +hand, even as that wild sea-brood, shepherded by Proteus. He tames, +and he clothes them with attributes of flesh and blood, till they +wonder at themselves, like Indian Islanders forced to submit to +European vesture. Caliban, the Witches, are as true to the laws of +their own nature (ours with a difference), as Othello, Hamlet, and +Macbeth. Herein the great and the little wits are differenced; that if +the latter wander ever so little from nature or actual existence, they +lose themselves, and their readers. Their phantoms are lawless; their +visions nightmares. They do not create, which implies shaping and +consistency. Their imaginations are not active--for to be active is to +call something into act and form--but passive, as men in sick dreams. +For the super-natural, or something super-added to what we know of +nature, they give you the plainly non-natural. And if this were all, +and that these mental hallucinations were discoverable only in the +treatment of subjects out of nature, or transcending it, the judgment +might with some plea be pardoned if it ran riot, and a little +wantonized: but even in the describing of real and every day life, +that which is before their eyes, one of these lesser wits shall more +deviate from nature--show more of that inconsequence, which has a +natural alliance with frenzy,--than a great genius in his "maddest +fits," as Withers somewhere calls them. We appeal to any one that is +acquainted with the common run of Lane's novels,--as they existed some +twenty or thirty years back,--those scanty intellectual viands of the +whole female reading public, till a happier genius arose, and expelled +for ever the innutritious phantoms,--whether he has not found his +brain more "betossed," his memory more puzzled, his sense of when and +where more confounded, among the improbable events, the incoherent +incidents, the inconsistent characters, or no-characters, of some +third-rate love intrigue--where the persons shall be a Lord Glendamour +and a Miss Rivers, and the scene only alternate between Bath and +Bond-street--a more bewildering dreaminess induced upon him, than +he has felt wandering over all the fairy grounds of Spenser. In the +productions we refer to, nothing but names and places is familiar; the +persons are neither of this world nor of any other conceivable one; an +endless string of activities without purpose, of purposes destitute +of motive:--we meet phantoms in our known walks; _fantasques_ only +christened. In the poet we have names which announce fiction; and we +have absolutely no place at all, for the things and persons of the +Fairy Queen prate not of their "whereabout." But in their inner +nature, and the law of their speech and actions, we are at home and +upon acquainted ground. The one turns life into a dream; the other to +the wildest dreams gives the sobrieties of every day occurrences. By +what subtile art of tracing the mental processes it is effected, we +are not philosophers enough to explain, but in that wonderful episode +of the cave of Mammon, in which the Money God appears first in the +lowest form of a miser, is then a worker of metals, and becomes the +god of all the treasures of the world; and has a daughter, Ambition, +before whom all the world kneels for favours--with the Hesperian +fruit, the waters of Tantalus, with Pilate washing his hands vainly, +but not impertinently, in the same stream--that we should be at one +moment in the cave of an old hoarder of treasures, at the next at the +forge of the Cyclops, in a palace and yet in hell, all at once, with +the shifting mutations of the most rambling dream, and our judgment +yet all the time awake, and neither able nor willing to detect the +fallacy,--is a proof of that hidden sanity which still guides the poet +in his widest seeming-aberrations. + +It is not enough to say that the whole episode is a copy of the mind's +conceptions in sleep; it is, in some sort--but what a copy! Let the +most romantic of us, that has been entertained all night with the +spectacle of some wild and magnificent vision, recombine it in the +morning, and try it by his waking judgment. That which appeared so +shifting, and yet so coherent, while that faculty was passive, when +it comes under cool examination, shall appear so reasonless and so +unlinked, that we are ashamed to have been so deluded; and to have +taken, though but in sleep, a monster for a god. But the transitions +in this episode are every whit as violent as in the most extravagant +dream, and yet the waking judgment ratifies them. + + + + +CAPTAIN JACKSON + + +Among the deaths in our obituary for this month, I observe with +concern "At his cottage on the Bath road, Captain Jackson." The +name and attribution are common enough; but a feeling like reproach +persuades me, that this could have been no other in fact than my dear +old friend, who some five-and-twenty years ago rented a tenement, +which he was pleased to dignify with the appellation here used, about +a mile from Westbourn Green. Alack, how good men, and the good turns +they do us, slide out of memory, and are recalled but by the surprise +of some such sad memento as that which now lies before us! + +He whom I mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a wife and two +grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with the port and notions of +gentlewomen upon that slender professional allowance. Comely girls +they were too. + +And was I in danger of forgetting this man?--his cheerful suppers--the +noble tone of hospitality, when first you set your foot in the +_cottage_--the anxious ministerings about you, where little or +nothing (God knows) was to be ministered.--Althea's horn in a poor +platter--the power of self-enchantment, by which, in his magnificent +wishes to entertain you, he multiplied his means to bounties. + +You saw with your bodily eyes indeed what seemed a bare scrag--cold +savings from the foregone meal--remnant hardly sufficient to send +a mendicant from the door contented. But in the copious will--the +revelling imagination of your host--the "mind, the mind, Master +Shallow," whole beeves were spread before you--hecatombs--no end +appeared to the profusion. + +It was the widow's cruse--the loaves and fishes; carving could not +lessen nor helping diminish it--the stamina were left--the elemental +bone still flourished, divested of its accidents. + +"Let us live while we can," methinks I hear the open-handed creature +exclaim; "while we have, let us not want," "here is plenty left;" +"want for nothing"--with many more such hospitable sayings, the +spurs of appetite, and old concomitants of smoaking boards, and +feast-oppressed chargers. Then sliding a slender ratio of Single +Gloucester upon his wife's plate, or the daughter's, he would convey +the remanent rind into his own, with a merry quirk of "the nearer the +bone," &c., and declaring that he universally preferred the outside. +For we had our table distinctions, you are to know, and some of us in +a manner sate above the salt. None but his guest or guests dreamed of +tasting flesh luxuries at night, the fragments were _verè hospilibus +sacra_. But of one thing or another there was always enough, and +leavings: only he would sometimes finish the remainder crust, to show +that he wished no savings. + +Wine he had none; nor, except on very rare occasions, spirits; +but the sensation of wine was there. Some thin kind of ale I +remember--"British beverage," he would say! "Push about, my boys;" +"Drink to your sweethearts, girls." At every meagre draught a toast +must ensue, or a song. All the forms of good liquor were there, with +none of the effects wanting. Shut your eyes, and you would swear +a capacious bowl of punch was foaming in the centre, with beams of +generous Port or Madeira radiating to it from each of the table +corners. You got flustered, without knowing whence; tipsy upon +words; and reeled under the potency of his unperforming Bacchanalian +encouragements. + +We had our songs--"Why, Soldiers, Why"--and the "British +Grenadiers"--in which last we were all obliged to bear chorus. Both +the daughters sang. Their proficiency was a nightly theme--the masters +he had given them--the "no-expence" which he spared to accomplish them +in a science "so necessary to young women." But then--they could not +sing "without the instrument." + +Sacred, and by me, never-to-be violated, Secrets of Poverty! Should +I disclose your honest aims at grandeur, your make-shift efforts +of magnificence? Sleep, sleep, with all thy broken keys, if one of +the bunch be extant; thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs; dear, +cracked spinnet of dearer Louisa! Without mention of mine, be dumb, +thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble! A veil be spread over +the dear delighted face of the well-deluded father, who now haply +listening to cherubic notes, scarce feels sincerer pleasure than when +she awakened thy time-shaken chords responsive to the twitterings of +that slender image of a voice. + +We were not without our literary talk either. It did not extend far, +but as far as it went, it was good. It was bottomed well; had good +grounds to go upon. In _the cottage_ was a room, which tradition +authenticated to have been the same in which Glover, in his occasional +retirements, had penned the greater part of his Leonidas. This +circumstance was nightly quoted, though none of the present inmates, +that I could discover, appeared ever to have met with the poem in +question. But that was no matter. Glover had written there, and the +anecdote was pressed into the account of the family importance. It +diffused a learned air through the apartment, the little side casement +of which (the poet's study window), opening upon a superb view as far +as to the pretty spire of Harrow, over domains and patrimonial acres, +not a rood nor square yard whereof our host could call his own, yet +gave occasion to an immoderate expansion of--vanity shall I call +it?--in his bosom, as he showed them in a glowing summer evening. It +was all his, he took it all in, and communicated rich portions of it +to his guests. It was a part of his largess, his hospitality; it was +going over his grounds; he was lord for the time of showing them, and +you the implicit lookers-up to his magnificence. + +He was a juggler, who threw mists before your eyes--you had no time +to detect his fallacies. He would say "hand me the _silver_ sugar +tongs;" and, before you could discover it was a single spoon, and +that _plated_, he would disturb and captivate your imagination by a +misnomer of "the urn" for a tea kettle; or by calling a homely bench +a sofa. Rich men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you +from it; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply assuming that +everything was handsome about him, you were positively at a demur what +you did, or did not see, at _the cottage_. With nothing to live on, he +seemed to live on everything. He had a stock of wealth in his mind; +not that which is properly termed _Content_, for in truth he was not +to be _contained_ at all, but overflowed all bounds by the force of a +magnificent self-delusion. + +Enthusiasm is catching; and even his wife, a sober native of North +Britain, who generally saw things more as they were, was not proof +against the continual collision of his credulity. Her daughters +were rational and discreet young women; in the main, perhaps, not +insensible to their true circumstances. I have seen them assume a +thoughtful air at times. But such was the preponderating opulence of +his fancy, that I am persuaded, not for any half hour together, did +they ever look their own prospects fairly in the face. There was no +resisting the vortex of his temperament. His riotous imagination +conjured up handsome settlements before their eyes, which kept them +up in the eye of the world too, and seem at last to have realised +themselves; for they both have married since, I am told, more than +respectably. + +It is long since, and my memory waxes dim on some subjects, or I +should wish to convey some notion of the manner in which the pleasant +creature described the circumstances of his own wedding-day. I faintly +remember something of a chaise and four, in which he made his entry +into Glasgow on that morning to fetch the bride home, or carry her +thither, I forget which. It so completely made out the stanza of the +old ballad-- + + When we came down through Glasgow town, + We were a comely sight to see; + My love was clad in black velve, + And I myself in cramasie. + +I suppose it was the only occasion, upon which his own actual +splendour at all corresponded with the world's notions on that +subject. In homely cart, or travelling caravan, by whatever humble +vehicle they chanced to be transported in less prosperous days, the +ride through Glasgow came back upon his fancy, not as a humiliating +contrast, but as a fair occasion for reverting to that one day's +state. It seemed an "equipage etern" from which no power of fate or +fortune, once mounted, had power thereafter to dislodge him. + +There is some merit in putting a handsome face upon indigent +circumstances. To bully and swagger away the sense of them, before +strangers, may be not always discommendable. Tibbs, and Bobadil, even +when detected, have more of our admiration than contempt. But for a +man to put the cheat upon himself; to play the Bobadil at home; and, +steeped in poverty up to the lips, to fancy himself all the while +chin-deep in riches, is a strain of constitutional philosophy, and a +mastery over fortune, which was reserved for my old friend Captain +Jackson. + + + + +THE SUPERANNUATED MAN + + + Sera tamen respexit + Libertas. + + VIRGIL. + + + A Clerk I was in London gay. + + O'KEEFE. + + +If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years +of thy life--thy shining youth--in the irksome confinement of an +office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to +decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to +have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to +remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then +only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance. + +It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in +Mincing-lane. Melancholy was the transition at fourteen from the +abundant play-time, and the frequently-intervening vacations of school +days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance +at a counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to anything. +I gradually became content--doggedly contented, as wild animals in +cages. + +It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays, admirable as the +institution of them is for purposes of worship, are for that very +reason the very worst adapted for days of unbending and recreation. In +particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a +weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, and +the ballad-singers--the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those +eternal bells depress me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, +all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, +and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which make a +week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so +delightful--are shut out. No book-stalls deliciously to idle over--No +busy faces to recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever passing +by--the very face of business a charm by contrast to his temporary +relaxation from it. Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances--or +half-happy at best--of emancipated 'prentices and little trades-folks, +with here and there a servant maid that has got leave to go out, who, +slaving all the week, with the habit has lost almost the capacity of +enjoying a free hour; and livelily expressing the hollowness of a +day's pleasuring. The very strollers in the fields on that day look +anything but comfortable. + +But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, +with a full week in the summer to go and air myself in my native +fields of Hertfordshire. This last was a great indulgence; and the +prospect of its recurrence, I believe, alone kept me up through the +year, and made my durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did +the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me? or rather +was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit +of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most +of them? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest? Before I had a +taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the desk again, counting upon +the fifty-one tedious weeks that must intervene before such another +snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something of +an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I +have said, I could scarcely have sustained my thraldom. + +Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have ever been haunted +with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of incapacity for business. +This, during my latter years, had increased to such a degree, that it +was visible in all the lines of my countenance. My health and my good +spirits flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which I +should be found unequal. Besides my daylight servitude, I served over +again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary +false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like. I was fifty years +of age, and no prospect of emancipation presented itself. I had grown +to my desk, as it were; and the wood had entered into my soul. + +My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon the trouble +legible in my countenance; but I did not know that it had raised the +suspicions of any of my employers, when, on the 5th of last month, +a day ever to be remembered by me, L----, the junior partner in the +firm, calling me on one side, directly taxed me with my bad looks, +and frankly inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made +confession of my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I should +eventually be obliged to resign his service. He spoke some words of +course to hearten me, and there the matter rested. A whole week I +remained labouring under the impression that I had acted imprudently +in my disclosure; that I had foolishly given a handle against myself, +and had been anticipating my own dismissal. A week passed in this +manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe, in my whole life, when +on the evening of the 12th of April, just as I was about quitting my +desk to go home (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful +summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled firm in the +formidable back parlour. I thought, now my time is surely come, I +have done for myself, I am going to be told that they have no longer +occasion for me. L----, I could see, smiled at the terror I was in, +which was a little relief to me,--when to my utter astonishment B----, +the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to me on the length of +my services, my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time +(the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I never +had the confidence to think as much). He went on to descant on the +expediency of retiring at a certain time of life (how my heart +panted!) and asking me a few questions as to the amount of my own +property, of which I have a little, ended with a proposal, to which +his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should accept from +the house, which I had served so well, a pension for life to the +amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary--a magnificent offer! I +do not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it was +understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was +free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, +and at just ten minutes after eight I went home--for ever. This noble +benefit--gratitude forbids me to conceal their names--I owe to the +kindness of the most munificent firm in the world--the house of +Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. + + +_Esto perpetua!_ + +For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only +apprehend my felicity; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I +wandered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing that I was not. I +was in the condition of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let +loose after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself +with myself. It was like passing out of Time into Eternity--for it +is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. +It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever +manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into +a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some +steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me. +And here let me caution persons grown old in active business, not +lightly, nor without weighing their own resources, to forego their +customary employment all at once, for there may be danger in it. I +feel it by myself, but I know that my resources are sufficient; and +now that those first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet +home-feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no hurry. +Having all holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time hung heavy +upon me, I could walk it away; but I do _not_ walk all day long, as +I used to do in those old transient holidays, thirty miles a day, to +make the most of them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it away, +but I do _not_ read in that violent measure, with which, having no +Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my head and +eyesight in by-gone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just +when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure; I let it come +to me. I am like the man + + --That's born, and has his years come to him, + In some green desart. + +"Years," you will say! "what is this superannuated simpleton +calculating upon? He has already told us, he is past fifty." + +I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the +hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you +will find me still a young fellow. For _that_ is the only true Time, +which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to +himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is +other people's time, not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or +short, is at least multiplied for me three-fold. My ten next years, if +I stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair +rule-of-three sum. + +Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the commencement of my +freedom, and of which all traces are not yet gone, one was, that a +vast tract of time had intervened since I quitted the Counting House. +I could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, +and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many +hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly +removed from them--they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, +which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert +Howard, speaking of a friend's death: + + --'Twas but just now he went away; + I have not since had time to shed a tear; + And yet the distance does the same appear + As if he had been a thousand years from me. + Time takes no measure in Eternity. + +To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go among them +once or twice since; to visit my old desk-fellows--my co-brethren of +the quill--that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the +kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that +pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them. +We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but +faintly. My old desk; the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated +to another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D----l +take me, if I did not feel some remorse--beast, if I had not,--at +quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six +and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums +the ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then +after all? or was I a coward simply? Well, it is too late to repent; +and I also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the +mind on such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken +the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some +time before I get quite reconciled to the separation. Farewell, old +cronies, yet not for long, for again and again I will come among +ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell Ch----, dry, sarcastic, +and friendly! Do----, mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly! Pl----, +officious to do, and to volunteer, good services!--and thou, thou +dreary pile, fit mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington of old, +stately House of Merchants; with thy labyrinthine passages, and +light-excluding, pent-up offices, where candles for one half the year +supplied the place of the sun's light; unhealthy contributor to my +weal, stern fosterer of my living, farewell! In thee remain, and not +in the obscure collection of some wandering bookseller, my "works!" +There let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy massy +shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas left, and full as +useful! My mantle I bequeath among ye. + +A fortnight has passed since the date of my first communication. At +that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but had not reached it. +I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of +the first flutter was left; an unsettling sense of novelty; the dazzle +to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, +as if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a +poor Carthusian, from strict cellular discipline suddenly by some +revolution returned upon the world. I am now as if I had never been +other than my own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, +to do what I please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in +Bond-street, and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there +at that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a +book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector. There is +nothing strange nor new in it. I find myself before a fine picture +in a morning. Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish-street +Hill? Where is Fenchurch-street? Stones of old Mincing-lane, which I +have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six and thirty years, to the +footsteps of what toil-worn clerk are your everlasting flints now +vocal? I indent the gayer flags of Pall Mall. It is Change time, and +I am strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole when I +ventured to compare the change in my condition to a passing into +another world. Time stands still in a manner to me. I have lost all +distinction of season. I do not know the day of the week, or of the +month. Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference +to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, +the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' +sensations. The genius of each day was upon me distinctly during the +whole of it, affecting my appetite, spirits, &c. The phantom of the +next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor +Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What +is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself--that +unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my +sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity +of pleasure out of it--is melted down into a week day. I can spare +to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used +to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I +can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt the man of much occupation +when he is busiest. I can insult over him with an invitation to take +a day's pleasure with me to Windsor this fine May-morning. It is +Lucretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I have left behind +in the world, carking and caring; like horses in a mill, drudging on +in the same eternal round--and what is it all for? A man can never +have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little +son, I would christen him NOTHING-TO-DO; he should do nothing. Man, I +verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am +altogether for the life contemplative. Will no kindly earthquake come +and swallow up those accursed cotton mills? Take me that lumber of a +desk there, and bowl it down + + As low as to the fiends. + +I am no longer ******, clerk to the Firm of &c. I am Retired Leisure. +I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by +my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace, +nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not to and from. They tell +me, a certain _cum dignitate_ air, that has been buried so long with +my other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my person. I grow +into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a newspaper, it is to read +the state of the opera. _Opus operatum est_. I have done all that I +came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest +of the day to myself. + + + + +THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING + + +It is an ordinary criticism, that my Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir William +Temple, are models of the genteel style in writing. We should prefer +saying--of the lordly, and the gentlemanly. Nothing can be more unlike +than the inflated finical rhapsodies of Shaftesbury, and the plain +natural chit-chat of Temple. The man of rank is discernible in both +writers; but in the one it is only insinuated gracefully, in the other +it stands out offensively. The peer seems to have written with his +coronet on, and his Earl's mantle before him; the commoner in his +elbow chair and undress.--What can be more pleasant than the way in +which the retired statesman peeps out in the essays, penned by the +latter in his delightful retreat at Shene? They scent of Nimeguen, +and the Hague. Scarce an authority is quoted under an ambassador. +Don Francisco de Melo, a "Portugal Envoy in England," tells him it +was frequent in his country for men, spent with age or other decays, +so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life, to ship +themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their arrival there to +go on a great length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, or more, +by the force of that vigour they recovered with that remove. "Whether +such an effect (Temple beautifully adds) might grow from the air, or +the fruits of that climate, or by approaching nearer the sun, which +is the fountain of light and heat, when their natural heat was so +far decayed: or whether the piecing out of an old man's life were +worth the pains; I cannot tell: perhaps the play is not worth the +candle."--Monsieur Pompone, "French Ambassador in his (Sir William's) +time at the Hague," certifies him, that in his life he had never +heard of any man in France that arrived at a hundred years of age; a +limitation of life which the old gentleman imputes to the excellence +of their climate, giving them such a liveliness of temper and humour, +as disposes them to more pleasures of all kinds than in other +countries; and moralises upon the matter very sensibly. The "late +Robert Earl of Leicester" furnishes him with a story of a Countess of +Desmond, married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and who +lived far in King James's reign. The "same noble person" gives him +an account, how such a year, in the same reign, there went about the +country a set of morrice-dancers, composed of ten men who danced, a +Maid Marian, and a tabor and pipe; and how these twelve, one with +another, made up twelve hundred years. "It was not so much (says +Temple) that so many in one small county (Herefordshire) should live +to that age, as that they should be in vigour and in humour to travel +and to dance." Monsieur Zulichem, one of his "colleagues at the +Hague," informs him of a cure for the gout; which is confirmed by +another "Envoy," Monsieur Serinchamps, in that town, who had tried +it.--Old Prince Maurice of Nassau recommends to him the use of +hammocks in that complaint; having been allured to sleep, while +suffering under it himself, by the "constant motion or swinging of +those airy beds." Count Egmont, and the Rhinegrave who "was killed +last summer before Maestricht," impart to him their experiences. + +But the rank of the writer is never more innocently disclosed, than +where he takes for granted the compliments paid by foreigners to his +fruit-trees. For the taste and perfection of what we esteem the best, +he can truly say, that the French, who have eaten his peaches and +grapes at Shene in no very ill year, have generally concluded that +the last are as good as any they have eaten in France on this side +Fontainebleau; and the first as good as any they have eat in Gascony. +Italians have agreed his white figs to be as good as any of that sort +in Italy, which is the earlier kind of white fig there; for in the +later kind and the blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, no +more than in the Frontignac or Muscat grape. His orange-trees too, are +as large as any he saw when he was young in France, except those of +Fontainebleau, or what he has seen since in the Low Countries; except +some very old ones of the Prince of Orange's. Of grapes he had the +honour of bringing over four sorts into England, which he enumerates, +and supposes that they are all by this time pretty common among some +gardeners in his neighbourhood, as well as several persons of quality; +for he ever thought all things of this kind "the commoner they are +made the better." The garden pedantry with which he asserts that 'tis +to little purpose to plant any of the best fruits, as peaches or +grapes, hardly, he doubts, beyond Northamptonshire at the furthest +northwards; and praises the "Bishop of Munster at Cosevelt," for +attempting nothing beyond cherries in that cold climate; is equally +pleasant and in character. "I may perhaps" (he thus ends his sweet +Garden Essay with a passage worthy of Cowley) "be allowed to know +something of this trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be +good for nothing else, which few men will do, or enjoy their gardens, +without often looking abroad to see how other matters play, what +motions in the state, and what invitations they may hope for into +other scenes. For my own part, as the country life, and this part of +it more particularly, were the inclination of my youth itself, so they +are the pleasure of my age; and I can truly say that, among many great +employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought +for any of them, but have often endeavoured to escape from them, into +the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own +way and his own pace, in the common paths and circles of life. The +measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen, +which I thank God has befallen me; and though among the follies of my +life, building and planting have not been the least, and have cost +me more than I have the confidence to own; yet they have been fully +recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, +since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public +employments, I have passed five years without ever once going to town, +though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready +to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have +thought it, but a mere want of desire or humour to make so small a +remove; for when I am in this corner, I can truly say with Horace, _Me +quoties reficit, &c._ + + "Me, when the cold Digentian stream revives, + What does my friend believe I think or ask? + Let me yet less possess, so I may live, + Whate'er of life remains, unto myself. + May I have books enough; and one year's store, + Not to depend upon each doubtful hour: + This is enough of mighty Jove to pray, + Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away." + +The writings of Temple are, in general, after this easy copy. On one +occasion, indeed, his wit, which was mostly subordinate to nature and +tenderness, has seduced him into a string of felicitous antitheses; +which, it is obvious to remark, have been a model to Addison and +succeeding essayists. "Who would not be covetous, and with reason," +he says, "if health could be purchased with gold? who not ambitious, +if it were at the command of power, or restored by honour? but, alas! +a white staff will not help gouty feet to walk better than a common +cane; nor a blue riband bind up a wound so well as a fillet. The +glitter of gold, or of diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of +curing them; and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a +crown, than a common night-cap." In a far better style, and more +accordant with his own humour of plainness, are the concluding +sentences of his "Discourse upon Poetry." Temple took a part in the +controversy about the ancient and the modern learning; and, with +that partiality so natural and so graceful in an old man, whose +state engagements had left him little leisure to look into modern +productions, while his retirement gave him occasion to look back upon +the classic studies of his youth--decided in favour of the latter. +"Certain it is," he says, "that, whether the fierceness of the Gothic +humours, or noise of their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or that +the unequal mixture of the modern languages would not bear it--the +great heights and excellency both of poetry and music fell with +the Roman learning and empire, and have never since recovered the +admiration and applauses that before attended them. Yet, such as they +are amongst us, they must be confessed to be the softest and sweetest, +the most general and most innocent amusements of common time and life. +They still find room in the courts of princes, and the cottages of +shepherds. They serve to revive and animate the dead calm of poor +and idle lives, and to allay or divert the violent passions and +perturbations of the greatest and the busiest men. And both these +effects are of equal use to human life; for the mind of man is like +the sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder nor the voyager, +in a calm or in a storm, but is so to both when a little agitated by +gentle gales; and so the mind, when moved by soft and easy passions or +affections. I know very well that many who pretend to be wise by the +forms of being grave, are apt to despise both poetry and music, as +toys and trifles too light for the use or entertainment of serious +men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to their charms, +would, I think, do well to keep their own counsel, for fear of +reproaching their own temper, and bringing the goodness of their +natures, if not of their understandings, into question. While this +world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and request of these two +entertainments will do so too; and happy those that content themselves +with these, or any other so easy and so innocent, and do no trouble +the world or other men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, +though nobody hurts them." "When all is done (he concludes), human +life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that +must be played with, and humoured a little, to keep it quiet, till it +falls asleep, and then the care is over." + + + + +BARBARA S---- + + +On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, +just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S----, with her accustomed +punctuality ascended the long rambling staircase, with awkward +interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort +of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few +of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island +it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the +players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not +much that Barbara had to claim. + +This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important +station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which +she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, +had given an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You +would have taken her to have been at least five years older. + +Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where +children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing +a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few +months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may +guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already +drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine +petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that +petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder +child in Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life; but as yet the +"Children in the Wood" was not. + +Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some +of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied +out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed +a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies +of the establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, +as for a child's use, she kept them all; and in the zenith of her +after reputation it was a delightful sight to behold them bound up in +costliest Morocco, each single--each small part making a _book_--with +fine clasps, gilt-splashed, &c. She had conscientiously kept them +as they had been delivered to her; not a blot had been effaced +or tampered with. They were precious to her for their affecting +remembrancings. They were her principia, her rudiments; the elementary +atoms; the little steps by which she pressed forward to perfection. +"What," she would say, "could Indian rubber, or a pumice stone, have +done for these darlings?" + +I am in no hurry to begin my story--indeed I have little or none to +tell--so I will just mention an observation of hers connected with +that interesting time. + +Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her on the +quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic performer +experiences during acting. I ventured to think, that though in the +first instance such players must have possessed the feelings which +they so powerfully called up in others, yet by frequent repetition +those feelings must become deadened in great measure, and the +performer trust to the memory of past emotion, rather than express a +present one. She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly +great tragedian the operation, by which such effects were produced +upon an audience, could ever degrade itself into what was purely +mechanical. With much delicacy, avoiding to instance in her +_self_-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when she used to +play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, (I think it +was) when that impressive actress has been bending over her in some +heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling +from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly +scalded her back. + +I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter; but it was some great +actress of that day. The name is indifferent; but the fact of the +scalding tears I most distinctly remember. + +I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an +impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) +even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got +over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from +adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to +have been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at +serious whist with Mr. Listen. I have chatted with ever good-humoured +Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her +accomplished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference +with Macready; and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery, at Mr. +Matthews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the +old actors (whom he loves so much) went over it with me, supplying +to his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give +them--voice; and their living motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd +and Parsons, and Baddeley, have lived again for me at his bidding. +Only Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with ----; but I +am growing a coxcomb. + +As I was about to say--at the desk of the then treasurer of the old +Bath theatre--not Diamond's--presented herself the little Barbara +S----. + +The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father +had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his +practice from causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that +way to arraign--or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies +some people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible to +lay at the door of imprudence--was now reduced to nothing. They were +in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew +and respected them in better days, took the little Barbara into his +company. + +At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole +support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw +a veil over some mortifying circumstances. Enough to say, that her +Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their +only) meal of meat. + +One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in +her theatrical character she was to sup off a roast fowl (O joy to +Barbara!) some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this +dainty--in the misguided humour of his part, threw over the dish +such a quantity of salt (O grief and pain of heart to Barbara!) that +when he crammed a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged +sputteringly to reject it; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, +and pain of real appetite at missing such a dainty, her little heart +sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which the well-fed +spectators were totally unable to comprehend, mercifully relieved her. + +This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old +Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. + +Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people besides +herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no +head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and +summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so +deficient, blest himself that it was no worse. + +Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea.--By mistake he +popped into her hand a--whole one. + +Barbara tripped away. + +She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake: God knows, +Ravenscroft would never have discovered it. + +But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth +landing-places, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal +pressing her little hand. + +Now mark the dilemma. + +She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her +she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught her +nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral +philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she +might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty +commended, but never dreamed of its application to herself. She +thought of it as something which concerned grown-up people--men +and women. She had never known temptation, or thought of preparing +resistance against it. + +Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain +to him his blunder. He was already so confused with age, besides a +natural want of punctuality, that she would have had some difficulty +in making him understand it. She saw _that_ in an instant. And then +it was such a bit of money! and then the image of a larger allowance +of butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till +her little eyes glistened, and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. +Ravenscroft had always been so good-natured, had stood her friend +behind the scenes, and even recommended her promotion to some of her +little parts. But again the old man was reputed to be worth a world +of money. He was supposed to have fifty pounds a year clear of the +theatre. And then came staring upon her the figures of her little +stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat +white cotton stockings, which her situation at the theatre had made it +indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining +and pinching from the family stock, and thought how glad she should +be to cover their poor feet with the same--and how then they could +accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hitherto been precluded +from doing, by reason of their unfashionable attire--in these thoughts +she reached the second landing-place--the second, I mean from the +top--for there was still another left to traverse. + +Now virtue support Barbara! + +And that never-failing friend did step in--for at that moment a +strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her--a +reason above reasoning--and without her own agency, as it seemed (for +she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to +the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand +of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and +who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, +which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell +upon her heart, and she knew the quality of honesty. + +A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened +up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole +family upon their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of +discussing moral dogmas upon a landing-place. + +I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of +mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man +pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes. + +This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of +the late Mrs. Crawford,[1] then sixty-seven years of age (she died +soon after); and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have +sometimes ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending +the heart in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in +after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the +part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. + +[Footnote 1: The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she +changed, by successive marriages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and +Crawford. She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third time a widow, when I +knew her.] + + + + +THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY + +IN A LETTER TO R---- S----, ESQ. + + +Though in some points of doctrine, and perhaps of discipline I am +diffident of lending a perfect assent to that church which you have +so worthily _historified_, yet may the ill time never come to me, +when with a chilled heart, or a portion of irreverent sentiment, I +shall enter her beautiful and time-hallowed Edifices. Judge then +of my mortification when, after attending the choral anthems of +last Wednesday at Westminster, and being desirous of renewing my +acquaintance, after lapsed years, with the tombs and antiquities +there, I found myself excluded; turned out like a dog, or some profane +person, into the common street, with feelings not very congenial to +the place, or to the solemn service which I had been listening to. It +was a jar after that music. + +You had your education at Westminster; and doubtless among those dim +aisles and cloisters, you must have gathered much of that devotional +feeling in those young years, on which your purest mind feeds +still--and may it feed! The antiquarian spirit, strong in you, and +gracefully blending ever with the religious, may have been sown in +you among those wrecks of splendid mortality. You owe it to the +place of your education; you owe it to your learned fondness for the +architecture of your ancestors; you owe it to the venerableness of +your ecclesiastical establishment, which is daily lessened and called +in question through these practices--to speak aloud your sense of +them; never to desist raising your voice against them, till they be +totally done away with and abolished; till the doors of Westminster +Abbey be no longer closed against the decent, though low-in-purse, +enthusiast, or blameless devotee, who must commit an injury against +his family economy, if he would be indulged with a bare admission +within its walls. You owe it to the decencies, which you wish to see +maintained in its impressive services, that our Cathedral be no longer +an object of inspection to the poor at those times only, in which they +must rob from their Attendance on the worship every minute which they +can bestow upon the fabric. In vain the public prints have taken up +this subject, in vain such poor nameless writers as myself express +their indignation. A word from you, Sir--a hint in your Journal--would +be sufficient to fling open the doors of the Beautiful Temple again, +as we can remember them when we were boys. At that time of life, what +would the imaginative faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have +suffered, if the entrance to so much reflection had been obstructed +by the demand of so much silver!--If we had scraped it up to gain an +occasional admission (as we certainly should have done) would the +sight of those old tombs have been as impressive to us (while we had +been weighing anxiously prudence against sentiment) as when the gates +stood open, as those of the adjacent Park; when we could walk in at +any time, as the mood brought us, for a shorter or longer time, as +that lasted? Is the being shown over a place the same as silently for +ourselves detecting the genius of it? In no part of our beloved Abbey +now can a person find entrance (out of service time) under the sum of +_two shillings_. The rich and the great will smile at the anticlimax, +presumed to lie in these two short words. But you can tell them, Sir, +how much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged feeling, how +much taste and genius, may coexist, especially in youth, with a purse +incompetent to this demand.--A respected friend of ours, during his +late visit to the metropolis, presented himself for admission to Saint +Paul's. At the same time a decently clothed man, with as decent a +wife, and child, were bargaining for the same indulgence. The price +was only two-pence each person. The poor but decent man hesitated, +desirous to go in; but there were three of them, and he turned away +reluctantly. Perhaps he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. +Perhaps the Interior of the Cathedral was his object. But in the state +of his finances, even sixpence might reasonably seem too much. Tell +the Aristocracy of the country (no man can do it more impressively); +instruct them of what value these insignificant pieces of money, these +minims to their sight, may be to their humbler brethren. Shame these +Sellers out of the Temple. Stifle not the suggestions of your better +nature with the pretext, that an indiscriminate admission would expose +the Tombs to violation. Remember your boy-days. Did you ever see, +or hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it was free to all? Do the +rabble come there, or trouble their heads about such speculations? +It is all that you can do to drive them into your churches; they do +not voluntarily offer themselves. They have, alas! no passion for +antiquities; for tomb of king or prelate, sage or poet. If they had, +they would be no longer the rabble. + +For forty years that I have known the Fabric, the only well-attested +charge of violation adduced, has been--a ridiculous dismemberment +committed upon the effigy of that amiable spy, Major André. And is it +for this--the wanton mischief of some schoolboy, fired perhaps with +raw notions of Transatlantic Freedom--or the remote possibility +of such a mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented +by stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are +incompetent to the duty--is it upon such wretched pretences, that +the people of England are made to pay a new Peter's Pence, so long +abrogated; or must content themselves with contemplating the ragged +Exterior of their Cathedral? The mischief was done about the time that +you were a scholar there. Do you know any thing about the unfortunate +relic?-- + + + + +AMICUS REDIVIVUS + + + Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep + Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? + + +I do not know when I have experienced a stranger sensation, than +on seeing my old friend G.D., who had been paying me a morning +visit a few Sundays back, at my cottage at Islington, upon taking +leave, instead of turning down the right hand path by which he had +entered--with staff in hand, and at noon day, deliberately march right +forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and totally +disappear. A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling +enough; but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such an unreserved +motion towards self-destruction in a valued friend, took from me all +power of speculation. + +How I found my feet, I know not. Consciousness was quite gone. Some +spirit, not my own, whirled me to the spot. I remember nothing but the +silvery apparition of a good white head emerging; nigh which a staff +(the hand unseen that wielded it) pointed upwards, as feeling for the +skies. In a moment (if time was in that time) he was on my shoulders, +and I--freighted with a load more precious than his who bore Anchises. + +And here I cannot but do justice to the officious zeal of sundry +passers by, who, albeit arriving a little too late to participate in +the honours of the rescue, in philanthropic shoals came thronging to +communicate their advice as to the recovery; prescribing variously +the application, or non-application, of salt, &c., to the person of +the patient. Life meantime was ebbing fast away, amidst the stifle of +conflicting judgments, when one, more sagacious than the rest, by a +bright thought, proposed sending for the Doctor. Trite as the counsel +was, and impossible, as one should think, to be missed on,--shall I +confess?--in this emergency, it was to me as if an Angel had spoken. +Great previous exertions--and mine had not been inconsiderable--are +commonly followed by a debility of purpose. This was a moment of +irresolution. + +MONOCULUS--for so, in default of catching his true name, I choose +to designate the medical gentleman who now appeared--is a grave, +middle-aged person, who, without having studied at the college, or +truckled to the pedantry of a diploma, hath employed a great portion +of his valuable time in experimental processes upon the bodies of +unfortunate fellow-creatures, in whom the vital spark, to mere +vulgar thinking, would seem extinct, and lost for ever. He omitteth +no occasion of obtruding his services, from a case of common +surfeit-suffocation to the ignobler obstructions, sometimes induced by +a too wilful application of the plant _Cannabis_ outwardly. But though +he declineth not altogether these drier extinctions, his occupation +tendeth for the most part to water-practice; for the convenience +of which, he hath judiciously fixed his quarters near the grand +repository of the stream mentioned, where, day and night, from his +little watch-tower, at the Middleton's-Head, he listeneth to detect +the wrecks of drowned mortality--partly, as he saith, to be upon the +spot--and partly, because the liquids which he useth to prescribe +to himself and his patients, on these distressing occasions, are +ordinarily more conveniently to be found at these common hostelries, +than in the shops and phials of the apothecaries. His ear hath arrived +to such finesse by practice, that it is reported, he can distinguish +a plunge at a half furlong distance; and can tell, if it be casual or +deliberate. He weareth a medal, suspended over a suit, originally of a +sad brown, but which, by time, and frequency of nightly divings, has +been dinged into a true professional sable. He passeth by the name of +Doctor, and is remarkable for wanting his left eye. His remedy--after +a sufficient application of warm blankets, friction, &c., is a simple +tumbler, or more, of the purest Cognac, with water, made as hot as +the convalescent can bear it. Where he findeth, as in the case of my +friend, a squeamish subject, he condescendeth to be the taster; and +showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the prescription. +Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure. It addeth +confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in +hand with himself in the remedy. When the doctor swalloweth his own +draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion? +In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender +pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out +in the endeavour to save the lives of others--his pretensions so +moderate, that with difficulty I could press a crown upon him, for the +price of restoring the existence of such an invaluable creature to +society as G.D. + +It was pleasant to observe the effect of the subsiding alarm upon +the nerves of the dear absentee. It seemed to have given a shake +to memory, calling up notice after notice, of all the providential +deliverances he had experienced in the course of his long and innocent +life. Sitting up in my couch--my couch which, naked and void of +furniture hitherto, for the salutary repose which it administered, +shall be honoured with costly valance, at some price, and henceforth +be a state-bed at Colebrooke,--he discoursed of marvellous escapes--by +carelessness of nurses--by pails of gelid, and kettles of the +boiling element, in infancy--by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs, +in schoolboy frolics--by descent of tiles at Trumpington, and of +heavier tomes at Pembroke--by studious watchings, inducing frightful +vigilance--by want, and the fear of want, and all the sore throbbings +of the learned head.--Anon, he would burst out into little fragments +of chaunting--of songs long ago--ends of deliverance-hymns, not +remembered before since childhood, but coming up now, when his +heart was made tender as a child's--for the _tremor cordis_, in the +retrospect of a recent deliverance, as in a case of impending danger, +acting upon an innocent heart, will produce a self-tenderness, which +we should do ill to christen cowardice; and Shakspeare, in the latter +crisis, has made his good Sir Hugh to remember the sitting by Babylon, +and to mutter of shallow rivers. + +Waters of Sir Hugh Middleton--what a spark you were like to have +extinguished for ever! Your salubrious streams to this City, for now +near two centuries, would hardly have atoned for what you were in a +moment washing away. Mockery of a river--liquid artifice--wretched +conduit! henceforth rank with canals, and sluggish aqueducts. Was +it for this, that, smit in boyhood with the explorations of that +Abyssinian traveller, I paced the vales of Amwell to explore your +tributary springs, to trace your salutary waters sparkling through +green Hertfordshire, and cultured Enfield parks?--Ye have no swans--no +Naiads--no river God--or did the benevolent hoary aspect of my friend +tempt ye to suck him in, that ye also might have the tutelary genius +of your waters? + +Had he been drowned in Cam there would have been some consonancy +in it; but what willows had ye to wave and rustle over his moist +sepulture?--or, having no _name_, besides that unmeaning assumption +of _eternal novity_, did ye think to get one by the noble prize, and +henceforth to be termed the STREAM DYERIAN? + + And could such spacious virtue find a grave + Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a wave? + +I protest, George, you shall not venture out again--no, not by +daylight--without a sufficient pair of spectacles--in your musing +moods especially. Your absence of mind we have borne, till your +presence of body came to be called in question by it. You shall not go +wandering into Euripus with Aristotle, if we can help it. Fie, man, +to turn dipper at your years' after your many tracts in favour of +sprinkling only! + +I have nothing but water in my head o' nights since this frightful +accident. Sometimes I am with Clarence in his dream. At others, I +behold Christian beginning to sink, and crying out to his good brother +Hopeful (that is to me), "I sink in deep waters; the billows go over +my head, all the waves go over me. Selah." Then I have before me +Palinurus, just letting go the steerage. I cry out too late to save. +Next follow--a mournful procession--_suicidal faces_, saved against +their wills from drowning; dolefully trailing a length of reluctant +gratefulness, with ropy weeds pendant from locks of watchet +hue-constrained Lazari--Pluto's half-subjects--stolen fees from the +grave-bilking Charon of his fare. At their head Arion--or is it +G.D.?--in his singing garments marcheth singly, with harp in hand, +and votive garland, which Machaon (or Dr. Hawes) snatcheth straight, +intending to suspend it to the stern God of Sea. Then follow dismal +streams of Lethe, in which the half-drenched on earth are constrained +to drown downright, by wharfs where Ophelia twice acts her muddy +death. + +And, doubtless, there is some notice in that invisible world, when one +of us approacheth (as my friend did so lately) to their inexorable +precincts. When a soul knocks once, twice, at death's door, the +sensation aroused within the palace must be considerable; and the grim +Feature, by modern science so often dispossessed of his prey, must +have learned by this time to pity Tantalus. + +A pulse assuredly was felt along the line of the Elysian shades, when +the near arrival of G.D. was announced by no equivocal indications. +From their seats of Asphodel arose the gentler and the graver +ghosts-poet, or historian--of Grecian or of Roman lore--to crown with +unfading chaplets the half-finished love-labours of their unwearied +scholiast. Him Markland expected--him Tyrwhitt hoped to encounter--him +the sweet lyrist of Peter House, whom he had barely seen upon +earth[1], with newest airs prepared to greet ----; and, patron of +the gentle Christ's boy,--who should have been his patron through +life--the mild Askew, with longing aspirations, leaned foremost from +his venerable Æsculapian chair, to welcome into that happy company the +matured virtues of the man, whose tender scions in the boy he himself +upon earth had so prophetically fed and watered. + +[Footnote 1: Graium _tantum vidit_.] + + + + +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY + + +Sydney's Sonnets--I speak of the best of them--are among the very best +of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, +and high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his +compositions of a similar structure. They are in truth what Milton, +censuring the Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort +of after-tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet the +things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the romance) may +be "full of worth and wit." They savour of the Courtier, it must be +allowed, and not of the Commonwealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier +when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still more a Courtier +when he composed the Arcades. When the national struggle was to begin, +he becomingly cast these vanities behind him; and if the order of time +had thrown Sir Philip upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, +there is no reason why he should not have acted the same part in that +emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Sydney. He did not +want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His letter on the French +match may testify, he could speak his mind freely to Princes. The +times did not call him to the scaffold. + +The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the +compositions of his maturest years. Those of Sydney, which I am about +to produce, were written in the very hey-day of his blood. They are +stuck full of amorous fancies--far-fetched conceits, befitting his +occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts +upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich +pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in +self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the +Beloved. We must be Lovers--or at least the cooling touch of time, +the _circum præcordia frigus_, must not have so damped our faculties, +as to take away our recollection that we were once so--before we can +duly appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles, of +the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though by some +accounted the only natural) are least natural for the high Sydnean +love to express its fancies by. They may serve for the loves of +Tibullus, or the dear Author of the Schoolmistress; for passions that +creep and whine in Elegies and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton +never loved at this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses (_ad +Leonoram_ I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the +poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when he could thus +apostrophise a singing-girl:-- + + Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes) + Obtigit ætheriis ales ab ordinibus. + Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi si gloria major, + Nam tua præsentem vox sonat ipsa Deum? + Aut Deus, aut vacui certè mens tertia coeli, + Per tua secretò guttura serpit agens; + Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia corda + Sensim immortali assuescere posse sono. + QUOD SI CUNCTA QUIDEM DEUS EST, PER CUNCTAQUE FUSUS, + IN TE UNÂ LOQUITUR, CÆTERA MUTUS HABET. + +This is loving in a strange fashion; and it requires some candour of +construction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast +a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in +the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if +he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, +Sydney has no nights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the +sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship +with his mortal passions. + + I + + With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies; + How silently; and with how wan a face! + What! may it be, that even in heavenly place + That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries? + Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes + Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; + I read it in thy looks; thy languish! grace + To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. + Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, + Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit? + Are beauties there as proud as here they be? + Do they above love to be loved, and yet + Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? + Do they call _virtue_ there--_ungratefulness_! + +The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He +means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue? + + II + + Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, + The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, + The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, + The indifferent judge between the high and low; + With shield of proof shield me from out the prease[1] + Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw; + O make in me those civil wars to cease: + I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. + Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + And if these things, as being thine by right, + Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, + Livelier than elsewhere, STELLA'S image see. + + + III + + The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness + Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes, + Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, + With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. + Some, that know how my spring I did address, + Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; + Others, because the Prince my service tries, + Think, that I think state errors to redress; + But harder judges judge, ambition's rage, + Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place, + Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden cage. + O fools, or over-wise! alas, the race + Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, + But only STELLA'S eyes, and STELLA'S heart. + + + IV + + Because I oft in dark abstracted guise + Seem most alone in greatest company, + With dearth of words, or answers quite awry, + To them that would make speech of speech arise; + They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies, + That poison foul of bubbling _Pride_ doth lie + So in my swelling breast, that only I + Fawn on myself, and others do despise; + Yet _Pride_, I think, doth not my Soul possess, + Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass: + But one worse fault--_Ambition_--I confess, + That makes me oft my best friends overpass, + Unseen, unheard--while Thought to highest place + Bends all his powers, even unto STELLA'S grace. + + + V + + Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance, + Guided so well that I obtained the prize, + Both by the judgment of the English eyes, + And of some sent from that _sweet enemy_,--France; + Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; + Townsfolk my strength; a daintier judge applies + His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise; + Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; + Others, because of both sides I do take + My blood from them, who did excel in this, + Think Nature me a man of arms did make. + How far they shot awry! the true cause is, + STELLA look'd on, and from her heavenly face + Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. + + + VI + + In martial sports I had my cunning tried, + And yet to break more staves did me address, + While with the people's shouts (I must confess) + Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride-- + When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried + In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, + "What now, Sir Fool!" said he; "I would no less: + Look here, I say." I look'd, and STELLA spied, + Who hard by made a window send forth light. + My heart then quak'd, then dazzled were mine eyes; + One hand forgot to rule, th'other to fight; + Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries. + My foe came on, and beat the air for me-- + Till that her blush made me my shame to see. + + + VII + + No more, my dear, no more these counsels try; + O give my passions leave to run their race; + Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace; + Let folk o'er-charged with brain against me cry; + Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye; + Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace; + Let all the earth with scorn recount my case-- + But do not will me from my love to fly. + I do not envy Aristotle's wit, + Nor do aspire to Cæsar's bleeding fame; + Nor aught do care, though some above me sit; + Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame. + But that which once may win thy cruel heart: + Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. + + + VIII + + Love still a boy, and oft a wanton, is, + School'd only by his mother's tender eye; + What wonder then, if he his lesson miss, + When for so soft a rod dear play he try? + And yet my STAR, because a sugar'd kiss + In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie, + Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only this. + Sweet, it was saucy LOVE, not humble I. + But no 'scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear + In beauty's throne--see now, who dares come near + Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain? + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face + Anger invests with such a lovely grace, + That anger's self I needs must kiss again. + + + IX + + I never drank of Aganippe well, + Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, + And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell; + Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit. + Some do I bear of Poets' fury tell, + But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it; + And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, + I am no pick-purse of another's wit. + How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease + My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow + In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? + Guess me the cause--what is it thus?--fye, no. + Or so?--much less. How then? sure thus it is, + My lips are sweet, inspired with STELLA'S kiss. + + + X + + Of all the kings that ever here did reign, + Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name, + Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain-- + Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame. + Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame + His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain; + And, gain'd by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame, + That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late obtain. + Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so 'fraid, + Though strongly hedged of bloody Lions' paws + That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid. + Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause-- + But only, for this worthy knight durst prove + To lose his crown rather than fail his love. + + + XI + + O happy Thames, that didst my STELLA bear, + I saw thyself, with many a smiling line + Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear, + While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; + The boat for joy could not to dance forbear, + While wanton winds, with beauty so divine + Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair + They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine. + And fain those Æol's youth there would their stay + Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly, + First did with puffing kiss those locks display. + She, so dishevell'd, blush'd; from window I + With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace, + Let honour's self to thee grant highest place! + + + XII + + Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be; + And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, + Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet, + More soft than to a chamber melody,-- + Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me + To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet, + My Muse and I must you of duty greet + With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. + Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed, + By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot; + Nor blam'd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed. + And that you know, I envy you no lot + Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, + Hundreds of years you STELLA'S feet may kiss. + +[Footnote 1: Press.] + +Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last sonnet, are +my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they +are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of +chivalry,"--of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been +the "president,"--shines through them. I confess I can see nothing +of the "jejune" or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and +"cumbrous"--which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The +verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the +trumpet; or tempered (as himself expresses it) to "trampling horses' +feet." They abound in felicitous phrases-- + + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face-- + +_8th Sonnet._ + + --Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + +_2nd Sonnet._ + + --That sweet enemy,--France-- + +_5th Sonnet._ + +But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalised +feelings--the failing too much of some poetry of the present day--they +are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriates +every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a +thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and +illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions +of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs +through them, which almost affixes a date to them; marks the _when_ +and _where_ they were written. + +I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, +because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it +by a gentler name) with which W.H. takes every occasion of insulting +the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of +Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the +most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and +authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived +an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a +king-hater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to +a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a _fine idea_ from my mind. +The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of +character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and +encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries +have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the Critic, that Sir +Philip Sydney was that _opprobrious thing_ which a foolish nobleman in +his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph +made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon +the beautiful lines in the "Friend's Passion for his Astrophel," +printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others. + + You knew--who knew not Astrophel? + (That I should live to say I knew, + And have not in possession still!)-- + Things known permit me to renew-- + Of him you know his merit such, + I cannot say--you hear--too much. + + Within these woods of Arcady + He chief delight and pleasure took; + And on the mountain Partheny. + Upon the crystal liquid brook, + The Muses met him every day, + That taught him sing, to write, and say. + + When he descended down the mount, + His personage seemed most divine: + A thousand graces one might count + Upon his lovely chearful eyne. + To hear him speak, and sweetly smile, + You were in Paradise the while, + + _A sweet attractive kind of grace; + A full assurance given by looks; + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books--_ + I trow that count'nance cannot lye, + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + * * * * * + + Above all others this is he, + Which erst approved in his song, + That love and honour might agree, + And that pure love will do no wrong. + Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame + To love a man of virtuous name. + + Did never Love so sweetly breathe + In any mortal breast before: + Did never Muse inspire beneath + A Poet's brain with finer store. + He wrote of Love with high conceit, + And beauty rear'd above her height. + +Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in +the Poem,--the last in the collection accompanying the above,--which +from internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brooke's,--beginning with +"Silence augmenteth grief,"--and then seriously ask himself, whether +the subject of such absorbing and confounding regrets could have been +_that thing_ which Lord Oxford termed him. + + + + +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO + + +Dan Stuart once told us, that he did not remember that he ever +deliberately walked into the Exhibition at Somerset House in his life. +He might occasionally have escorted a party of ladies across the way +that were going in; but he never went in of his own head. Yet the +office of the Morning Post newspaper stood then just where it does +now--we are carrying you back, Reader, some thirty years or more--with +its gilt-globe-topt front facing that emporium of our artists' grand +Annual Exposure. We sometimes wish, that we had observed the same +abstinence with Daniel. + +A word or two of D.S. He ever appeared to us one of the finest +tempered of Editors. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, was equally +pleasant, with a dash, no slight one either, of the courtier. S. was +frank, plain, and English all over. We have worked for both these +gentlemen. + +It is soothing to contemplate the head of the Ganges; to trace the +first little bubblings of a mighty river; + + With holy reverence to approach the rocks, + Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song. + +Fired with a perusal of the Abyssinian Pilgrim's exploratory ramblings +after the cradle of the infant Nilus, we well remember on one fine +summer holyday (a "whole day's leave" we called it at Christ's +Hospital) sallying forth at rise of sun, not very well provisioned +either for such an undertaking, to trace the current of the New +River--Middletonian stream!--to its scaturient source, as we had read, +in meadows by fair Amwell. Gallantly did we commence our solitary +quest--for it was essential to the dignity of a DISCOVERY, that no eye +of schoolboy, save our own, should beam on the detection. By flowery +spots, and verdant lanes, skirting Hornsey, Hope trained us on in many +a baffling turn; endless, hopeless meanders, as it seemed; or as if +the jealous waters had _dodged_ us, reluctant to have the humble spot +of their nativity revealed; till spent, and nigh famished, before set +of the same sun, we sate down somewhere by Bowes Farm, near Tottenham, +with a tithe of our proposed labours only yet accomplished; sorely +convinced in spirit, that that Brucian enterprise was as yet too +arduous for our young shoulders. + +Not more refreshing to the thirsty curiosity of the traveller is the +tracing of some mighty waters up to their shallow fontlet, than it is +to a pleased and candid reader to go back to the inexperienced essays, +the first callow flights in authorship, of some established name in +literature; from the Gnat which preluded to the Æneid, to the Duck +which Samuel Johnson trod on. + +In those days every Morning Paper, as an essential retainer to its +establishment, kept an author, who was bound to furnish daily a +quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke--and it was thought +pretty high too--was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases. +The chat of the day, scandle, but, above all, _dress_, furnished +the material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven lines. +Shorter they might be, but they must be poignant. + +A fashion of _flesh_, or rather _pink_-coloured hose for the ladies, +luckily coming up at the juncture, when we were on our probation for +the place of Chief Jester to S.'s Paper, established our reputation in +that line. We were pronounced a "capital hand." O the conceits which +we varied upon _red_ in all its prismatic differences! from the trite +and obvious flower of Cytherea, to the flaming costume of the lady +that has her sitting upon "many waters." Then there was the collateral +topic of ancles. What an occasion to a truly chaste writer, like +ourself, of touching that nice brink, and yet never tumbling over it, +of a seemingly ever approximating something "not quite proper;" while, +like a skilful posture-master, balancing betwixt decorums and their +opposites, he keeps the line, from which a hair's-breadth deviation is +destruction; hovering in the confines of light and darkness, or where +"both seem either;" a hazy uncertain delicacy; Autolycus-like in the +Play, still putting off his expectant auditory with "Whoop, do me no +harm, good man!" But, above all, that conceit arrided us most at that +time, and still tickles our midriff to remember, where, allusively +to the flight of Astræa--_ultima Calestûm terras reliquit_--we +pronounced--in reference to the stockings still--that MODESTY TAKING +HER FINAL LEAVE OF MORTALS, HER LAST BLUSH WAS VISIBLE IN HER ASCENT +TO THE HEAVENS BY THE TRACT OF THE GLOWING INSTEP. This might be +called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed tolerable writing in +those days. + +But the fashion of jokes, with all other things, passes away; as did +the transient mode which had so favoured us. The ancles of our fair +friends in a few weeks began to reassume their whiteness, and left us +scarce a leg to stand upon. Other female whims followed, but none, +methought, so pregnant, so invitatory of shrewd conceits, and more +than single meanings. + +Somebody has said, that to swallow six cross-buns daily consecutively +for a fortnight would surfeit the stoutest digestion. But to have to +furnish as many jokes daily, and that not for a fortnight, but for a +long twelvemonth, as we were constrained to do, was a little harder +execution. "Man goeth forth to his work until the evening"--from a +reasonable hour in the morning, we presume it was meant. Now as our +main occupation took us up from eight till five every day in the City; +and as our evening hours, at that time of life, had generally to do +with any thing rather than business, it follows, that the only time +we could spare for this manufactory of jokes--our supplementary +livelihood, that supplied us in every want beyond mere bread and +cheese--was exactly that part of the day which (as we have heard of No +Man's Land) may be fitly denominated No Man's Time; that is, no time +in which a man ought to be up, and awake, in. To speak more plainly, +it is that time, of an hour, or an hour and a half's duration, in +which a man, whose occasions call him up so preposterously, has to +wait for his breakfast. + +O those headaches at dawn of day, when at five, or half-past-five in +summer, and not much later in the dark seasons, we were compelled to +rise, having been perhaps not above four hours in bed--(for we were no +go-to-beds with the lamb, though we anticipated the lark ofttimes in +her rising--we liked a parting cup at midnight, as all young men did +before these effeminate times, and to have our friends about us--we +were not constellated under Aquarius, that watery sign, and therefore +incapable of Bacchus, cold, washy, bloodless--we were none of your +Basilian water-sponges, nor had taken our degrees at Mount Ague--we +were right toping Capulets, jolly companions, we and they)--but to +have to get up, as we said before, curtailed of half our fair sleep, +fasting, with only a dim vista of refreshing Bohea in the distance--to +be necessitated to rouse ourselves at the detestable rap of an old +hag of a domestic, who seemed to take a diabolical pleasure in her +announcement that it was "time to rise;" and whose chappy knuckles +we have often yearned to amputate, and string them up at our chamber +door, to be a terror to all such unseasonable rest-breakers in +future-- + +"Facil" and sweet, as Virgil sings, had been the "descending" of the +over-night, balmy the first sinking of the heavy head upon the pillow; +but to get up, as he goes on to say, + + --revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras-- + +and to get up moreover to make jokes with malice prepended--there was +the "labour," there the "work." + +No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to that, our +slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny, +which this necessity exercised upon us. Half a dozen jests in a day +(bating Sundays too), why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number +every day in our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical +exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when the head has to +go out to them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet-- + +Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth. + +It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings came up; but +mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic +impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature, upon which +no smile could play; some flint, from which no process of ingenuity +could procure a distillation. There they lay; there your appointed +tale of brick-making was set before you, which you must finish, +with or without straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon--_the +Public_--like him in Bel's temple--must be fed; it expected its daily +rations; and Daniel, and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we +could on this side bursting him. + +While we were wringing our coy sprightlinesses for the Post, and +writhing under the toil of what is called "easy writing," Bob Allen, +our quondam schoolfellow, was tapping his impracticable brains in a +like service for the "Oracle." Not that Robert troubled himself much +about wit. If his paragraphs had a sprightly air about them, it was +sufficient. He carried this nonchalance so far at last, that a matter +of intelligence, and that no very important one, was not seldom palmed +upon his employers for a good jest; for example sake--"_Walking +yesterday morning casually down Snow Hill, who should we meet but Mr. +Deputy Humphreys! we rejoice to add, that the worthy Deputy appeared +to enjoy a good state of health. We do not remember ever to have seen +him look better._" This gentleman, so surprisingly met upon Snow Hill, +from some peculiarities in gait or gesture, was a constant butt for +mirth to the small paragraph-mongers of the day; and our friend +thought that he might have his fling at him with the rest. We met +A. in Holborn shortly after this extraordinary rencounter, which he +told with tears of satisfaction in his eyes, and chuckling at the +anticipated effects of its announcement next day in the paper. We did +not quite comprehend where the wit of it lay at the time; nor was it +easy to be detected, when the thing came out, advantaged by type and +letter-press. He had better have met any thing that morning than a +Common Council Man. His services were shortly after dispensed with, +on the plea that his paragraphs of late had been deficient in point. +The one in question, it must be owned, had an air, in the opening +especially, proper to awaken curiosity; and the sentiment, or moral, +wears the aspect of humanity, and good neighbourly feeling. But +somehow the conclusion was not judged altogether to answer to the +magnificent promise of the premises. We traced our friend's pen +afterwards in the "True Briton," the "Star," the "Traveller,"--from +all which he was successively dismissed, the Proprietors having "no +further occasion for his services." Nothing was easier than to detect +him. When wit failed, or topics ran low, there constantly appeared the +following--"_It is not generally known that the three Blue Balls at +the Pawnbrokers' shops are the ancient arms of Lombardy. The Lombards +were the first money-brokers in Europe._" Bob has done more to set +the public right on this important point of blazonry, than the whole +College of Heralds. + +The appointment of a regular wit has long ceased to be a part of the +economy of a Morning Paper. Editors find their own jokes, or do as +well without them. Parson Este, and Topham, brought up the set custom +of "witty paragraphs," first in the "World." Boaden was a reigning +paragraphist in his day, and succeeded poor Allen in the Oracle. +But, as we said, the fashion of jokes passes away; and it would be +difficult to discover in the Biographer of Mrs. Siddons, any traces +of that vivacity and fancy which charmed the whole town at the +commencement of the present century. Even the prelusive delicacies +of the present writer--the curt "Astræan allusion"--would be thought +pedantic, and out of date, in these days. + +From the office of the Morning Post (for we may as well exhaust our +Newspaper Reminiscences at once) by change of property in the paper, +we were transferred, mortifying exchange! to the office of the +Albion Newspaper, late Rackstrow's Museum, in Fleet-street. What a +transition--from a handsome apartment, from rose-wood desks, and +silver-inkstands, to an office--no office, but a _den_ rather, but +just redeemed from the occupation of dead monsters, of which it +seemed redolent--from the centre of loyalty and fashion, to a focus +of vulgarity and sedition! Here in murky closet, inadequate from its +square contents to the receipt of the two bodies of Editor, and humble +paragraph-maker, together at one time, sat in the discharge of his new +Editorial functions (the "Bigod" of Elia) the redoubted John Fenwick. + +F., without a guinea in his pocket, and having left not many in the +pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick +doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the +rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one +Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory +for a libel on the Prince of Wales. With this hopeless concern--for +it had been sinking ever since its commencement, and could now reckon +upon not more than a hundred subscribers--F. resolutely determined +upon pulling down the Government in the first instance, and making +both our fortunes by way of corollary. For seven weeks and mote did +this infatuated Democrat go about borrowing seven shilling pieces, +and lesser coin, to meet the daily demands of the Stamp Office, which +allowed no credit to publications of that side in politics. An outcast +from politer bread, we attached our small talents to the forlorn +fortunes of our friend. Our occupation now was to write treason. + +Recollections of feelings--which were all that now remained from our +first boyish heats kindled by the French Revolution, when if we were +misled, we erred in the company of some, who are accounted very +good men now--rather than any tendency at this time to Republican +doctrines--assisted us in assuming a style of writing, while the +paper lasted, consonant in no very under-tone to the right earnest +fanaticism of F. Our cue was now to insinuate, rather than recommend, +possible abdications. Blocks, axes, Whitehall tribunals, were covered +with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis--as Mr. Bayes says, never +naming the _thing_ directly--that the keen eye of an Attorney General +was insufficient to detect the lurking snake among them. There were +times, indeed, when we sighed for our more gentleman-like occupation +under Stuart. But with change of masters it is ever change of service. +Already one paragraph, and another, as we learned afterwards from a +gentleman at the Treasury, had begun to be marked at that office, with +a view of its being submitted at least to the attention of the proper +Law Officers--when an unlucky, or rather lucky epigram from our pen, +aimed at Sir J----s M----h, who was on the eve of departing for India +to reap the fruits of his apostacy, as F. pronounced it, (it is hardly +worth particularising), happening to offend the nice sense of Lord, +or, as he then delighted to be called, Citizen Stanhope, deprived F. +at once of the last hopes of a guinea from the last patron that had +stuck by us; and breaking up our establishment, left us to the safe, +but somewhat mortifying, neglect of the Crown Lawyers.--It was about +this time, or a little earlier, that Dan. Stuart made that curious +confession to us, that he had "never deliberately walked into an +Exhibition at Somerset House in his life." + + + + +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART + + +Hogarth excepted, can we produce any one painter within the last fifty +years, or since the humour of exhibiting began, that has treated a +story _imaginatively_? By this we mean, upon whom his subject has +so acted, that it has seemed to direct _him_--not to be arranged by +him? Any upon whom its leading or collateral points have impressed +themselves so tyrannically, that he dared not treat it otherwise, +lest he should falsify a revelation? Any that has imparted to his +compositions, not merely so much truth as is enough to convey a story +with clearness, but that individualising property, which should keep +the subject so treated distinct in feature from every other subject, +however similar, and to common apprehensions almost identical; so as +that we might say, this and this part could have found an appropriate +place in no other picture in the world but this? Is there anything in +modern art--we will not demand that it should be equal--but in any +way analogous to what Titian has effected, in that wonderful bringing +together of two times in the "Ariadne," in the National Gallery? +Precipitous, with his reeling Satyr rout about him, re-peopling and +re-illuming suddenly the waste places, drunk with a new fury beyond +the grape, Bacchus, born in fire, fire-like flings himself at the +Cretan. This is the time present. With this telling of the story an +artist, and no ordinary one, might remain richly proud. Guido, in +his harmonious version of it, saw no further. But from the depths of +the imaginative spirit Titian has recalled past time, and laid it +contributory with the present to one simultaneous effect. With the +desert all ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made lucid +with the presence and new offers of a god,--as if unconscious of +Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning +pageant--her soul undistracted from Theseus--Ariadne is still pacing +the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same +local solitude, with which she awoke at day-break to catch the forlorn +last glances of the sail that bore away the Athenian. + +Here are two points miraculously co-uniting; fierce society, with +the feeling of solitude still absolute; noon-day revelations, with +the accidents of the dull grey dawn unquenched and lingering; the +_present_ Bacchus, with the _past_ Ariadne; two stories, with double +Time; separate, and harmonising. Had the artist made the woman one +shade less indifferent to the God; still more, had she expressed a +rapture at his advent, where would have been the story of the mighty +desolation of the heart previous? merged in the insipid accident of a +flattering offer met with a welcome acceptance. The broken heart for +Theseus was not lightly to be pieced up by a God. + +We have before us a fine rough print, from a picture by Raphael in +the Vatican. It is the Presentation of the newborn Eve to Adam by the +Almighty. A fairer mother of mankind we might imagine, and a goodlier +sire perhaps of men since born. But these are matters subordinate to +the conception of the _situation_, displayed in this extraordinary +production. A tolerably modern artist would have been satisfied with +tempering certain raptures of connubial anticipation, with a suitable +acknowledgment to the Giver of the blessing, in the countenance of the +first bridegroom; something like the divided attention of the child +(Adam was here a child man) between the given toy, and the mother +who had just blest it with the bauble. This is the obvious, the +first-sight view, the superficial. An artist of a higher grade, +considering the awful presence they were in, would have taken care +to subtract something from the expression of the more human passion, +and to heighten the more spiritual one. This would be as much as an +exhibition-goer, from the opening of Somerset House to last year's +show, has been encouraged to look for. It is obvious to hint at a +lower expression, yet in a picture, that for respects of drawing +and colouring, might be deemed not wholly inadmissible within these +art-fostering walls, in which the raptures should be as ninety-nine, +the gratitude as one, or perhaps Zero! By neither the one passion nor +the other has Raphael expounded the situation of Adam. Singly upon his +brow sits the absorbing sense of wonder at the created miracle. The +_moment_ is seized by the intuitive artist, perhaps not self-conscious +of his art, in which neither of the conflicting emotions--a moment how +abstracted--have had time to spring up, or to battle for indecorous +mastery.--We have seen a landscape of a justly admired neoteric, in +which he aimed at delineating a fiction, one of the most severely +beautiful in antiquity--the gardens of the Hesperides. To do Mr. ---- +justice, he had painted a laudable orchard, with fitting seclusion, +and a veritable dragon (of which a Polypheme by Poussin is somehow a +fac-simile for the situation), looking over into the world shut out +backwards, so that none but a "still-climbing Hercules" could hope to +catch a peep at the admired Ternary of Recluses. No conventual porter +could keep his keys better than this custos with the "lidless eyes." +He not only sees that none _do_ intrude into that privacy, but, as +clear as daylight, that none but _Hercules aut Diabolus_ by any manner +of means _can_. So far all is well. We have absolute solitude here +or nowhere. _Ab extra_ the damsels are snug enough. But here the +artist's courage seems to have failed him. He began to pity his pretty +charge, and, to comfort the irksomeness, has peopled their solitude +with a bevy of fair attendants, maids of honour, or ladies of the +bed-chamber, according to the approved etiquette at a court of the +nineteenth century; giving to the whole scene the air of a _fête +champêtre_, if we will but excuse the absence of the gentlemen. +This is well, and Watteauish. But what is become of the solitary +mystery--the + + Daughters three, + That sing around the golden tree? + +This is not the way in which Poussin would have treated this subject. + +The paintings, or rather the stupendous architectural designs, of a +modern artist, have been urged as objections to the theory of our +motto. They are of a character, we confess, to stagger it. His towered +structures are of the highest order of the material sublime. Whether +they were dreams, or transcripts of some elder workmanship--Assyrian +ruins old--restored by this mighty artist, they satisfy our most +stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the antique +world. It is a pity that they were ever peopled. On that side, the +imagination of the artist halts, and appears defective. Let us examine +the point of the story in the "Belshazzar's Feast." We will introduce +it by an apposite anecdote. + +The court historians of the day record, that at the first dinner given +by the late King (then Prince Regent) at the Pavilion, the following +characteristic frolic was played off. The guests were select and +admiring; the banquet profuse and admirable; the lights lustrous and +oriental; the eye was perfectly dazzled with the display of plate, +among which the great gold salt-cellar, brought from the regalia in +the Tower for this especial purpose, itself a tower! stood conspicuous +for its magnitude. And now the Rev. **** the then admired court +Chaplain, was proceeding with the grace, when, at a signal given, the +lights were suddenly overcast, and a huge transparency was discovered, +in which glittered in golden letters-- + + "BRIGHTON-EARTHQUAKE-SWALLOW-UP-ALIVE!" + +Imagine the confusion of the guests; the Georges and garters, jewels, +bracelets, moulted upon the occasion! The fans dropt, and picked up +the next morning by the sly court pages! Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name +fainting, and the Countess of **** holding the smelling bottle, +till the good-humoured Prince caused harmony to be restored by calling +in fresh candles, and declaring that the whole was nothing but a +pantomime _hoax_, got up by the ingenious Mr. Farley, of Covent +Garden, from hints which his Royal Highness himself had furnished! +Then imagine the infinite applause that followed, the mutual +rallyings, the declarations that "they were not much frightened," of +the assembled galaxy. + +The point of time in the picture exactly answers to the appearance of +the transparency in the anecdote. The huddle, the flutter, the bustle, +the escape, the alarm, and the mock alarm; the prettinesses heightened +by consternation; the courtier's fear which was flattery, and the +lady's which was affectation; all that we may conceive to have taken +place in a mob of Brighton courtiers, sympathising with the well-acted +surprise of their sovereign; all this, and no more, is exhibited by +the well-dressed lords and ladies in the Hall of Belus. Just this sort +of consternation we have seen among a flock of disquieted wild geese +at the report only of a gun having gone off! + +But is this vulgar fright, this mere animal anxiety for the +preservation of their persons,--such as we have witnessed at a +theatre, when a slight alarm of fire has been given--an adequate +exponent of a supernatural terror? the way in which the finger of God, +writing judgments, would have been met by the withered conscience? +There is a human fear, and a divine fear. The one is disturbed, +restless, and bent upon escape. The other is bowed down, effortless, +passive. When the spirit appeared before Eliphaz in the visions of the +night, and the hair of his flesh stood up, was it in the thoughts +of the Temanite to ring the bell of his chamber, or to call up the +servants? But let us see in the text what there is to justify all this +huddle of vulgar consternation. + +From the words of Daniel it appears that Belshazzar had made a great +feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. +The golden and silver vessels are gorgeously enumerated, with the +princes, the king's concubines, and his wives. Then follows-- + +"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over +against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's +palace; and the _king_ saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the +_king's_ countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so +that the joints of his loins were loosened, and his knees smote one +against another." + +This is the plain text. By no hint can it be otherwise inferred, but +that the appearance was solely confined to the fancy of Belshazzar, +that his single brain was troubled. Not a word is spoken of its being +seen by any else there present, not even by the queen herself, who +merely undertakes for the interpretation of the phenomenon, as related +to her, doubtless, by her husband. The lords are simply said to be +astonished; _i.e._ at the trouble and the change of countenance in +their sovereign. Even the prophet does not appear to have seen the +scroll, which the king saw. He recals it only, as Joseph did the Dream +to the King of Egypt. "Then was the part of the hand sent from him +[the Lord], and this writing was written." He speaks of the phantasm +as past. + +Then what becomes of this needless multiplication of the miracle? this +message to a royal conscience, singly expressed--for it was said, +"thy kingdom is divided,"--simultaneously impressed upon the fancies +of a thousand courtiers, who were implied in it neither directly nor +grammatically? But admitting the artist's own version of the story, +and that the sight was seen also by the thousand courtiers--let it +have been visible to all Babylon--as the knees of Belshazzar were +shaken, and his countenance troubled, even so would the knees of every +man in Babylon, and their countenances, as of an individual man, been +troubled; bowed, bent down, so would they have remained, stupor-fixed, +with no thought of struggling with that inevitable judgment. + +Not all that is optically possible to be seen, is to be shown in every +picture. The eye delightedly dwells upon the brilliant individualities +in a "Marriage at Cana," by Veronese, or Titian, to the very texture +and colour of the wedding garments, the ring glittering upon the +bride's fingers, the metal and fashion of the wine pots; for at such +seasons there is leisure and luxury to be curious. But in a "day of +judgment," or in a "day of lesser horrors, yet divine," as at the +impious feast of Belshazzar, the eye should see, as the actual eye of +an agent or patient in the immediate scene would see, only in masses +and indistinction. Not only the female attire and jewelry exposed +to the critical eye of the fashion, as minutely as the dresses in +a lady's magazine, in the criticised picture,--but perhaps the +curiosities of anatomical science, and studied diversities of posture +in the falling angels and sinners of Michael Angelo,--have no business +in their great subjects. There was no leisure of them. + +By a wise falsification, the great masters of painting got at their +true conclusions; by not showing the actual appearances, that is, all +that was to be seen at any given moment by an indifferent eye, but +only what the eye might be supposed to see in the doing or suffering +of some portentous action. Suppose the moment of the swallowing up of +Pompeii. There they were to be seen--houses, columns, architectural +proportions, differences of public and private buildings, men and +women at their standing occupations, the diversified thousand +postures, attitudes, dresses, in some confusion truly, but physically +they were visible. But what eye saw them at that eclipsing moment, +which reduces confusion to a kind of unity, and when the senses +are upturned from their proprieties, when sight and hearing are a +feeling only? A thousand years have passed, and we are at leisure to +contemplate the weaver fixed standing at his shuttle, the baker at his +oven, and to turn over with antiquarian coolness the pots and pans of +Pompeii. + +"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeah, and thou, Moon, in the valley of +Ajalon." Who, in reading this magnificent Hebraism, in his conception, +sees aught but the heroic son of Nun, with the out-stretched arm, +and the greater and lesser light obsequious? Doubtless there were to +be seen hill and dale, and chariots and horsemen, on open plain, or +winding by secret defiles, and all the circumstances and stratagems +of war. But whose eyes would have been conscious of this array at the +interposition of the synchronic miracle? Yet in the picture of this +subject by the artist of the "Belshazzar's Feast"--no ignoble work +either--the marshalling and landscape of the war is everything, the +miracle sinks into an anecdote of the day; and the eye may "dart +through rank and file traverse" for some minutes, before it shall +discover, among his armed followers, _which is Joshua_! Not modern art +alone, but ancient, where only it is to be found if anywhere, can be +detected erring, from defect of this imaginative faculty. The world +has nothing to show of the preternatural in painting, transcending the +figure of Lazarus bursting his grave-clothes, in the great picture at +Angerstein's. It seems a thing between two beings. A ghastly horror +at itself struggles with newly-apprehending gratitude at second life +bestowed. It cannot forget that it was a ghost. It has hardly felt +that it is a body. It has to tell of the world of spirits.--Was it +from a feeling, that the crowd of half-impassioned by-standers, and +the still more irrelevant herd of passers-by at a distance, who have +not heard or but faintly have been told of the passing miracle, +admirable as they are in design and hue--for it is a glorified +work--do not respond adequately to the action--that the single figure +of the Lazarus has been attributed to Michael Angelo, and the mighty +Sebastian unfairly robbed of the fame of the greater half of the +interest? Now that there were not indifferent passers-by within actual +scope of the eyes of those present at the miracle, to whom the sound +of it had but faintly, or not at all, reached, it would be hardihood +to deny; but would they see them? or can the mind in the conception of +it admit of such unconcerning objects? can it think of them at all? or +what associating league to the imagination can there be between the +seers, and the seers not, of a presential miracle? + +Were an artist to paint upon demand a picture of a Dryad, we will ask +whether, in the present low state of expectation, the patron would +not, or ought not to be fully satisfied with a beautiful naked figure +recumbent under wide-stretched oaks? Disseat those woods, and place +the same figure among fountains, and falls of pellucid water, and +you have a--Naiad! Not so in a rough print we have seen after Julio +Romano, we think--for it is long since--_there_, by no process, with +mere change of scene, could the figure have reciprocated characters. +Long, grotesque, fantastic, yet with a grace of her own, beautiful in +convolution and distortion, linked to her connatural tree, co-twisting +with its limbs her own, till both seemed either--these, animated +branches; those, disanimated members--yet the animal and vegetable +lives sufficiently kept distinct--_his_ Dryad lay--an approximation of +two natures, which to conceive, it must be seen; analogous to, not the +same with, the delicacies of Ovidian transformations. + +To the lowest subjects, and, to a superficial comprehension, the +most barren, the Great Masters gave loftiness and fruitfulness. The +large eye of genius saw in the meanness of present objects their +capabilities of treatment from their relations to some grand +Past or Future. How has Raphael--we must still linger about the +Vatican--treated the humble craft of the ship-builder, in _his_ +"Building of the Ark?" It is in that scriptural series, to which we +have referred, and which, judging from some fine rough old graphic +sketches of them which we possess, seem to be of a higher and more +poetic grade than even the Cartoons. The dim of sight are the +timid and the shrinking. There is a cowardice in modern art. As +the Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend made the prophetic guess +at Rome, from the beard and horns of the Moses of Michael Angelo +collected no inferences beyond that of a He Goat and a Cornuto; so +from this subject, of mere mechanic promise, it would instinctively +turn away, as from one incapable of investiture with any grandeur. The +dock-yards at Woolwich would object derogatory associations. The depôt +at Chatham would be the mote and the beam in its intellectual eye. But +not to the nautical preparations in the ship-yards of Civita Vecchia +did Raphael look for instructions, when he imagined the Building of +the Vessel that was to be conservatory of the wrecks of the species of +drowned mankind. In the intensity of the action, he keeps ever out of +sight the meanness of the operation. There is the Patriarch, in calm +forethought, and with holy prescience, giving directions. And there +are his agents--the solitary but sufficient Three--hewing, sawing, +every one with the might and earnestness of a Demiurgus; under some +instinctive rather than technical guidance; giant-muscled; every one a +Hercules, or liker to those Vulcanian Three, that in sounding caverns +under Mongibello wrought in fire--Brontes, and black Steropes, and +Pyracmon. So work the workmen that should repair a world! + +Artists again err in the confounding of _poetic_ with _pictorial +subjects_. In the latter, the exterior accidents are nearly +everything, the unseen qualities as nothing. Othello's colour--the +infirmities and corpulence of a Sir John Falstaff--do they haunt us +perpetually in the reading? or are they obtruded upon our conceptions +one time for ninety-nine that we are lost in admiration at the +respective moral or intellectual attributes of the character? But in +a picture Othello is _always_ a Blackamoor; and the other only Plump +Jack. Deeply corporealised, and enchained hopelessly in the grovelling +fetters of externality, must be the mind, to which, in its better +moments, the image of the high-souled, high-intelligenced Quixote--the +errant Star of Knighthood, made more tender by eclipse--has never +presented itself, divested from the unhallowed accompaniment of a +Sancho, or a rabblement at the heels of Rosinante. That man has read +his book by halves; he has laughed, mistaking his author's purport, +which was--tears. The artist that pictures Quixote (and it is in this +degrading point that he is every season held up at our Exhibitions) +in the shallow hope of exciting mirth, would have joined the rabble +at the heels of his starved steed. We wish not to see _that_ +counterfeited, which we would not have wished to see in the reality. +Conscious of the heroic inside of the noble Quixote, who, on hearing +that his withered person was passing, would have stepped over his +threshold to gaze upon his forlorn habiliments, and the "strange +bed-fellows which misery brings a man acquainted with?" Shade of +Cervantes! who in thy Second Part could put into the mouth of thy +Quixote those high aspirations of a super-chivalrous gallantry, where +he replies to one of the shepherdesses, apprehensive that he would +spoil their pretty networks, and inviting him to be a guest with them, +in accents like these: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actæon was not more +astonished when he saw Diana bathing herself at the fountain, than +I have been in beholding your beauty: I commend the manner of your +pastime, and thank you for your kind offers; and, if I may serve +you, so I may be sure you will be obeyed, you may command me: for my +profession is this, To shew myself thankful, and a doer of good to all +sorts of people, especially of the rank that your person shows you to +be; and if those nets, as they take up but a little piece of ground, +should take up the whole world, I would seek out new worlds to pass +through, rather than break them: and (he adds,) that you may give +credit to this my exaggeration, behold at least he that promiseth you +this, is Don Quixote de la Mancha, if haply this name hath come to +your hearing." Illustrious Romancer! were the "fine frenzies," which +possessed the brain of thy own Quixote, a fit subject, as in this +Second Part, to be exposed to the jeers of Duennas and Serving Men? to +be monstered, and shown up at the heartless banquets of great men? Was +that pitiable infirmity, which in thy First Part misleads him, _always +from within_, into half-ludicrous, but more than half-compassionable +and admirable errors, not infliction enough from heaven, that men by +studied artifices must devise and practise upon the humour, to inflame +where they should soothe it? Why, Goneril would have blushed to +practise upon the abdicated king at this rate, and the she-wolf Regan +not have endured to play the pranks upon his fled wits, which thou +hast made thy Quixote suffer in Duchesses' halls, and at the hands of +that unworthy nobleman.[1] + +In the First Adventures, even, it needed all the art of the most +consummate artist in the Book way that the world hath yet seen, +to keep up in the mind of the reader the heroic attributes of the +character without relaxing; so as absolutely that they shall suffer no +alloy from the debasing fellowship of the clown. If it ever obtrudes +itself as a disharmony, are we inclined to laugh; or not, rather, +to indulge a contrary emotion?--Cervantes, stung, perchance, by the +relish with which _his_ Reading Public had received the fooleries of +the man, more to their palates than the generosities of the master, in +the sequel let his pen run riot, lost the harmony and the balance, and +sacrificed a great idea to the taste of his contemporaries. We know +that in the present day the Knight has fewer admirers than the Squire. +Anticipating, what did actually happen to him--as afterwards it did +to his scarce inferior follower, the Author of "Guzman de +Alfarache"--that some less knowing hand would prevent him by a +spurious Second Part: and judging, that it would be easier for his +competitor to out-bid him in the comicalities, than in the _romance_, +of his work, he abandoned his Knight, and has fairly set up the Squire +for his Hero. For what else has he unsealed the eyes of Sancho; and +instead of that twilight state of semi-insanity--the madness at +second-hand--the contagion, caught from a stronger mind infected--that +war between native cunning, and hereditary deference, with which he +has hitherto accompanied his master--two for a pair almost--does he +substitute a downright Knave, with open eyes, for his own ends only +following a confessed Madman; and offering at one time to lay, if not +actually laying, hands upon him! From the moment that Sancho loses his +reverence, Don Quixote is become a--treatable lunatic. Our artists +handle him accordingly. + +[Footnote 1: Yet from this Second Part, our cried-up pictures are +mostly selected; the waiting-women with beards, &c.] + + + + +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE + + +The _Old Year_ being dead, and the _New Year_ coming of age, which +he does, by Calendar Law, as soon as the breath is out of the old +gentleman's body, nothing would serve the young spark but he must +give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the _Days_ in the year +were invited. The _Festivals_, whom he deputed as his stewards, were +mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged time out of +mind, they said, in providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below; +and it was time they should have a taste of their own bounty. It was +stiffly debated among them, whether the _Fasts_ should be admitted. +Some said, the appearance of such lean, starved guests, with their +mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But the +objection was over-ruled by _Christmas Day_, who had a design upon +_Ash Wednesday_ (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how +the old Domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the _Vigils_ +were requested to come with their lanterns, to light the gentlefolks +home at night. + +All the _Days_ came to their day. Covers were provided for three +hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table: with an +occasional knife and fork at the side-board for the _Twenty-Ninth of +February_. + +I should have told you, that cards of invitation had been issued. The +carriers were the _Hours_; twelve little, merry, whirligig foot-pages, +as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the +persons invited well enough, with the exception of _Easter Day_, +_Shrove Tuesday_, and a few such _Moveables_, who had lately shifted +their quarters. + +Well, they all met at last, foul _Days_, fine _Days_, all sorts of +_Days_, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but, Hail! +fellow _Day_,--well met--brother _Day_--sister _Day_,--only _Lady Day_ +kept a little on the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some +said, _Twelfth Day_ cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany +suit, white and gold, like a queen on a frost-cake, all royal, +glittering, and _Epiphanous_. The rest came, some in green, some in +white--but old _Lent and his family_ were not yet out of mourning. +Rainy _Days_ came in, dripping; and sun-shiny _Days_ helped them +to change their stockings. _Wedding Day_ was there in his marriage +finery, a little the worse for wear. _Pay Day_ came late, as he always +does; and _Doomsday_ sent word--he might be expected. + +_April Fool_ (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal +the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old +Erra Pater to have found out any given _Day_ in the year, to erect a +scheme upon--good _Days_, bad _Days_, were so shuffled together, to +the confounding of all sober horoscopy. + +He had stuck the _Twenty First of June_ next to the _Twenty Second of +December_, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. +_Ash Wednesday_ got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt _Christmas_ +and _Lord Mayor's Days_. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but +barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great +greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still +_Christmas Day_ was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till +he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried +ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, +censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a +gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard +that stood before his _left-hand neighbour_, and daubed his hungry +beard all over with it, till you would have taken him for the _Last +Day in December_, it so hung in icicles. + +At another part of the table, _Shrove Tuesday_ was helping the _Second +of September_ to some cock broth,--which courtesy the latter returned +with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant--so there was no love lost +for that matter. The _Last of Lent_ was spunging upon _Shrovetide's_ +pancakes; which _April Fool_ perceiving, told him he did well, for +pancakes were proper to a _good fry-day_. + +In another part, a hubbub arose about the _Thirtieth of January_, who, +it seems, being a sour puritanic character, that thought nobody's meat +good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a calf's +head, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking +to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, _March +manyweathers_, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the megrims, +screamed out there was a "human head in the platter," and raved about +Herodias' daughter to that degree, that the obnoxious viand was +obliged to be removed; nor did she recover her stomach till she had +gulped down a _Restorative_, confected of _Oak Apple_, which the merry +_Twenty Ninth of May_ always carries about with him for that purpose. + +The King's health[1] being called for after this, a notable +dispute arose between the _Twelfth of August_ (a zealous old Whig +gentlewoman,) and the _Twenty Third of April_ (a new-fangled lady of +the Tory stamp,) as to which of them should have the honour to propose +it. _August_ grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the +prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had basely +supplanted her; whom she represented as little better than a _kept_ +mistress, who went about in _fine clothes_, while she (the legitimate +BIRTHDAY) had scarcely a rag, &c. + +_April fool_, being made mediator, confirmed the right in the +strongest form of words to the appellant, but decided for peace' sake +that the exercise of it should remain with the present possessor. At +the same time, he slily rounded the first lady in the ear, that an +action might lie against the Crown for _bi-geny_. + +It beginning to grow a little duskish, _Candlemas_ lustily bawled out +for lights, which was opposed by all the _Days_, who protested against +burning daylight. Then fair water was handed round in silver ewers, +and the _same lady_ was observed to take an unusual time in _Washing_ +herself. + +_May Day_, with that sweetness which is peculiar to her, in a neat +speech proposing the health of the founder, crowned her goblet (and by +her example the rest of the company) with garlands. This being done, +the lordly _New Year_ from the upper end of the table, in a cordial +but somewhat lofty tone, returned thanks. He felt proud on an occasion +of meeting so many of his worthy father's late tenants, promised to +improve their farms, and at the same time to abate (if any thing was +found unreasonable) in their rents. + +At the mention of this, the four _Quarter Days_ involuntarily looked +at each other, and smiled; _April Fool_ whistled to an old tune of +"New Brooms;" and a surly old rebel at the farther end of the table +(who was discovered to be no other than the _Fifth of November_,) +muttered out, distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, +words to this effect, that, "when the old one is gone, he is a fool +that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, +unanimously voted his expulsion; and the male-content was thrust out +neck and heels into the cellar, as the properest place for such a +_boutefeu_ and firebrand as he had shown himself to be. + +Order being restored--the young lord (who to say truth, had been a +little ruffled, and put beside his oratory) in as few, and yet as +obliging words as possible, assured them of entire welcome; and, with +a graceful turn, singling out poor _Twenty Ninth of February_, that +had sate all this while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple +his health with that of the good company before him--which he drank +accordingly; observing, that he had not seen his honest face any time +these four years, with a number of endearing expressions besides. At +the same time, removing the solitary _Day_ from the forlorn seat which +had been assigned him, he stationed him at his own board, somewhere +between the _Greek Calends_ and _Latter Lammas_. + +_Ash Wednesday_, being now called upon for a song, with his eyes fast +stuck in his head, and as well as the Canary he had swallowed would +give him leave, struck up a Carol, which _Christmas Day_ had taught +him for the nonce; and was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" +in fine style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl of +_Old Mortification_ with infinite humour. _April Fool_ swore they had +exchanged conditions: but _Good Friday_ was observed to look extremely +grave; and _Sunday_ held her fan before her face, that she might not +be seen to smile. + +_Shrove-tide_, _Lord Mayor's Day_, and _April Fool_, next joined in a +glee-- + + Which is the properest day to drink? + +in which all the _Days_ chiming in, made a merry burden. + +They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The question being +proposed, who had the greatest number of followers--the _Quarter Days_ +said, there could be no question as to that; for they had all the +creditors in the world dogging their heels. But _April Fool_ gave it +in favour of the _Forty Days before Easter_; because the debtors in +all cases outnumbered the creditors, and they kept _lent_ all the +year. + +All this while, _Valentine's Day_ kept courting pretty _May_, who sate +next him, slipping amorous _billets-doux_ under the table, till the +_Dog Days_ (who are naturally of a warm constitution) began to be +jealous, and to bark and rage exceedingly. _April Fool_, who likes +a bit of sport above measure, and had some pretensions to the lady +besides, as being but a cousin once removed,--clapped and halloo'd +them on; and as fast as their indignation cooled, those mad wags, the +_Ember Days_, were at it with their bellows, to blow it into a flame; +and all was in a ferment: till old Madam _Septuagesima_ (who boasts +herself the _Mother of the Days_) wisely diverted the conversation +with a tedious tale of the lovers which she could reckon when she was +young; and of one Master _Rogation Day_ in particular, who was for +ever putting the _question_ to her; but she kept him at a distance, as +the chronicle would tell--by which I apprehend she meant the Almanack. +Then she rambled on to the _Days that were gone_, the _good old Days_, +and so to the _Days before the Flood_--which plainly showed her old +head to be little better than crazed and doited. + +Day being ended, the _Days_ called for their cloaks and great coats, +and took their leaves. _Lord Mayor's Day_ went off in a Mist, as +usual; _Shortest Day_ in a deep black Fog, that wrapt the little +gentleman all round like a hedge-hog. Two _Vigils_--so watchmen are +called in heaven--saw _Christmas Day_ safe home--they had been used to +the business before. Another _Vigil_--a stout, sturdy patrole, called +the _Eve of St. Christopher_--seeing _Ash Wednesday_ in a condition +little better than he should be--e'en whipt him over his shoulders, +pick-a-back fashion, and _Old Mortification_ went floating home, +singing-- + + On the bat's back do I fly, + +and a number of old snatches besides, between drunk and sober, but +very few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may believe me) were among them. +_Longest Day_ set off westward in beautiful crimson and gold--the +rest, some in one fashion, some in another; but _Valentine_ and pretty +_May_ took their departure together in one of the prettiest silvery +twilights a Lover's Day could wish to set in. + +[Footnote 1: The late King.] + + + + +THE WEDDING + + +I do not know when I have been better pleased than at being invited +last week to be present at the wedding of a friend's daughter. I like +to make one at these ceremonies, which to us old people give back our +youth in a manner, and restore our gayest season, in the remembrance +of our own success, or the regrets, scarcely less tender, of our own +youthful disappointments, in this point of a settlement. On these +occasions I am sure to be in good-humour for a week or two after, and +enjoy a reflected honey-moon. Being without a family, I am flattered +with these temporary adoptions into a friend's family; I feel a +sort of cousinhood, or uncleship, for the season; I am inducted +into degrees of affinity; and, in the participated socialities of +the little community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary +bachelorship. I carry this humour so far, that I take it unkindly to +be left out, even when a funeral is going on in the house of a dear +friend. But to my subject.-- + +The union itself had been long settled, but its celebration had been +hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable state of suspense in the +lovers, by some invincible prejudices which the bride's father had +unhappily contracted upon the subject of the too early marriages of +females. He has been lecturing any time these five years--for to +that length the courtship has been protracted--upon the propriety of +putting off the solemnity, till the lady should have completed her +five and twentieth year. We all began to be afraid that a suit, which +as yet had abated of none of its ardours, might at last be lingered +on, till passion had time to cool, and love go out in the experiment. +But a little wheedling on the part of his wife, who was by no means +a party to these overstrained notions, joined to some serious +expostulations on that of his friends, who, from the growing +infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise ourselves many +years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious to bring matters to +a conclusion during his life-time, at length prevailed; and on Monday +last the daughter of my old friend, Admiral ---- having attained the +_womanly_ age of nineteen, was conducted to the church by her pleasant +cousin J----, who told some few years older. + +Before the youthful part of my female readers express their +indignation at the abominable loss of time occasioned to the lovers +by the preposterous notions of my old friend, they will do well to +consider the reluctance which a fond parent naturally feels at parting +with his child. To this unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may +be traced the difference of opinion on this point between child and +parent, whatever pretences of interest or prudence may be held out to +cover it. The hard-heartedness of fathers is a fine theme for romance +writers, a sure and moving topic; but is there not something untender, +to say no more of it, in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes +in to tear herself from the parental stock, and commit herself to +strange graftings? The case is heightened where the lady, as in the +present instance, happens to be an only child. I do not understand +these matters experimentally, but I can make a shrewd guess at +the wounded pride of a parent upon these occasions. It is no new +observation, I believe, that a lover in most cases has no rival so +much to be feared as the father. Certainly there is a jealousy in +_unparallel subjects_, which is little less heart-rending than the +passion which we more strictly christen by that name. Mothers' +scruples are more easily got over; for this reason, I suppose, that +the protection transferred to a husband is less a derogation and a +loss to their authority than to the paternal. Mothers, besides, have a +trembling foresight, which paints the inconveniences (impossible to be +conceived in the same degree by the other parent) of a life of forlorn +celibacy, which the refusal of a tolerable match may entail upon +their child. Mothers' instinct is a surer guide here, than the cold +reasonings of a father on such a topic. To this instinct may be +imputed, and by it alone may be excused, the unbeseeming artifices, by +which some wives push on the matrimonial projects of their daughters, +which the husband, however approving, shall entertain with comparative +indifference. A little shamelessness on this head is pardonable. +With this explanation, forwardness becomes a grace, and maternal +importunity receives the name of a virtue.--But the parson stays, +while I preposterously assume his office; I am preaching, while the +bride is on the threshold. + +Nor let any of my female readers suppose that the sage reflections +which have just escaped me have the obliquest tendency of application +to the young lady, who, it will be seen, is about to venture upon a +change in her condition, at a _mature and competent age_, and not +without the fullest approbation of all parties. I only deprecate _very +hasty marriages_. + +It had been fixed that the ceremony should be gone through at an early +hour, to give time for a little _déjeuné_ afterwards, to which a +select party of friends had been invited. We were in church a little +before the clock struck eight. + +Nothing could be more judicious or graceful than the dress of the +bride-maids--the three charming Miss Foresters--on this morning. To +give the bride an opportunity of shining singly, they had come habited +all in green. I am ill at describing female apparel; but, while _she_ +stood at the altar in vestments white and candid as her thoughts, a +sacrificial whiteness, _they_ assisted in robes, such as might become +Diana's nymphs--Foresters indeed--as such who had not yet come to the +resolution of putting off cold virginity. These young maids, not being +so blest as to have a mother living, I am told, keep single for their +father's sake, and live altogether so happy with their remaining +parent, that the hearts of their lovers are ever broken with the +prospect (so inauspicious to their hopes) of such uninterrupted +and provoking home-comfort. Gallant girls! each a victim worthy of +Iphigenia! + +I do not know what business I have to be present in solemn places. I +cannot divest me of an unseasonable disposition to levity upon the +most awful occasions. I was never cut out for a public functionary. +Ceremony and I have long shaken hands; but I could not resist the +importunities of the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily +confined him at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and _give +away the bride._ Something ludicrous occurred to me at this most +serious of all moments--a sense of my unfitness to have the disposal, +even in imagination, of the sweet young creature beside me. I fear I +was betrayed to some lightness, for the awful eye of the parson--and +the rector's eye of Saint Mildred's in the Poultry is no trifle of a +rebuke--was upon me in an instant, souring my incipient jest to the +tristful severities of a funeral. + +This was the only misbehaviour which I can plead to upon this solemn +occasion, unless what was objected to me after the ceremony by one of +the handsome Miss T----s, be accounted a solecism. She was pleased to +say that she had never seen a gentleman before me give away a bride in +black. Now black has been my ordinary apparel so long--indeed I take +it to be the proper costume of an author--the stage sanctions it--that +to have appeared in some lighter colour would have raised more mirth +at my expense, than the anomaly had created censure. But I could +perceive that the bride's mother, and some elderly ladies present (God +bless them!) would have been well content, if I had come in any other +colour than that. But I got over the omen by a lucky apologue, which +I remembered out of Pilpay, or some Indian author, of all the birds +being invited to the linnets' wedding, at which, when all the rest +came in their gayest feathers, the raven alone apologised for his +cloak because "he had no other." This tolerably reconciled the elders. +But with the young people all was merriment, and shakings of hands, +and congratulations, and kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings +from her in return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in +these matters, having worn the nuptial bands some four or five weeks +longer than her friend, rescued her, archly observing, with half an +eye upon the bridegroom, that at this rate she would have "none left." + +My friend the admiral was in fine wig and buckle on this occasion--a +striking contrast to his usual neglect of personal appearance. He did +not once shove up his borrowed locks (his custom ever at his morning +studies) to betray the few grey stragglers of his own beneath them. +He wore an aspect of thoughtful satisfaction. I trembled for the +hour, which at length approached, when after a protracted _breakfast_ +of three hours--if stores of cold fowls, tongues, hams, botargoes, +dried fruits, wines, cordials, &c., can deserve so meagre an +appellation--the coach was announced, which was come to carry off the +bride and bridegroom for a season, as custom has sensibly ordained, +into the country; upon which design, wishing them a felicitous +journey, let us return to the assembled guests. + + As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage, + The eyes of men + Are idly bent on him that enters next, + +so idly did we bend our eyes upon one another, when the chief +performers in the morning's pageant had vanished. None told his tale. +None sipt her glass. The poor Admiral made an effort--it was not much. +I had anticipated so far. Even the infinity of full satisfaction, that +had betrayed itself through the prim looks and quiet deportment of his +lady, began to wane into something of misgiving. No one knew whether +to take their leaves or stay. We seemed assembled upon a silly +occasion. In this crisis, betwixt tarrying and departure, I must do +justice to a foolish talent of mine, which had otherwise like to +have brought me into disgrace in the fore-part of the day; I mean a +power, in any emergency, of thinking and giving vent to all manner +of strange nonsense. In this awkward dilemma I found it sovereign. I +rattled off some of my most excellent absurdities. All were willing +to be relieved, at any expense of reason, from the pressure of the +intolerable vacuum which had succeeded to the morning bustle. By this +means I was fortunate in keeping together the better part of the +company to a late hour: and a rubber of whist (the Admiral's favourite +game) with some rare strokes of chance as well as skill, which came +opportunely on his side--lengthened out till midnight--dismissed the +old gentleman at last to his bed with comparatively easy spirits. + +I have been at my old friend's various times since. I do not know a +visiting place where every guest is so perfectly at his ease; nowhere, +where harmony is so strangely the result of confusion. Every body is +at cross purposes, yet the effect is so much better than uniformity. +Contradictory orders; servants pulling one way; master and mistress +driving some other, yet both diverse; visitors huddled up in corners; +chairs unsymmetrised; candles disposed by chance; meals at odd hours, +tea and supper at once, or the latter preceding the former; the host +and the guest conferring, yet each upon a different topic, each +understanding himself, neither trying to understand or hear the +other; draughts and politics, chess and political economy, cards and +conversation on nautical matters, going on at once, without the hope, +or indeed the wish, of distinguishing them, make it altogether the +most perfect _concordia discors_ you shall meet with. Yet somehow the +old house is not quite what it should be. The Admiral still enjoys +his pipe, but he has no Miss Emily to fill it for him. The instrument +stands where it stood, but she is gone, whose delicate touch could +sometimes for a short minute appease the warring elements. He has +learnt, as Marvel expresses it, to "make his destiny his choice." He +bears bravely up, but he does not come out with his flashes of wild +wit so thick as formerly. His sea songs seldomer escape him. His wife, +too, looks as if she wanted some younger body to scold and set to +rights. We all miss a junior presence. It is wonderful how one young +maiden freshens up, and keeps green, the paternal roof. Old and young +seem to have an interest in her, so long as she is not absolutely +disposed of. The youthfulness of the house is flown. Emily is married. + + + + +THE CHILD ANGEL + +A DREAM + + +I chanced upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of a dream the +other night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves +of the Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations, +suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth to +innumerable conjectures; and, I remember, the last waking thought, +which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder, "what +could come of it." + +I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make +out--but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens +neither--not the downright Bible heaven--but a kind of fairyland +heaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air +itself, I will hope, without presumption. + +Methought--what wild things dreams are!--I was present--at what would +you imagine?--at an angel's gossiping. + +Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it came +purely of its own head, neither you nor I know--but there lay, sure +enough, wrapped in its little cloudy swaddling bands--a Child Angel. + +Sun-threads--filmy beams--ran through the celestial napery of what +seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered round, +watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which, +when it did, first one, and then the other--with a solicitude and +apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dims the expanding +eye-lids of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those +its unhereditary palaces--what an inextinguishable titter that time +spared not celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming--O the +inexplicable simpleness of dreams!--bowls of that cheering nectar, + + --which mortals _caudle_ call below-- + +Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants,--stricken in years, +as it might seem,--so dexterous were those heavenly attendants to +counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrial +child-rites the young _present_, which earth had made to heaven. + +Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those by +which the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earth +speak oftentimes, muffled; so to accommodate their sound the better +to the weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those +subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments +of pinions--but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of +those full-winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as years +went round in heaven--a year in dreams is as a day--continually its +white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but, wanting the perfect +angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell +fluttering--still caught by angel hands--for ever to put forth shoots, +and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the unmixed +vigour of heaven. + +And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to be called +_Ge-Urania_, because its production was of earth and heaven. + +And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption into +immortal palaces: but it was to know weakness, and reliance, and the +shadow of human imbecility; and it went with a lame gait; but in its +goings it exceeded all mortal children in grace and swiftness. Then +pity 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 +and strife to their natures (not grief), put back their bright +intelligences, and reduce their ethereal minds, schooling them to +degrees and slower processes, so to adapt their lessons to the gradual +illumination (as must needs be) of the half-earth-born; and what +intuitive notices they could not repel (by reason that their nature +is, to know all things at once), the half-heavenly novice, by the +better part of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding; +so that Humility and Aspiration went on even-paced in the instruction +of the glorious Amphibium. + +But, by reason that Mature Humanity is too gross to breathe the air of +that super-subtile region, its portion was, and is, to be a child for +ever. + +And because the human part of it might not press into the heart and +inwards of the palace of its adoption, those full-natured angels +tended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace, where were shady +groves and rivulets, like this green earth from which it came: so +Love, with Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertainment of the +new-adopted. + +And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is nothing), and +still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the Tutelar +Genius of Childhood upon earth, and still goes lame and lovely. + +By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the grave of +the terrestrial Adah, whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child; but not the +same which I saw in heaven. A mournful hue overcasts its lineaments; +nevertheless, a correspondency is between the child by the grave, and +that celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of the grief +upon the heavenly, is as a shadow or emblem of that which stains +the beauty of the terrestrial. And this correspondency is not to be +understood but by dreams. + +And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how that once +the angel Nadir, being exiled from his place for mortal passion, +upspringing on the wings of parental love (such power had parental +love for a moment to suspend the else-irrevocable law) appeared for +a brief instant in his station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth, +straightway disappeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And this +charge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely--but Adah +sleepeth by the river Pison. + + + + +A DEATH-BED + +IN A LETTER TO R.H. ESQ. OF B---- + + +I called upon you this morning, and found that you were gone to visit +a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor N.R. has lain +dying now for almost a week; such is the penalty we pay for having +enjoyed through life a strong constitution. Whether he knew me or not, +I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the +group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it, +were assembled his Wife, their two Daughters, and poor deaf Robert, +looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been +sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. R. +Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time it must be +all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He +was my friend, and my father's friend, for all the life that I can +remember. I seem to have made foolish friendships since. Those are the +friendships, which outlast a second generation. Old as I am getting, +in his eyes I was still the child he knew me. To the last he called +me Jemmy. I have none to call me Jemmy now. He was the last link that +bound me to B----. You are but of yesterday. In him I seem to have +lost the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Lettered +he was not; his reading scarcely exceeded the Obituary of the old +Gentleman's Magazine, to which he has never failed of having recourse +for these last fifty years. Yet there was the pride of literature +about him from that slender perusal; and moreover from his office of +archive-keeper to your ancient city, in which he must needs pick up +some equivocal Latin; which, among his less literary friends, assumed +the air of a very pleasant pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look +with which, having tried to puzzle out the text of a Black lettered +Chaucer in your Corporation Library, to which he was a sort of +Librarian, he gave it up with this consolatory reflection--"Jemmy," +said he, "I do not know what you find in these very old books, but I +observe, there is a deal of very indifferent spelling in them." His +jokes (for he had some) are ended; but they were old Perennials, +staple, and always as good as new. He had one Song, that spake of the +"flat bottoms of our foes coming over in darkness," and alluded to a +threatened Invasion, many years since blown over; this he reserved to +be sung on Christmas Night, which we always passed with him, and he +sung it with the freshness of an impending event. How his eyes would +sparkle when he came to the passage: + + We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and Brussels' Gazette! + +What is the Brussels' Gazette now? I cry, while I endite these +trifles. His poor girls who are, I believe, compact of solid goodness, +will have to receive their afflicted mother at an unsuccessful home +in a petty village in ----shire, where for years they have been +struggling to raise a Girls' School with no effect. Poor deaf Robert +(and the less hopeful for being so) is thrown upon a deaf world, +without the comfort to his father on his death-bed of knowing him +provided for. They are left almost provisionless. Some life assurance +there is; but, I fear, not exceeding ----. Their hopes must be from +your Corporation, which their father has served for fifty years. Who +or what are your Leading Members now, I know not. Is there any, to +whom without impertinence, you can represent the true circumstances of +the family? You cannot say good enough of poor R., and his poor wife. +Oblige me and the dead, if you can. + + + + +OLD CHINA + + +I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see +any great house, I inquire for the china-closet, and next for the +picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference, but by +saying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date +to admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I +can call to mind the first play, and the first exhibition, that I was +taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers +were 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 and +women, float about, uncircumscribed by any element, in that world +before perspective--a china tea-cup. + +I like to see my old friends--whom distance cannot diminish--figuring +up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on _terra firma_ +still--for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, +which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up +beneath their sandals. + +I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with +still more womanish expressions. + +Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a +salver--two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! +And here the same lady, or another--for likeness is identity on +tea-cups--is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither +side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a +right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly +land her in the midst of a flowery mead--a furlong off on the other +side of the same strange stream! + +Farther on--if far or near can be predicated of their world--see +horses, 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 (which we +are old fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon) some +of these _speciosa miracula_ upon a set of extraordinary old blue +china (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using; +and could not help remarking, how favourable circumstances had been +to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes +with trifles of this sort--when a passing sentiment seemed to +over-shade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these +summer clouds in Bridget. + +"I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor; but there +was a middle state;"--so she was pleased to ramble on,--"in which I am +sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now +that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a +triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to +get you to consent in those times!) we were used to have a debate two +or three days before, and to weigh the _for_ and _against_, and think +what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that +should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt +the money that we paid for it. + +"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till +all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare--and all +because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we +eyed 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 of +the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you +should be too late--and when the old bookseller with some grumbling +opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting +bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures--and when +you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome--and when you +presented it to me--and when we were exploring the perfectness of it +(_collating_ you called it)--and while I was repairing some of the +loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be +left till day-break--was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can +those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to +keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half +the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn +suit--your old corbeau--for four or five weeks longer than you should +have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen--or +sixteen shillings was it?--a great affair we thought it then--which +you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book +that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any +nice old purchases now. + +"When you come home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number +of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the +'Lady Blanch;' when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the +money--and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture--was +there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but +to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do +you? + +"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's +Bar, 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 used +to deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad--and how you +would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go +in, and produce our store--only paying for the ale that you must call +for--and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was +likely to allow us a table-cloth--and wish for such another honest +hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant +banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing--and sometimes they would +prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon +us--but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat +our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? +Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we +_ride_ part of the way--and go into a fine inn, and order the best of +dinners, never debating the expense--which, after all, never has half +the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of +uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome. + +"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do +you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the battle of +Hexham, and the surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland +in the Children in the Wood--when we squeezed out our shillings +a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling +gallery--where you felt all the time that you ought not to have +brought me--and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having +brought me--and the pleasure was the better for a little shame--and +when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or +what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with +Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to +say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play +socially--that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion +to the infrequency of going--that the company we met there, not being +in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and +did attend, to what was going on, on the stage--because a word lost +would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill +up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then--and I appeal +to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and +accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations +in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those +inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,--but there was still a law of +civility to women recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever +found in the other passages--and how a little difficulty overcome +heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we can only +pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries +now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then--but sight, and +all, I think, is gone with our poverty. + +"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite +common--in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear--to have +them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we +were to treat ourselves now--that is, to have dainties a little above +our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more +that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that +makes what 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 blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of +themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to +make much of others. But now--what I mean by the word--we never do +make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the +veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. + +"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the +end of the year to make all meet--and much ado we used to have every +Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings--many a +long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving +to make it out how we had spent so much--or that we had not spent so +much--or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year--and +still we found our slender capital decreasing--but then, betwixt ways, +and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of +curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future--and the +hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never +poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with +'lusty brimmers' (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--no +flattering promises about the new year doing better for us." + +Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she +gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could +not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear +imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor--hundred +pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but +we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the +excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should +not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew +up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and +knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been +to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now +complain of. The resisting power--those natural dilations of the +youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten--with us are long +since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth; a sorry +supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must +ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie softer--and shall +be wise to do so--than we had means to do in those good old days you +speak of. Yet could those days return--could you and I once more walk +our thirty miles a-day--could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, +and you and I be young to see them--could the good old one shilling +gallery days return--they are dreams, my cousin, now--but could +you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our +well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once +more struggling up those inconvenient stair-cases, pushed about, +and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery +scramblers--could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours--and +the delicious _Thank God, we are safe_, which always followed when the +topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful +theatre down beneath us--I know not the fathom line that ever touched +a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than +Croesus had, or the great Jew R---- is supposed to have, to purchase +it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding +an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that +pretty insipid half-Madona-ish chit of a lady in that very blue +summer-house." + + + + +POPULAR FALLACIES + + +I.--THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD + +This axiom contains a principle of compensation, which disposes us to +admit the truth of it. But there is no safe trusting to dictionaries +and definitions. We should more willingly fall in with this popular +language, if we did not find _brutality_ sometimes awkwardly coupled +with _valour_ in the same vocabulary. The comic writers, with their +poetical justice, have contributed not a little to mislead us upon +this point. To see a hectoring fellow exposed and beaten upon the +stage, has something in it wonderfully diverting. Some people's +share of animal spirits is notoriously low and defective. It has not +strength to raise a vapour, or furnish out the wind of a tolerable +bluster. These love to be told that huffing is no part of valour. +The truest courage with them is that which is the least noisy and +obtrusive. But confront one of these silent heroes with the swaggerer +of real life, and his confidence in the theory quickly vanishes. +Pretensions do not uniformly bespeak non-performance. A modest +inoffensive deportment does not necessarily imply valour; neither does +the absence of it justify us in denying that quality. Hickman wanted +modesty--we do not mean _him_ of Clarissa--but who ever doubted his +courage? Even the poets--upon whom this equitable distribution of +qualities should be most binding--have thought it agreeable to nature +to depart from the rule upon occasion. Harapha, in the "Agonistes," is +indeed a bully upon the received notions. Milton has made him at once +a blusterer, a giant, and a dastard. But Almanzor, in Dryden, talks +of driving armies singly before him--and does it. Tom Brown had a +shrewder insight into this kind of character than either of his +predecessors. He divides the palm more equably, and allows his hero +a sort of dimidiate pre-eminence:--"Bully Dawson kicked by half +the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson." This was true +distributive justice. + + +II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS + +The weakest part of mankind have this saying commonest in their mouth. +It is the trite consolation administered to the easy dupe, when he has +been tricked out of his money or estate, that the acquisition of +it will do the owner _no good_. But the rogues of this world--the +prudenter part of them, at least--know better; and, if the observation +had been as true as it is old, would not have failed by this time +to have discovered it. They have pretty sharp distinctions of the +fluctuating and the permanent. "Lightly come, lightly go," is a +proverb, which they can very well afford to leave, when they leave +little else, to the losers. They do not always find manors, got by +rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the poets will have +it; or that all gold glides, like thawing snow, from the thief's hand +that grasps it. Church land, alienated to lay uses, was formerly +denounced to have this slippery quality. But some portions of it +somehow always stuck so fast, that the denunciators have been vain to +postpone the prophecy of refundment to a late posterity. + + +III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST + +The severest exaction surely ever invented upon the self-denial of +poor human nature! This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat +without partaking of it; to sit esurient at his own table, and commend +the flavour of his venison upon the absurd strength of his never +touching it himself. On the contrary, we love to see a wag _taste_ +his own joke to his party; to watch a quirk, or a merry conceit, +flickering upon the lips some seconds before the tongue is delivered +of it. If it be good, fresh, and racy--begotten of the occasion; if he +that utters it never thought it before, he is naturally the first to +be tickled with it; and any suppression of such complacence we hold to +be churlish and insulting. What does it seem to imply, but that your +company is weak or foolish enough to be moved by an image or a fancy, +that shall stir you not at all, or but faintly? This is exactly the +humour of the fine gentleman in Mandeville, who, while he dazzles his +guests with the display of some costly toy, affects himself to "see +nothing considerable in it." + + +IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING.--THAT IT IS EASY TO PERCEIVE +HE IS NO GENTLEMAN + +A speech from the poorer sort of people, which always indicates that +the party vituperated is a gentleman. The very fact which they deny, +is that which galls and exasperates them to use this language. The +forbearance with which it is usually received, is a proof what +interpretation the bystander sets upon it. Of a kin to this, and still +less politic, are the phrases with which, in their street rhetoric, +they ply one another more grossly:--_He is a poor creature._--_He has +not a rag to cover_--_&c._; though this last, we confess, is more +frequently applied by females to females. They do not perceive that +the satire glances upon themselves. A poor man, of all things in +the world, should not upbraid an antagonist with poverty. Are there +no other topics--as, to tell him his father was hanged--his sister, +&c.--, without exposing a secret, which should be kept snug between +them; and doing an affront to the order to which they have the honour +equally to belong? All this while they do not see how the wealthier +man stands by and laughs in his sleeve at both. + + +V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH + +A smooth text to the latter; and, preached from the pulpit, is sure of +a docile audience from the pews lined with satin. It is twice sitting +upon velvet to a foolish squire to be told, that _he_--and not +_perverse nature_, as the homilies would make us imagine, is the true +cause of all the irregularities in his parish. This is striking at the +root of free-will indeed, and denying the originality of sin in any +sense. But men are not such implicit sheep as this comes to. If the +abstinence from evil on the part of the upper classes is to derive +itself from no higher principle, than the apprehension of setting +ill patterns to the lower, we beg leave to discharge them from +all squeamishness on that score: they may even take their fill of +pleasures, where they can find them. The Genius of Poverty, hampered +and straitened as it is, is not so barren of invention but it can +trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing upon their +capital. The poor are not quite such servile imitators as they take +them for. Some of them are very clever artists in their way. Here and +there we find an original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? +They did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties +surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be--no copyists. +In no other sense is it true that the poor copy them, than as servants +may be said to _take after_ their masters and mistresses, when +they succeed to their reversionary cold meats. If the master, from +indisposition or some other cause, neglect his food, the servant dines +notwithstanding. + +"O, but (some will say) the force of example is great." We knew a lady +who was so scrupulous on this head, that she would put up with the +calls of the most impertinent visitor, rather than let her servant say +she was not at home, for fear of teaching her maid to tell an untruth; +and this in the very face of the fact, which she knew well enough, +that the wench was one of the greatest liars upon the earth without +teaching; so much so, that her mistress possibly never heard two words +of consecutive truth from her in her life. But nature must go for +nothing: example must be every thing. This liar in grain, who never +opened her mouth without a lie, must be guarded against a remote +inference, which she (pretty casuist!) might possibly draw from a form +of words--literally false, but essentially deceiving no one--that +under some circumstances a fib might not be so exceedingly sinful--a +fiction, too, not at all in her own way, or one that she could be +suspected of adopting, for few servant-wenches care to be denied to +visitors. + +This word _example_ reminds us of another fine word which is in use +upon these occasions--_encouragement_. "People in our sphere must +not be thought to give encouragement to such proceedings." To such +a frantic height is this principle capable of being carried, that +we have known individuals who have thought it within the scope of +their influence to sanction despair, and give _éclat_ to--suicide. A +domestic in the family of a county member lately deceased, for love, +or some unknown cause, cut his throat, but not successfully. The poor +fellow was otherwise much loved and respected; and great interest was +used in his behalf, upon his recovery, that he might be permitted +to retain his place; his word being first pledged, not without some +substantial sponsors to promise for him, than the like should never +happen again. His master was inclinable to keep him, but his mistress +thought otherwise; and John in the end was dismissed, her ladyship +declaring that she "could not think of encouraging any such doings in +the county." + + +VI.--THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST + +Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who really +believes 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 the +palate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for +a feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually +something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to +a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervalue +_money_. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is +not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which +makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fine +clothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome +excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt to +acres--a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it is +true only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage saws +assuming to inculcate _content_, we verily believe to have been the +invention of some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse of +his wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to carry by force of +these verbal jugglings. Translate any one of these sayings out of the +artful metonyme which envelops it, and the trick is apparent. Goodly +legs and shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures, +the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence, heart's +ease, a man's own time to himself, are not _muck_--however we may be +pleased to scandalise with that appellation the faithful metal that +provides them for us. + + +VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG + +Our experience would lead us to quite an opposite conclusion. Temper, +indeed, is no test of truth; but warmth and earnestness are a proof +at least of a man's own conviction of the rectitude of that which +he maintains. Coolness is as often the result of an unprincipled +indifference to truth or falsehood, as of a sober confidence in a +man's own side in a dispute. Nothing is more insulting sometimes than +the appearance of this philosophic temper. There is little Titubus, +the stammering law-stationer in Lincoln's Inn--we have seldom known +this shrewd little fellow engaged in an argument where we were not +convinced he had the best of it, if his tongue would but fairly have +seconded him. When he has been spluttering excellent broken sense +for an hour together, writhing and labouring to be delivered of the +point of dispute--the very gist of the controversy knocking at his +teeth, which like some obstinate iron-grating still obstructed its +deliverance--his puny frame convulsed, and face reddening all over at +an unfairness in the logic which he wanted articulation to expose, it +has moved our gall to see a smooth portly fellow of an adversary, that +cared not a button for the merits of the question, by merely laying +his hand upon the head of the stationer, and desiring him to be _calm_ +(your tall disputants have always the advantage), with a provoking +sneer carry the argument clean from him in the opinion of all the +bystanders, who have gone away clearly convinced that Titubus must +have been in the wrong, because he was in a passion; and that Mr.----, +meaning his opponent, is one of the fairest, and at the same time one +of the most dispassionate arguers breathing. + + +VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT BEAR A +TRANSLATION + +The same might be said of the wittiest local allusions. A custom is +sometimes as difficult to explain to a foreigner as a pun. What would +become of a great part of the wit of the last age, if it were tried by +this test? How would certain topics, as aldermanity, cuckoldry, have +sounded to a Terentian auditory, though Terence himself had been alive +to translate them? _Senator urbanus_, with _Curruca_ to boot for a +synonime, would but faintly have done the business. Words, involving +notions, are hard enough to render; it is too much to expect us to +translate a sound, and give an elegant version to a jingle. The +Virgilian harmony is not translatable, but by substituting harmonious +sounds in another language for it. To Latinise a pun, we must seek +a pun in Latin, that will answer to it; as, to give an idea of the +double endings in Hudibras, we must have recourse to a similar +practice in the old monkish doggrel. Dennis, the fiercest oppugner of +puns in ancient or modern times, professes himself highly tickled +with the "a stick" chiming to "ecclesiastic." Yet what is this but a +species of pun, a verbal consonance? + + +IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST + +If by worst be only meant the most far-fetched and startling, we agree +to it. A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a +pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect. It +is an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into +the presence, and does not show the less comic for being dragged in +sometimes by the head and shoulders. What though it limp a little, or +prove defective in one leg--all the better. A pun may easily be too +curious and artificial. Who has not at one time or other been at a +party of professors (himself perhaps an old offender in that line), +where, after ringing a round of the most ingenious conceits, every man +contributing his shot, and some there the most expert shooters of the +day; after making a poor _word_ run the gauntlet till it is ready to +drop; after hunting and winding it through all the possible ambages of +similar sounds; after squeezing, and hauling, and tugging at it, till +the very milk of it will not yield a drop further,--suddenly some +obscure, unthought-of fellow in a corner, who was never 'prentice +to the trade, whom the company for very pity passed over, as we +do by a known poor man when a money-subscription is going round, +no one calling upon him for his quota--has all at once come out +with something so whimsical, yet so pertinent; so brazen in its +pretensions, yet so impossible to be denied; so exquisitely good, +and so deplorably bad, at the same time,--that it has proved a Robin +Hood's shot; any thing ulterior to that is despaired of; and the party +breaks up, unanimously voting it to be the very worst (that is, best) +pun of the evening. This species of wit is the better for not being +perfect in all its parts. What it gains in completeness, it loses in +naturalness. The more exactly it satisfies the critical, the less hold +it has upon some other faculties. The puns which are most entertaining +are those which will least bear an analysis. Of this kind is the +following, recorded, with a sort of stigma, in one of Swift's +Miscellanies. + +An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a hare through +the streets, accosts him with this extraordinary question: "Prithee, +friend, is that thy own hare, or a wig?" + +There is no excusing this, and no resisting it. A man might blur ten +sides of paper in attempting a defence of it against a critic who +should be laughter-proof. The quibble in itself is not considerable. +It is only a new turn given, by a little false pronunciation, to a +very common, though not very courteous inquiry. Put by one gentleman +to another at a dinner-party, it would have been vapid; to the +mistress of the house, it would have shown much less wit than +rudeness. We must take in the totality of time, place, and person; +the pert look of the inquiring scholar, the desponding looks of the +puzzled porter; the one stopping at leisure, the other hurrying on +with his burthen; the innocent though rather abrupt tendency of +the first member of the question, with the utter and inextricable +irrelevancy of the second; the place--a public street, not favourable +to frivolous investigations; the affrontive quality of the primitive +inquiry (the common question) invidiously transferred to the +derivative (the new turn given to it) in the implied satire; namely, +that few of that tribe are expected to eat of the good things which +they carry, they being in most countries considered rather as the +temporary trustees than owners of such dainties,--which the fellow was +beginning to understand; but then the _wig_ again comes in, and he can +make nothing of it: all put together constitute a picture: Hogarth +could have made it intelligible on canvass. + +Yet nine out of ten critics will pronounce this a very bad pun, +because of the defectiveness in the concluding member, which is its +very beauty, and constitutes the surprise. The same persons shall +cry up for admirable the cold quibble from Virgil about the broken +Cremona;[1] because it is made out in all its parts, and leaves +nothing to the imagination. We venture to call it cold; because of +thousands who have admired it, it would be difficult to find one who +has heartily chuckled at it. As appealing to the judgment merely +(setting the risible faculty aside,) we must pronounce it a monument +of curious felicity. But as some stories are said to be too good to be +true, it may with equal truth be asserted of this bi-verbal allusion, +that it is too good to be natural. One cannot help suspecting that the +incident was invented to fit the line. It would have been better had +it been less perfect. Like some Virgilian hemistichs, it has suffered +by filling up. The _nimium Vicina_ was enough in conscience; the +_Cremonæ_ afterwards loads it. It is in fact a double pun; and we +have always observed that a superfoetation in this sort of wit is +dangerous. When a man has said a good thing, it is seldom politic to +follow it up. We do not care to be cheated a second time; or, perhaps, +the mind of man (with reverence be it spoken) is not capacious enough +to lodge two puns at a time. The impression, to be forcible, must be +simultaneous and undivided. + +[Footnote 1: Swift.] + + +X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES + +Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs. Conrady. + +The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the celestial +beauty. As she partakes more or less of this heavenly light, she +informs, with corresponding characters, the fleshly tenement which she +chooses, and frames to herself a suitable mansion. + +All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in her +pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture. + +To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty, divine Spenser, +_platonizing_, sings:-- + + --"Every spirit as it is more pure, + And hath in it the more of heavenly light, + So it the fairer body doth procure + To habit in, and it more fairly dight + With cheerful grace and amiable sight. + For of the soul the body form doth take: + For soul is form, and doth the body make." + +But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. + +These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy; for here, in +his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause, which throws us all +out again, and leaves us as much to seek as ever:-- + + "Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind + Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd, + Either by chance, against the course of kind, + Or through unaptness in the substance found, + Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, + That will not yield unto her form's direction, + But is perform'd with some foul imperfection." + +From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs. +Conrady. + +The spirit of this good lady--her previous _anima_--must have stumbled +upon one of these untoward tabernacles which he speaks of. A more +rebellious commodity of clay for a ground, as the poet calls it, no +gentle mind--and sure hers is one of the gentlest--ever had to deal +with. + +Pondering upon her inexplicable visage--inexplicable, we mean, but by +this modification of the theory--we have come to a conclusion that, +if one must be plain, it is better to be plain all over, than, amidst +a tolerable residue of features, to hang out one that shall be +exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance, that it +would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to +pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her +own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The _tout ensemble_ +defies particularising. It is too complete--too consistent, as we may +say--to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some +Apelles had picked out here a lip--and there a chin--out of the +collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical +whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or +parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is +improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than +is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too +it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without +pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the +course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight +of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to +have seen it--like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one +ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and +not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her +for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face +somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in +such a parlour it first struck you--like a bust. You wondered where +the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it +began to move its lips--so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking +her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would +be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart, which, once +seen, can never be out of it. It is not a mean face either; its entire +originality precludes that. Neither is it of that order of plain faces +which improve upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people, +by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat upon our +eyes: juggle our senses out of their natural impressions; and set us +upon discovering good indications in a countenance, which at first +sight promised nothing less. We detect gentleness, which had escaped +us, lurking about an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a +service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand, +and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that +individual face. Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good +face if it was not marked by the small pox--a compliment which is +always more admissive than excusatory--for either Mrs. Conrady never +had the small pox; or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon +its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that +which she is known by. + + +XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH + +Nor a lady's age in the parish register. We hope we have more delicacy +than to do either: but some faces spare us the trouble of these +_dental_ inquiries. And what if the beast, which my friend would force +upon my acceptance, prove, upon the face of it, a sorry Rozinante, a +lean, ill-favoured jade, whom no gentleman could think of setting up +in his stables? Must I, rather than not be obliged to my friend, make +her a companion to Eclipse or Lightfoot? A horse-giver, no more than +a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for +good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own +good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my +money. Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real +value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for +nothing. Our friend Mitis carries this humour of never refusing a +present, to the very point of absurdity--if it were possible to couple +the ridiculous with so much mistaken delicacy, and real good-nature. +Not an apartment in his fine house (and he has a true taste in +household decorations), but is stuffed up with some preposterous print +or mirror--the worst adapted to his pannels that may be--the presents +of his friends that know his weakness; while his noble Vandykes are +displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched +artist of his acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his +hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here +gratis. The good creature has not the heart to mortify the painter +at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not +vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour, +surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God knows whom, while +the true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys of his own honourable family, in +favour to these adopted frights, are consigned to the staircase and +the lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one by one +stript of his favourite old authors, to give place to a collection +of presentation copies--the flower and bran of modern poetry. A +presentation copy, reader--if haply you are yet innocent of such +favours--is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the +author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, +if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, +he expects from you a book of yours which does sell, in return. We +can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these +gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death--we are willing to +acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a +friend's library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author) is +intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary--a thing not +fit to be hinted at among gentlemen--which confer as much grace upon +the acceptor as the offerer: the kind, we confess, which is most to +our palate, is of those little conciliatory missives, which for their +vehicle generally choose a hamper--little odd presents of game, fruit, +perhaps wine--though it is essential to the delicacy of the latter +that it be home-made. We love to have our friend in the country +sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though +a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect +reflects to us his "plump corpusculum;" to taste him in grouse or +woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the +latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is +indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately: such +participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it. +For these considerations we should be sorry if certain restrictive +regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the peasantry of this +country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands, +makes many friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his _goût_) with +a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them) +passes them to Lucius; who in his turn, preferring his friend's relish +to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever widening +progress, and round of unconscious circum-migration, they distribute +the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to +this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken +by those little airy tokens--inpalpable to the palate--which, under +the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy +mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They +are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship. + + +XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY + +Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes: the home of the very +poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded +places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of ale-houses, if they +could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the +very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he cannot find +at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough +to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering +children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a +blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead +of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with +a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can +afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the +very poor man has no visiters. He can look into the goings on of the +world, and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics +stirring, but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all +topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a +sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing +consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price +of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no +larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks +his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches +his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, +in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of +the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family. He +takes an interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in +removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing +as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to forget at home. All +this while he deserts his wife and children. But what wife, and what +children? Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to +themselves some clean contented family like that which they go home +to. But look at the countenance of the poor wives who follow and +persecute their good man to the door of the public house, which he +is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if +stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, +ground by want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament +has been long effaced by misery,--is that a face to stay at home with? +is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife +of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What +comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine +thing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be +no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes +out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor +do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that +condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor +people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their +children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the +wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a +premature reflecting person. No one has time to dandle it, no one +thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and +down, to humour it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, +it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said that "a babe is fed +with milk and praise." But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, +unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to +engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a toy, +or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses, +it was a stranger to the patient fondle, the hushing caress, the +attracting novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand +contrivance to divert the child; the prattled nonsense (best sense +to it), the wise impertinences, the wholesome lies, the apt story +interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the +passion of young wonder. It was never sung to--no one ever told to +it a tale of the nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die as +it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke at once into the iron +realities of life. A child exists not for the very poor as any object +of dalliance; it is only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little +hands to be betimes inured to labour. It is the rival, till it can be +the co-operator, for food with the parent. It is never his mirth, his +diversion, his solace; it never makes him young again, with recalling +his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. +It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk +between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort +of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid beings which we have +been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer +holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of +praised sufficiency at school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, +of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, +that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are +marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has come to be +a woman, before it was a child. It has learned to go to market; it +chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, +sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say, that the home +of the very poor is no home? + +There is yet another home, which we are constrained to deny to be one. +It has a larder, which the home of the poor man wants; its fireside +conveniences, of which the poor dream not. But with all this, it is no +home. It is--the house of the man that is infested with many visiters. +May we be branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our heart to the +many noble-hearted friends that at times exchange their dwelling for +our poor roof! It is not of guests that we complain, but of endless, +purposeless visitants; droppers in, as they are called. We sometimes +wonder from what sky they fall. It is the very error of the position +of our lodging; its horoscopy was ill calculated, being just situate +in a medium--a plaguy suburban mid-space--fitted to catch idlers from +town or country. We are older than we were, and age is easily put out +of its way. We have fewer sands in our glass to reckon upon, and we +cannot brook to see them drop in endlessly succeeding impertinences. +At our time of life, to be alone sometimes is as needful as sleep. It +is the refreshing sleep of the day. The growing infirmities of age +manifest themselves in nothing more strongly, than in an inveterate +dislike of interruption. The thing which we are doing, we wish to be +permitted to do. We have neither much knowledge nor devices; but there +are fewer in the place to which we hasten. We are not willingly put +out of our way, even at a game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had +vast reversions in time future; we are reduced to a present pittance, +and obliged to economise in that article. We bleed away our moments +now as hardly as our ducats. We cannot bear to have our thin wardrobe +eaten and fretted into by moths. We are willing to barter our good +time with a friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the +distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter +takes your good time, and gives you his bad in exchange. The guest +is domestic to you as your good cat, or household bird; the visitant +is your fly, that flaps in at your window, and out again, leaving +nothing but a sense of disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior +functions of life begin to move heavily. We cannot concoct our food +with interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be solitary. +With difficulty we can eat before a guest; and never understood +what the relish of public feasting meant. Meats have no sapor, nor +digestion fair play, in a crowd. The unexpected coming in of a +visitant stops the machine. There is a punctual generation who time +their calls to the precise commencement of your dining-hour--not to +eat--but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively, and we +feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel. Others again show their +genius, as we have said, in knocking the moment you have just sat down +to a book. They have a peculiar compassionating sneer, with which they +"hope that they do not interrupt your studies." Though they flutter +off the next moment, to carry their impertinences to the nearest +student that they can call their friend, the tone of the book is +spoiled; we shut the leaves, and, with Dante's lovers, read no +more that day. It were well if the effect of intrusion were simply +co-extensive with its presence; but it mars all the good hours +afterwards. These scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes +not hastily. "It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship," says +worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent people, who are, +it may be, loads to their families, but can never ease my loads." This +is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, and morning calls. They +too have homes, which are--no homes. + + +XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG + +"Good sir, or madam, as it may be--we most willingly embrace the offer +of your friendship. We long have known your excellent qualities. We +have wished to have you nearer to us; to hold you within the very +innermost fold of our heart. We can have no reserve towards a person +of your open and noble nature. The frankness of your humour suits +us exactly. We have been long looking for such a friend. Quick--let +us disburthen our troubles into each other's bosom--let us make our +single joys shine by reduplication--But _yap, yap, yap!_--what is +this confounded cur? he has fastened his tooth, which is none of the +bluntest, just in the fleshy part of my leg." + +"It is my dog, sir. You must love him for my sake. Here, +Test--Test--Test!" + +"But he has bitten me." + +"Ay, that he is apt to do, till you are better acquainted with him. I +have had him three years. He never bites me." + +_Yap, yap, yap!_--"He is at it again." + +"Oh, sir, you must not kick him. He does not like to be kicked. I +expect my dog to be treated with all the respect due to myself." + +"But do you always take him out with you, when you go a +friendship-hunting?" + +"Invariably. 'Tis the sweetest, prettiest, best-conditioned animal. I +call him my _test_--the touchstone by which I try a friend. No one can +properly be said to love me, who does not love him." + +"Excuse us, dear sir--or madam aforesaid--if upon further +consideration we are obliged to decline the otherwise invaluable offer +of your friendship. We do not like dogs." + +"Mighty well, sir--you know the conditions--you may have worse offers. +Come along, Test." + +The above dialogue is not so imaginary, but that, in the intercourse +of life, we have had frequent occasions of breaking off an agreeable +intimacy by reason of these canine appendages. They do not always +come in the shape of dogs; they sometimes wear the more plausible and +human character of kinsfolk, near acquaintances, my friend's friend, +his partner, his wife, or his children. We could never yet form a +friendship--not to speak of more delicate correspondences--however +much to our taste, without the intervention of some third anomaly, +some impertinent clog affixed to the relation--the understood _dog_ +in the proverb. The good things of life are not to be had singly, but +come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy's holiday, with a task +affixed to the tail of it. What a delightful companion is ****, if he +did not always bring his tall cousin with him! He seems to grow with +him; like some of those double births, which we remember to have read +of with such wonder and delight in the old "Athenian Oracle," where +Swift commenced author by writing Pindaric Odes (what a beginning for +him!) upon Sir William Temple. There is the picture of the brother, +with the little brother peeping out at his shoulder; a species of +fraternity, which we have no name of kin close enough to comprehend. +When **** comes, poking in his head and shoulders into your room, +as if to feel his entry, you think, surely you have now got him to +yourself--what a three hours' chat we shall have!--but, ever in the +haunch of him, and before his diffident body is well disclosed in your +apartment, appears the haunting shadow of the cousin, over-peering his +modest kinsman, and sure to over-lay the expected good talk with his +insufferable procerity of stature, and uncorresponding dwarfishness of +observation. Misfortunes seldom come alone. 'Tis hard when a blessing +comes accompanied. Cannot we like Sempronia, without sitting down to +chess with her eternal brother? or know Sulpicia, without knowing all +the round of her card-playing relations? must my friend's brethren +of necessity be mine also? must we be hand and glove with Dick Selby +the parson, or Jack Selby the calico printer, because W.S., who is +neither, but a ripe wit and a critic, has the misfortune to claim a +common parentage with them? Let him lay down his brothers; and 'tis +odds but we will cast him in a pair of ours (we have a superflux) to +balance the concession. Let F.H. lay down his garrulous uncle; and +Honorius dismiss his vapid wife, and superfluous establishment of six +boys--things between boy and manhood--too ripe for play, too raw for +conversation--that come in, impudently staring their father's old +friend out of countenance; and will neither aid, nor let alone, the +conference: that we may once more meet upon equal terms, as we were +wont to do in the disengaged state of bachelorhood. + +It is well if your friend, or mistress, be content with these +canicular probations. Few young ladies but in this sense keep a dog. +But when Rutilia hounds at you her tiger aunt; or Ruspina expects you +to cherish and fondle her viper sister, whom she has preposterously +taken into her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your constancy; +they must not complain if the house be rather thin of suitors. Scylla +must have broken off many excellent matches in her time, if she +insisted upon all, that loved her, loving her dogs also. + +An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of Della Cruscan +memory. In tender youth, he loved and courted a modest appanage to +the Opera, in truth a dancer, who had won him by the artless contrast +between her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native violet, +that had been transplanted by some rude accident into that exotic and +artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was she less genuine and sincere +than she appeared to him. He wooed and won this flower. Only for +appearance' sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she +craved that she might have the attendance of her friends and kindred +at the approaching solemnity. The request was too amiable not to be +conceded; and in this solicitude for conciliating the good will of +mere relations, he found a presage of her superior attentions to +himself, when the golden shaft should have "killed the flock of all +affections else." The morning came; and at the Star and Garter, +Richmond--the place appointed for the breakfasting--accompanied with +one English friend, he impatiently awaited what reinforcements the +bride should bring to grace the ceremony. A rich muster she had made. +They came in six coaches--the whole corps du ballet--French, Italian, +men and women. Monsieur de B., the famous _pirouetter_ of the day, led +his fair spouse, but craggy, from the banks of the Seine. The Prima +Donna had sent her excuse. But the first and second Buffa were there; +and Signor Sc----, and Signora Ch----, and Madame V----, with a +countless cavalcade besides of chorusers, figurantes, at the sight +of whom Merry afterwards declared, that "then for the first time it +struck him seriously, that he was about to marry--a dancer." But there +was no help for it. Besides, it was her day; these were, in fact, her +friends and kinsfolk. The assemblage, though whimsical, was all very +natural. But when the bride--handing out of the last coach a still +more extraordinary figure than the rest--presented to him as her +_father_--the gentleman that was to _give her away_--no less a person +than Signor Delpini himself--with a sort of pride, as much as to +say, See what I have brought to do us honour!--the thought of so +extraordinary a paternity quite overcame him; and slipping away under +some pretence from the bride and her motley adherents, poor Merry +took horse from the back yard to the nearest sea-coast, from which, +shipping himself to America, he shortly after consoled himself with a +more congenial match in the person of Miss Brunton; relieved from his +intended clown father, and a bevy of painted Buffas for bridemaids. + + +XIV.--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 not +naturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman--that +has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such +preposterous exercises--We take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of +course, during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest hour, +at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow. To think of +it, we say; for to do it in earnest, requires another half hour's good +consideration. 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, +as they say, only for getting up. But, having been tempted once or +twice, in earlier life, to assist at those ceremonies, we confess +our curiosity abated. We are no longer ambitious of being the sun's +courtiers, to attend at his morning levees. We hold the good hours of +the dawn too sacred to waste them upon such observances; which have +in them, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we never +anticipated 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 we +suffered for it all the long hours after in listlessness and headachs; +Nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption, +in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of +that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny not that there is +something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially, in these +break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start of a lazy +world; to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds of sleep +and mortality are in us; and we pay usually in strange qualms, before +night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion. Therefore, while +the busy part of mankind are fast huddling on their clothes, are +already up and about their occupations, content to have swallowed +their sleep by wholesale; we chose to linger a-bed, and digest our +dreams. It is the very time to recombine the wandering images, which +night 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 them +curiously. We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision: to collect +the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with +firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies; to drag into day-light +a struggling and half-vanishing night-mare; to handle and examine +the terrors, or the airy solaces. We have too much respect for these +spiritual communications, to let them go so lightly. We are not so +stupid, or so careless, as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, that +we should need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem to +us to have as much significance as our waking concerns; or rather to +import us more nearly, as more nearly we approach by years to the +shadowy world, whither we are hastening. We have shaken hands with the +world's business; we have done with it; we have discharged ourself +of it. Why should we get up? we have neither suit to solicit, nor +affairs to manage. The drama has shut in upon us at the fourth act. +We have nothing here to expect, but in a short time a sick bed, and +a dismissal. We delight to anticipate death by such shadows as night +affords. We are already half acquainted with ghosts. We were never +much in the world. Disappointment early struck a dark veil between us +and its dazzling illusions. Our spirits showed grey before our hairs. +The mighty changes of the world already appear as but the vain stuff +out of which dramas are composed. We have asked no more of life than +what the mimic images in play-houses present us with. Even those +types have waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We are +SUPERANNUATED. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction, we contract +politic alliances with shadows. It is good to have friends at court. +The abstracted media of dreams seem no ill introduction to that +spiritual presence, upon which, in no long time, we expect to be +thrown. 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 we +may be the less awkward at our first coming among them. We willingly +call a phantom our fellow, as knowing we shall soon be of their dark +companionship. Therefore, we cherish dreams. We try to spell in them +the alphabet of the invisible world; and think we know already, how it +shall be with us. Those uncouth shapes, which, while we clung to flesh +and blood, affrighted us, have become familiar. We feel attenuated +into their meagre essences, and have given the hand of half-way +approach to incorporeal being. We once thought life to be something; +but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. Therefore we +choose to dally with visions. The sun has no purposes of ours to light +us to. Why should we get up? + + +XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB + +We could never quite understand the philosophy of this arrangement, +or the wisdom of our ancestors in sending us for instruction to +these woolly bedfellows. A sheep, when it is dark, has nothing to do +but to shut his silly eyes, and sleep if he can. Man found out long +sixes.--Hail candle-light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the +kindliest luminary of the three--if we may not rather style thee their +radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon!--We love to read, talk, sit +silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They are every body's sun +and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what +savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in +caves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and +grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, +when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's +cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the +seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or +Ossian), derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights. Jokes +came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to pick up a pin, if they +had any. How did they sup? what a melange of chance carving they must +have made of it!--here one had got a leg of a goat, when he wanted +a horse's shoulder--there another had dipt his scooped palm in a +kid-skin of wild honey, when he meditated right mare's milk. There +is neither good eating nor drinking in fresco. Who, even in these +civilised times, has never experienced this, when at some economic +table he has commenced dining after dusk, and waited for the +flavour till the lights came? The senses absolutely give and take +reciprocally. Can you tell pork from veal in the dark? or distinguish +Sherris from pure Malaga? Take away the candle from the smoking +man; by the glimmering of the left ashes, he knows that he is still +smoking, but he knows it only by an inference; till the restored +light, coming in aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the +full aroma. Then how he redoubles his puffs! how he burnishes!--There +is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have +tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry +arbours; but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam +come about you, hovering and teazing, like so many coquets, that will +have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By +the midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same +light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, +the odour. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential +Phoebus. No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are +abstracted works-- + + "Things that were born, when none but the still night, + And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes." + +Marry, daylight--daylight might furnish the images, the crude +material; but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing (as +mine author hath it), they must be content to hold their inspiration +of the candle. The mild internal light, that reveals them, like fires +on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and silence +call out the starry fancies, Milton's Morning Hymn on Paradise, we +would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's richer +description of a sun-rise smells decidedly of the taper. Even ourself, +in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences +(Prose has her cadences) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsier +watchman, "blessing the doors;" or the wild sweep of winds at +midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted, +courts our endeavours. We would indite something about the Solar +System.--_Betty, bring the candles_. + + +XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE + +We grant that it is, and a very serious one--to a man's friends, and +to all that have to do with him; but whether the condition of the man +himself is so much to be deplored, may admit of a question. We can +speak a little to it, being ourself but lately recovered--we whisper +it in confidence, reader--out of a long and desperate fit of the +sullens. Was the cure a blessing? The conviction which wrought it, +came too clearly to leave a scruple of the fanciful injuries--for +they were mere fancies--which had provoked the humour. But the humour +itself was too self-pleasing, while it lasted--we know how bare we +lay ourself in the confession--to be abandoned all at once with the +grounds of it. We still brood over wrongs which we know to have been +imaginary; and for our old acquaintance, N----, whom we find to +have been a truer friend than we took him for, we substitute some +phantom--a Caius or a Titius--as like him as we dare to form it, to +wreak our yet unsatisfied resentments on. It is mortifying to fall at +once from the pinnacle of neglect; to forego the idea of having been +ill-used and contumaciously treated by an old friend. The first thing +to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as +neglected. There let him fix if he can. To undeceive him is to deprive +him of the most tickling morsel within the range of self-complacency. +No flattery can come near it. Happy is he who suspects his friend of +an injustice; but supremely blest, who thinks all his friends in a +conspiracy to depress and undervalue him. There is a pleasure (we +sing not to the profane) far beyond the reach of all that the world +counts joy--a deep, enduring satisfaction in the depths, where the +superficial seek it not, of discontent. Were we to recite one half of +this mystery, which we were let into by our late dissatisfaction, all +the world would be in love with disrespect; we should wear a slight +for a bracelet, and neglects and contumacies would be the only matter +for courtship. Unlike to that mysterious book in the Apocalypse, the +study of this mystery is unpalatable only in the commencement. The +first sting of a suspicion is grievous; but wait--out of that wound, +which to flesh and blood seemed so difficult, there is balm and honey +to be extracted. Your friend passed you on such or such a day,--having +in his company one that you conceived worse than ambiguously disposed +towards you,--passed you in the street without notice. To be sure he +is something shortsighted; and it was in your power to have accosted +_him_. But facts and sane inferences are trifles to a true adept in +the science of dissatisfaction. He must have seen you; and S----, +who was with him, must have been the cause of the contempt. It galls +you, and well it may. But have patience. Go home, and make the worst +of it, and you are a made man from this time. Shut yourself up, +and--rejecting, as an enemy to your peace, every whispering suggestion +that but insinuates there may be a mistake--reflect seriously upon the +many lesser instances which you had begun to perceive, in proof of +your friend's disaffection towards you. None of them singly was much +to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and you have +this last affront to clench them. Thus far the process is any thing +but agreeable. But now to your relief comes in the comparative +faculty. You conjure up all the kind feelings you have had for your +friend; what you have been to him, and what you would have been to +him, if he would have suffered you; how you defended him in this +or that place; and his good name--his literary reputation, and so +forth, was always dearer to you than your own! Your heart, spite of +itself, yearns towards him. You could weep tears of blood but for a +restraining pride. How say you? do you not yet begin to apprehend a +comfort? some allay of sweetness in the bitter waters? Stop not here, +nor penuriously cheat yourself of your reversions. You are on vantage +ground. Enlarge your speculations, and take in the rest of your +friends, as a spark kindles more sparks. Was there one among them, who +has not to you proved hollow, false, slippery as water? Begin to think +that the relation itself is inconsistent with mortality. That the very +idea of friendship, with its component parts, as honour, fidelity, +steadiness, exists but in your single bosom. Image yourself to +yourself, as the only possible friend in a world incapable of that +communion. Now the gloom thickens. The little star of self-love +twinkles, that is to encourage you through deeper glooms than this. +You are not yet at the half point of your elevation. You are not yet, +believe me, half sulky enough. Adverting to the world in general, (as +these circles in the mind will spread to infinity) reflect with what +strange injustice you have been treated in quarters where, (setting +gratitude and the expectation of friendly returns aside as chimeras,) +you pretended no claim beyond justice, the naked due of all men. Think +the very idea of right and fit fled from the earth, or your breast +the solitary receptacle of it, till you have swelled yourself into at +least one hemisphere; the other being the vast Arabia Stony of your +friends and the world aforesaid. To grow bigger every moment in your +own conceit, and the world to lessen: to deify yourself at the expense +of your species; to judge the world--this is the acme and supreme +point of your mystery--these the true PLEASURES of SULKINESS. We +profess no more of this grand secret than what ourself experimented +on one rainy afternoon in the last week, sulking in our study. We had +proceeded to the penultimate point, at which the true adept seldom +stops, where the consideration of benefit forgot is about to merge +in the meditation of general injustice--when a knock at the door was +followed by the entrance of the very friend, whose not seeing of us in +the morning, (for we will now confess the case our own), an accidental +oversight, had given rise to so much agreeable generalization! +To mortify us still more, and take down the whole flattering +superstructure which pride had piled upon neglect, he had brought in +his hand the identical S----, in whose favour we had suspected him of +the contumacy. Asseverations were needless, where the frank manner of +them both was convictive of the injurious nature of the suspicion. We +fancied that they perceived our embarrassment; but were too proud, or +something else, to confess to the secret of it. We had been but too +lately in the condition of the noble patient in Argos: + + Qui se credebat miros audire tragoedos. + In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro-- + +and could have exclaimed with equal reason against the friendly hands +that cured us-- + + Pol me occidistis, amici, + Non servâstis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, + Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error. + + + + +APPENDIX + +LAMB'S ESSAYS ON "THE OLD ACTORS" AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE _LONDON +MAGAZINE_. (SEE NOTE ON PAGE 444.) + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) + + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which +he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports +of the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city.[1] His +voice had the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of +the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed +by affectation; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in +every movement. He seized the moment of passion with the greatest +truth; like a faithful clock never striking before the time; never +anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He was totally destitute +of trick and artifice. He seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's +message simply, and he did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios +in Homer deliver the errands of the gods. He let the passion or the +sentiment do its own work without prop or bolstering. He would have +scorned to mountebank it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which +is the bane of serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only +endurable one which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his +action could divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to +do. His confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the +mystery. There were no bye-intimations to make the audience fancy +their own discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who +commonly stands like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, +and a quantity of barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago +of Bensley did not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone +about the character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but +none of that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself +upon any little successful stroke of its knavery--which is common with +your small villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not +clap or crow before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a +child, and winking all the while at other children who are mightily +pleased at being let into the secret; but a consummate villain +entrapping a noble nature into toils, against which no discernment was +available, where the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed +dark, and without motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, +was performed by Bensley, with a richness and a dignity of which (to +judge from some recent castings of that character) the very tradition +must be worn out from the stage. No manager in those days would have +dreamed of giving it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley +was occasionally absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it +no derogation to succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially +ludicrous. He becomes comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, +repelling; but dignified, consistent, and, for what appears, rather of +an over-stretched morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; +and he might have worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old +round-head families, in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. +But his morality and his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is +opposed to the proper _levities_ of the piece, and falls in the +unequal contest. Still his pride, or his gravity, (call it which you +will) is inherent, and native to the man, not mock or affected, which +latter only are the fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at +the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing +is lofty, a little above his station, but probably not much above +his deserts. We see no reason why he should not have been brave, +honourable, accomplished. His careless committal of the ring to the +ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a +generosity of birth and feeling.[2] His dialect on all occasions is +that of a gentleman, and a man of education. We must not confound him +with the eternal low steward of comedy. He is master of the household +to a great Princess, a dignity probably conferred upon him for other +respects than age or length of service.[3] Olivia, at the first +indication of his supposed madness, declares that she "would not +have him miscarry for half of her dowry." Does this look as if +the character was meant to appear little or insignificant? Once, +indeed, she accuses him to his face--of what?--of being "sick of +self-love,"--but with a gentleness and considerateness which could +not have been, if she had not thought that this particular infirmity +shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the knight, and his sottish +revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when we take into +consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, and the +strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled mourning +would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, Malvolio +might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his keeping, as +it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or kinsmen, to look +to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice respects at the buttery +hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be represented as possessing some +estimable qualities, the expression of the Duke in his anxiety to +have him reconciled, almost infers: "Pursue him, and intreat him to +a peace." Even in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of +greatness seems never to desert him. He argues highly and well with +the supposed Sir Topas,[4] and philosophizes gallantly upon his straw. +There must have been some shadow of worth about the man; he must have +been something more than a mere vapour--a thing of straw, or Jack in +office--before Fabian and Maria could have ventured sending him upon a +courting errand to Olivia. There was some consonancy (as he would say) +in the undertaking, or the jest would have been too bold even for that +house of misrule. There was "example for it," said Malvolio; "the lady +of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe." Possibly too he +might remember--for it must have happened about his time--an instance +of a Duchess of Malfy (a countrywoman of Olivia's, and her equal at +least) descending from her state to court her steward-- + + The misery of them that are born great! + They are forced to woo, because none dare woo them. + +To be sure the lady was not very tenderly handled for it by her +brothers in the sequel, but their vengeance appears to have been +whetted rather by her presumption in re-marrying at all, (when they +had meditated the keeping of her fortune in their family) than by her +choice of an inferior, of Antonio's noble merits especially, for her +husband; and, besides, Olivia's brother was just dead. Malvolio was a +man of reading, and possibly reflected upon these lines, or something +like them in his own country poetry-- + + --Ceremony has made many fools. + It is as easy way unto a duchess + As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: + But that by timorous honours, pale respects, + Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways + Hard of themselves. + +"'Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect +me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, +it should be one of my complexion." If here was no encouragement, the +devil is in it. I wish we could get at the private history of all +this. Between the Countess herself, serious or dissembling--for one +hardly knows how to apprehend this fantastical great lady--and the +practices of that delicious little piece of mischief, Maria-- + + The lime twigs laid + By Machiavel the waiting maid-- + +the man might well be rapt into a fool's paradise. + +Bensley threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. He looked, +spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, spruce, +opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed upon a +sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was +big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. You +might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love in his conceit of the Countess's affection gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season, bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character while Bensley played it +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, +who came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few +seasons ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, +as it came out of nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in +puris naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom from +his grave air and deportment I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe nine times out of ten rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning full +upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon close +inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognized but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[5] + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[6] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied the +handsome fellow in his top-knot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personæ were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson_. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben_. Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all--Well father, and +how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson_. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben_. Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gave us--but a piece of a satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it +as a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to +it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personæ, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain, but in the first or second gallery. + +(_To be resumed occasionally_.) + +ELIA. + +[Footnote 1: + How lovelily the Adriatic whore + Dress'd in her flames will shine--devouring flames-- + Such as will burn her to her wat'ry bottom, + And hiss in her foundation. + + _Pierre, in Venice Preserved._] + +[Footnote 2: _Viola_. She took the ring from me; I'll none of it. + +_Mal_. Come, Sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it +should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in +your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Inchbald seems to have fallen into the common +mistake of the character in some sensible observations, otherwise, +upon this Comedy. "It might be asked," she says, "whether this +credulous steward was much deceived in imputing a degraded taste, in +the sentiments of love, to his fair lady Olivia, as she actually did +fall in love with a domestic; and one, who from his extreme youth, +was perhaps a greater reproach to her discretion, than had she cast a +tender regard upon her old and faithful servant." But where does she +gather the fact of his age? Neither Maria nor Fabian ever cast that +reproach upon him.] + +[Footnote 4: _Clown._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning +wild fowl? + +_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. + +_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion? + +_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 5: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognizing Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 6: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, April, 1822) + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years only +to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is +it for a few wild speeches, an occasional licence of dialogue? I think +not altogether. The business of their dramatic characters will not +stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to that. Idle gallantry +in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an evening, startles us +in the same way as the alarming indications of profligacy in a son or +ward in real life should startle a parent or guardian. We have no such +middle emotions as dramatic interests left. We see a stage libertine +playing his loose pranks of two hours' duration, and of no after +consequence, with the severe eyes which inspect real vices with their +bearings upon two worlds. We are spectators to a plot or intrigue (not +reducible in life to the point of strict morality) and take it all +for truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him +accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is no appeal +to the _dramatis personæ_, his peers. We have been spoiled with--not +sentimental comedy--but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures +which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of +common life; where the moral point is everything; where, instead of +the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of +old comedy) we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, +allies, patrons, enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in +what is going on so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our +moral judgment, in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise +or slumber for a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no +modification is made to affect us in any other manner than the same +events or characters would do in our relationships of life. We carry +our fire-side concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, +like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as +to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a +bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was +the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All +that neutral ground of character which stood between vice and virtue; +or which, in fact, was indifferent to neither, where neither properly +was called in question--that happy breathing-place from the burden +of a perpetual moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia +of hunted casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised as injurious to +the interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images or names of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) +I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the +strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the law +courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world +with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired the +breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as a fairyland. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of right and wrong, and the standard of _police_ is +the measure of _poetical justice_. The atmosphere will blight it. +It cannot thrive here. It is got into a moral world where it has +no business; from which it must needs fall head-long; as dizzy and +incapable of keeping its stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares within the sphere of one of his good men or angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad? + +The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants, and Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere do not offend my moral sense--or, in fact, appeal +to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break +through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They +have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call it?--of +cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the +manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of +things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No good +person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person +suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in these +plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike essentially +vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is especially shown in +this, that he has entirely excluded from his scenes,--some little +generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps excepted,--not only any +thing like a faultless character, but any pretensions to goodness +or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did this designedly, or +instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the design (if design) was +bold. I used to wonder at the strange power which his Way of the World +in particular possesses of interesting you all along in the pursuits +of characters, for whom you absolutely care nothing--for you neither +hate nor love his personages--and I think it is owing to this very +indifference for any, that you endure the whole. He has spread a +privation of moral light, I will call it, rather than by the ugly name +of palpable darkness, over his creations; and his shadows flit before +you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced a good +character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment +to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have +only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now are none, +because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which universally acted upon must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children? + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite as +impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out of +which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that +it should be now acted, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +playgoers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did +not believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed +in Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities; the gaity +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealize, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other, as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to see have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Churchyard memory--(an exhibition as +venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has passed from +the stage--in good time, that he did not live to this our age of +seriousness. The fidgety pleasant old Teazle _King_ too is gone in +good time. His manner would scarce have passed current in our day. +We must love or hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our +detestable coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph +Surface, to go down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no +compromise--his first appearance must shock and give horror--his +specious plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our +fathers welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm +(dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must +inspire a cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person +of the scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate +ends, but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in +down-right self-satisfaction) must be _loved_, and Joseph _hated_. To +balance one disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must +be no longer the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, +whose teazings (while King acted it) were evidently as much played off +at you, as they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must +be a real person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person +towards whom duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con +antagonist of the villainous seducer, Joseph. To realize him more, +his sufferings under his unfortunate match must have the downright +pungency of life--must (or should) make you not mirthful but +uncomfortable, just as the same predicament would move you in a +neighbour or old friend. The delicious scenes which give the play its +name and zest, must affect you in the same serious manner as if you +heard the reputation of a dear female friend attacked in your real +presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin--those poor snakes that lived +but in the sunshine of your mirth--must be ripened by this hot-bed +process of realization into asps or amphisbænas; and Mrs. Candour--O +frightful! become a hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and +Dodd--the wasp and butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two +characters; and charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as +distinguished from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would +forego the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But as far as I could judge, +the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal incapacity than +he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part came steeped +and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a grace. His exact +declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served to convey the points +of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed to head the shafts to +carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling sentences was lost. I +remember minutely how he delivered each in succession, and cannot by +any effort imagine how any of them could be altered for the better. No +man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the dialogue of Congreve or of +Wycherley--because none understood it--half so well as John Kemble. +His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my recollection, faultless. +He flagged sometimes in the intervals of tragic passion. He would +slumber over the level parts of an heroic character. His Macbeth has +been known to nod. But he always seemed to me to be particularly alive +to pointed and witty dialogue. The relaxing levities of tragedy have +not been touched by any since him--the playful court-bred spirit in +which he condescended to the players in Hamlet--the sportive relief, +which he threw into the darker shades of Richard--disappeared with +him. Tragedy is become a uniform dead weight. They have fastened lead +to her buskins. She never pulls them off for the ease of a moment. +To invert a commonplace from Niobe, she never forgets herself to +liquefaction. John had his sluggish moods, his torpors--but they were +the halting stones and resting places of his tragedy--politic savings, +and fetches of the breath--husbandry of the lungs, where nature +pointed him to be an economist--rather, I think, than errors of +the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful than the eternal +tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless dragon eyes," of +present fashionable tragedy. The story of his swallowing opium pills +to keep him lively upon the first night of a certain tragedy, we may +presume to be a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the +suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a +complacent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel with) +over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. +John Kemble had made up his mind early, that all the good tragedies, +which could be written, had been written; and he resented any new +attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards were scope enough +for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute--and "fair in Otway, full +in Shakspeare shone." He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, and did +not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any +casual speculator that offered. I remember, too acutely for my peace, +the deadly extinguisher which he put upon my friend G.'s "Antonio." +G., satiate with visions of political justice (possibly not to be +realized in our time), or willing to let the sceptical worldlings see, +that his anticipations of the future did not preclude a warm sympathy +for men as they are and have been--wrote a tragedy. He chose a +story, affecting, romantic, Spanish--the plot simple, without being +naked--the incidents uncommon, without being overstrained. Antonio, +who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive young Castilian, who, +in a fit of his country honour, immolates his sister-- + +But I must not anticipate the catastrophe--the play, reader, is +extant in choice English--and you will employ a spare half crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it. + +The conception was bold, and the dénouement--the time and place in +which the hero of it existed, considered--not much out of keeping; yet +it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both +from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the +prejudices of a modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done +his part. + +John, who was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken +to play Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first +play was a new era. The night arrived. I was favoured with a seat in +an advantageous box, between the author and his friend M----. G. sate +cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the +manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio in the person of John Philip +Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could +dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed +most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept +by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as +the opening act of a piece--the protasis--should do. The cue of +the spectators was to be mute. The characters were but in their +introduction. The passions and the incidents would be developed +hereafter. Applause hitherto would be impertinent. Silent attention +was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. acquiesced--but in his honest +friendly face I could discern a working which told how much more +acceptable the plaudit of a single hand (however misplaced) would +have been than all this reasoning. The second act (as in duty bound) +rose a little in interest; but still John kept his forces under--in +policy, as G. would have it--and the audience were most complacently +attentive. The protasis, in fact, was scarcely unfolded. The +interest would warm in the next act, against which a special +incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a friendly +perspiration--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal--"from every pore of +him a perfume falls--." I honour it above Alexander's. He had once or +twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavour to elicit +a sound--they emitted a solitary noise without an echo--there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. +The third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the +piece progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G. as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, +and there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to +make a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning +the tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman (who by the way should +have had his sister) baulks his humour, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the +new philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught--their courage was up, and on the alert--a few blows, _ding +dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might +have done the business--when their most exquisite moral sense was +suddenly called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own +pleasure. They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would +not condemn, for morality's sake. The interest stood stone still; +and John's manner was not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It +was Christmas time, and the atmosphere furnished some pretext for +asthmatic affections. One began to cough--his neighbour sympathised +with him--till a cough became epidemical. But when, from being +half-artificial in the pit, the cough got frightfully naturalised +among the fictitious persons of the drama; and Antonio himself (albeit +it was not set down in the stage directions) seemed more intent +upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of the author and +his friends,--then G. "first knew fear;" and mildly turning to M., +intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. K. laboured under a +cold; and that the performance might possibly have been postponed +with advantage for some nights further--still keeping the same serene +countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. It would be invidious to +pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. In vain did the plot +thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the dialogue wax more +passionate and stirring, and the progress of the sentiment point more +and more clearly to the arduous developement which impended. In vain +the action was accelerated, while the acting stood still. From the +beginning, John had taken his stand; had wound himself up to an even +tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or +person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising +with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level +to the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would +receive it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence +against decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an +irreverent symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of +verbiage stalked on through four and five acts, no one venturing to +predict what would come of it, when towards the winding up of the +latter, Antonio, with an irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira +herself--for she had been coolly arguing the point of honour with +him--suddenly whips out a poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. +The effect was, as if a murder had been committed in cold blood. The +whole house rose up in clamorous indignation demanding justice. The +feeling rose far above hisses. I believe at that instant, if they +could have got him, they would have torn the unfortunate author to +pieces. Not that the act itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion +different from what they themselves would have applauded upon another +occasion in a Brutus, or an Appius--but for want of attending to +Antonio's _words_, which palpably led to the expectation of no less +dire an event, instead of being seduced by his _manner_, which +seemed to promise a sleep of a less alarming nature than it was his +cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found themselves betrayed into an +accompliceship of murder, a perfect misprision of parricide, while +they dreamed of nothing less. M., I believe, was the only person +who suffered acutely from the failure; for G. thenceforward, with +a serenity unattainable but by the true philosophy, abandoning a +precarious popularity, retired into his fast hold of speculation,--the +drama in which the world was to be his tiring room, and remote +posterity his applauding spectators at once, and actors. + +ELIA. + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, October, 1822) + + +I do not know a more mortifying thing than to be conscious of a +foregone delight, with a total oblivion of the person and manner +which conveyed it. In dreams I often stretch and strain after the +countenance of Edwin, whom I once saw in Peeping Tom. I cannot catch a +feature of him. He is no more to me than Nokes or Pinkethman. Parsons, +and still more Dodd, were near being lost to me, till I was refreshed +with their portraits (fine treat) the other day at Mr. Mathews's +gallery at Highgate; which, with the exception of the Hogarth +pictures, a few years since exhibited in Pall Mall, was the most +delightful collection I ever gained admission to. There hang the +players, in their single persons, and in grouped scenes, from the +Restoration--Bettertons, Booths, Garricks, justifying the prejudices +which we entertain for them--the Bracegirdles, the Mountforts, and the +Oldfields, fresh as Cibber has described them--the Woffington (a true +Hogarth) upon a couch, dallying and dangerous--the Screen Scene in +Brinsley's famous comedy, with Smith and Mrs. Abingdon, whom I have +not seen, and the rest, whom having seen, I see still there. There is +Henderson, unrivalled in Comus, whom I saw at second hand in the elder +Harley--Harley, the rival of Holman, in Horatio--Holman, with the +bright glittering teeth in Lothario, and the deep paviour's sighs in +Romeo--the jolliest person ("our son is fat") of any Hamlet I have +yet seen, with the most laudable attempts (for a personable man) at +looking melancholy--and Pope, the abdicated monarch of tragedy and +comedy, in Harry the Eighth and Lord Townley. There hang the two +Aickins, brethren in mediocrity--Wroughton, who in Kitely seemed to +have forgotten that in prouder days he had personated Alexander--the +specious form of John Palmer, with the special effrontery of +Bobby--Bensley, with the trumpet-tongue, and little Quick (the retired +Dioclesian of Islington) with his squeak like a Bart'lemew fiddle. +There are fixed, cold as in life, the immovable features of Moody, +who, afraid of o'erstepping nature, sometimes stopped short of +her--and the restless fidgetiness of Lewis, who, with no such fears, +not seldom leaped o' the other side. There hang Farren and Whitfield, +and Burton and Phillimore, names of small account in those times, but +which, remembered now, or casually recalled by the sight of an old +play-bill, with their associated recordations, can "drown an eye +unused to flow." There too hangs (not far removed from them in death) +the graceful plainness of the first Mrs. Pope, with a voice unstrung +by age, but which, in her better days, must have competed with the +silver tones of Barry himself, so enchanting in decay do I remember +it--of all her lady parts exceeding herself in the Lady Quakeress +(there earth touched heaven!) of O'Keefe, when she played it to +the "merry cousin" of Lewis--and Mrs. Mattocks, the sensiblest +of viragos--and Miss Pope, a gentlewoman ever, to the verge of +ungentility, with Churchill's compliment still burnishing upon her gay +Honeycomb lips. There are the two Bannisters, and Sedgwick, and Kelly, +and Dignum (Diggy), and the bygone features of Mrs. Ward, matchless in +Lady Loverule; and the collective majesty of the whole Kemble family, +and (Shakspeare's woman) Dora Jordan; and, by her, _two Antics_, who +in former and in latter days have chiefly beguiled us of our griefs; +whose portraits we shall strive to recall, for the sympathy of those +who may not have had the benefit of viewing the matchless Highgate +Collection. + + +MR. SUETT + +O for a "slip-shod muse," to celebrate in numbers, loose and shambling +as himself, the merits and the person of Mr. Richard Suett, comedian! + +Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in his lifetime he was best +pleased to be called, and time hath ratified the appellation--lieth +buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy Paul, to whose +service his nonage and tender years were set apart and dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable +to an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I +could never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one of +us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype, of--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt or +a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose gait, a slippery tongue, this +last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; in words +light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest rhymes +tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, or Sir +Toby at the buttery hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral, pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--how dearly beautiful it was!--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as +Shakspeare says of Love, too young to know what conscience is. He put +us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before him--not as from Jack, as from +an antagonist,--but because it could not touch him, any more than a +cannon-ball a fly. He was delivered from the burthen of that death; +and, when Death came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is +recorded of him by Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he +received the last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, +nor tune, with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in +his epitaph--_O La!--O La! Bobby!_ + + +MR. MUNDEN + +Not many nights ago we had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when we retired to our pillow, his +whimsical image still stuck by us, in a manner as to threaten sleep. +In vain we tried to divest ourselves of it by conjuring up the most +opposite associations. We resolved to be serious. We raised up the +gravest topics of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not +do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But we were not to escape so easily. No sooner did we fall into +slumbers, than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed us in +the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing +before us, like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when +you have been taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this +strangest of all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance +into, from the day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the +town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power +of the pencil to have fixed them when we awoke! A season or two since +there was exhibited a Hogarth gallery. We do not see why there should +not be a Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not +fall far short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one face (but what a +one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin +down, and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of +looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts +out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but +legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be +multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and +he alone, literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the +phrase is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human +countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his +friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. We should +not be surprised to see him some day put out the head of a +river horse; or come forth a pewit, or lapwing, some feathered +metamorphosis. + +We have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. We have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in what has been truly denominated "the sublime of farce," Munden +stands out as single and unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to +tell, had no followers. The school of Munden began, and must end, with +himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--sessa--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him, or as if Thalaba +were no tale! Who like him can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a +supernatural interest over the commonest daily-life objects? A table, +or a joint stool, in his conception, rises into a dignity equivalent +to Cassiopeia's chair. It is invested with constellatory importance. +You could not speak of it with more deference, if it were mounted into +the firmament. A beggar in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, +rose the Patriarch of Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and +ennobles what it touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and +primal as the seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. +A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He +understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid +the commonplace materials of life, like primæval man, with the sun and +stars about him. + +ELIA. + + + + +NOTES + +ELIA + + +Lamb took the name of Elia, which should, he said, be pronounced +Ellia, from an old clerk, an Italian, at the South-Sea House in Lamb's +time: that is, in 1791-1792. Writing to John Taylor in July, 1821, +just after he had taken over the magazine (see below), Lamb says, +referring to the South-Sea House essay, "having a brother now there, +and doubting how he might relish certain descriptions in it, I clapt +down the name of Elia to it, which passed off pretty well, for Elia +himself added the function of an author to that of a scrivener, like +myself. I went the other day (not having seen him [Elia] for a year) +to laugh over with him at my usurpation of his name, and found him, +alas! no more than a name, for he died of consumption eleven months +ago, and I knew not of it. So the name has fairly devolved to me, I +think; and 'tis all he has left me." + +In the library at Welbeck is a copy of a pamphlet, in French, entitled +_Considérations sur l'état actuel de la France au mois de Juin 1815, +par un Anglais_, which was presented to the Duke of Portland by the +author, F.A. Elia. This was probably Lamb's Elia. The pamphlet is +reprinted, together with other interesting matter remotely connected +with Lamb, in _Letters from the Originals at Welbeck Abbey_, privately +printed, 1909. + +_Elia. Essays which have appeared under that signature in the London +Magazine_, was published early in 1823. Lamb's original intention was +to furnish the book with a whimsical preface, as we learn from the +following letter to John Taylor, dated December 7, 1822:-- + + "DEAR SIR,--I should like the enclosed Dedication to be printed, + unless you dislike it. I like it. It is in the olden style. But if + you object to it, put forth the book as it is; only pray don't let + the printer mistake the word _curt_ for _curst_. + + "C.L. + + "DEDICATION. + + "TO THE FRIENDLY AND JUDICIOUS READER, + who will take these Papers, as they were meant; not understanding + every thing perversely in its absolute and literal sense, but + giving fair construction, as to an after-dinner conversation; + allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first + thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, + words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass, the Author + wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to + stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all + his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most + hasty words and actions. The other sort (and he hopes many of them + will purchase his book too) he greets with the curt invitation of + Timon, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap:' or he dismisses them with the + confident security of the philosopher,--'you beat but on the case + of Elia.' + + "On better consideration, pray omit that Dedication. The Essays + want no Preface: they are _all Preface_. A Preface is nothing but + a talk with the reader; and they do nothing else. Pray omit it. + + "There will be a sort of Preface in the next Magazine, which may + act as an advertisement, but not proper for the volume. + + "Let ELIA come forth bare as he was born. + + "C.L. + + "N.B.--_No_ Preface." + +The "sort of Preface in the next number" was the character sketch of +the late Elia on page 171. + +_Elia_ did not reach a second edition in Lamb's lifetime--that is to +say, during a period of twelve years--although the editions into which +it has passed between his death and the present day are legion. Why, +considering the popularity of the essays as they appeared in the +_London Magazine_, the book should have found so few purchasers is a +problem difficult of solution. Lamb himself seems to have attributed +some of the cause to Southey's objection, in the _Quarterly Review_, +that _Elia_ "wanted a sounder religious feeling;" but more probably +the book was too dear: it was published at 9s. 6d. + +Ordinary reviewers do not seem to have perceived at all that a rare +humorist, humanist and master of prose had arisen, although among the +finer intellects who had any inclination to search for excellence for +excellence's sake Lamb made his way. William Hazlitt, for example, +drew attention to the rich quality of _Elia_; as also did Leigh Hunt; +and William Hone, who cannot, however, as a critic be mentioned with +these, was tireless in advocating the book. Among strangers to Lamb +who from the first extolled his genius was Miss Mitford. But _Elia_ +did not sell. + +Ten years passed before Lamb collected his essays again, and then +in 1833 was published _The Last Essays of Elia_, with Edward +Moxon's imprint. The mass of minor essays in the _London Magazine_ +and elsewhere, which Lamb disregarded when he compiled his two +collections, will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition. _The +Last Essays of Elia_ had little, if any, better reception than the +first; and Lamb had the mortification of being asked by the Norris +family to suppress the exquisite and kindly little memoir of Randal +Norris, entitled "A Death-Bed" (see page 279), which was held to be +too personal. When, in 1835, after Lamb's death, a new edition of +_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_ was issued, the "Confessions of +a Drunkard" took its place (see Vol. I.). + +Meanwhile a Philadelphian firm had been beforehand with Lamb, and +had issued in 1828 a second series of _Elia_. The American edition +of _Elia_ had been the same as the English except for a slightly +different arrangement of the essays. But when in 1828 the American +second series was issued, it was found to contain three pieces not +by Lamb at all. A trick of writing superficially like Lamb had been +growing in the _London Magazine_ ever since the beginning; hence the +confusion of the American editor. The three articles not by Lamb, as +he pointed out to N.P. Willis (see _Pencillings by the Way_), are +"Twelfth Night," "The Nuns and Ale of Caverswell," and "Valentine's +Day." Of these Allan Cunningham wrote the second, and B.W. Procter +(Barry Cornwall) the other two. The volume contained only eleven +essays which Lamb himself selected for _The Last Essays of Elia_: it +was eked out with the three spurious pieces above referred to, with +several pieces never collected by Lamb, and with four of the humorous +articles in the _Works_, 1818. Bernard Barton's sonnet "To Elia" stood +as introduction. Altogether it was a very interesting book, as books +lacking authority often are. + +In the notes that follow reference is often made to Lamb's Key. This +is a paper explaining certain initials and blanks in _Elia_, which +Lamb drew up for R.B. Pitman, a fellow clerk at the East India House. +I give it here in full, merely remarking that the first numerals refer +to the pages of the original edition of _Elia_ and those in brackets +to the present volume:-- + + M. . . . Page 13 [7] Maynard, hang'd himself. + + G.D. . . " 21 [11] George Dyer, Poet. + + H. . . . " 32 [16] Hodges. + + W. . . . " 45 [23] + + Dr. T----e . " 46 [24] Dr. Trollope. + + Th. . . " 47 [24] Thornton. + + S. . . " 47 [24] Scott, died in Bedlam. + + M. . . " 47 [24] Maunde, dismiss'd school. + + C.V. le G. . " 48 [25] Chs. Valentine le Grice. + + F. . . . " 49 [25] Favell; left Camb'rg because he was + asham'd of his father, who was a + house-painter there. + + Fr. . . " 50 [26] Franklin, Gramr. Mast., Hertford. + + T. . . " 50 [26] Marmaduke Thompson. + + K. . . " 59 [30] Kenney, Dramatist. Author of + _Raising Wind_, &c. + + S.T.C. . . " 60 [31] Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [Not in + Lamb's autograph.] + + Alice W----n . " 63 [32] Feigned (Winterton). + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + **** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + Mrs. S. . . " 87 [44] Mrs. Spinkes. + + R. . . . " 98 [50] Ramsay, London Library, Ludg. St.; + now extinct. + + Granville S. . " 98 [50] Granville Sharp. [Not in Lamb's + autograph.] + + E.B. . . " 130 [65] Edward Burney, half-brother of Miss + Burney. + + B. . . . " 141 [71] Braham, now a Xtian. + + *********** . " 170 [85] Distrest Sailors. + + J----ll. . " 195 [97] Jekyll. + + Susan P. . " 198 [99] Susan Peirson. + + R.N. . . " 206 [103] Randal Norris, Subtreasr, Inner Temple. + + C. . . . " 216 [108] Coleridge. + + F. . . . " 222 [111] Field. + + B.F. . . " 238 [118] Baron Field, brother of Frank. + + Lord C. . " 243 [121] Lord Camelford. + + Sally W----r . " 248 [123] Sally Winter. + + J.W. . . " 248 [123] Jas. White, author of _Falstaff's + Letters_. + + St. L. . . " 268 [133] No meaning. + + B., Rector of ---- " 268 [133] No meaning. + +The _London Magazine_, with John Scott (1783-1821) as its editor was +founded in 1820 by Baldwin, Cradock & Joy. Its first number was dated +January, 1820, and Lamb's first contribution was in the number for +August, 1820. Lamb had known Scott as editor of _The Champion_ in +1814, but, according to Talfourd, it was Hazlitt who introduced Lamb +to the _London Magazine_. + +John Scott, who was the author of two interesting books of travel, +_A Visit to Paris in 1814_ and _Paris Re-visited_ in 1815, was an +admirable editor, and all was going exceedingly well until he plunged +into a feud with _Blackwood's Magazine_ in general, and John Gibson +Lockhart in particular, the story of which in full may be read in +Mr. Lang's _Life and Letters of Lockhart_, 1896. In the duel which +resulted Scott was shot above the hip. The wound was at first thought +lightly of, but Scott died on February 27, 1821--an able man much +regretted. + +The magazine did not at first show signs of Scott's loss; it continued +to bear the imprint of its original publishers and its quality +remained very high. With Lamb and Hazlitt writing regularly this +could hardly be otherwise. But four months after the death of Scott +and eighteen months after its establishment the _London Magazine_ +passed into the hands of the publishers Taylor & Hessey, the first +number with their imprint being dated August, 1821. Although for a +while no diminution of merit was perceptible and rather an access +of gaiety--for Taylor brought Hood with him and John Hamilton +Reynolds--yet the high editorial standards of Scott ceased to be +applied. Thenceforward the decline of the magazine was steady. + +John Taylor (1781-1864), senior partner in the firm of Taylor & +Hessey, was known as the identifier of Sir Philip Francis with the +author of "Junius," on which subject he had issued three books. +Although unfitted for the post, he acted as editor of the _London +Magazine_ until it was again sold in 1825. + +With the beginning of 1825 Taylor made a change in the magazine. He +started a new series, and increased the size and the price. But the +experiment did not answer; the spirit had evaporated; and in the +autumn he sold it to Henry Southern (1799-1853), who had founded +the _Retrospective Review_ in 1820. The last number of the _London +Magazine_ to bear Taylor & Hessey's name, and (in my opinion) to +contain anything by Lamb, was August, 1825. We have no definite +information on the matter, but there is every indication in Lamb's +_Letters_ that Taylor was penurious and not clever in his relations +with contributors. Scott Lamb seems to have admired and liked; but +even in Scott's day payment does not seem to have been prompt. Lamb +was paid, according to Barry Cornwall, two or three times the amount +of other writers, who received for prose a pound a page. But Lamb +himself says that the rate for him was twenty guineas a sheet, a sheet +being sixteen pages; and he told Moore that he had received £170 for +two years' Elia. In a letter to Barton in January, 1823, Lamb remarks: +"B---- [Baldwin] who first engaged me as 'Elia' has not paid me up yet +(nor any of us without repeated mortifying appeals)." + +The following references to the _London_ in Lamb's letters to Barton +tell the story of its decadence quite clearly enough. In May, +1823:--"I cannot but think _the London_ drags heavily. I miss Janus +[Wainewright]. And O how it misses Hazlitt--Procter, too, is affronted +(as Janus has been) with their abominable curtailment of his things." + +Again, a little later, in September:--"The 'London' I fear falls +off.--I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat. It will +topple down, if they don't get some Buttresses. They have pulled down +three, W. Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind light-hearted +Wainwright, their Janus." + +In January, 1824, at the beginning of his eight months' silence:--"The +London must do without me for a time, a time, and half a time, for I +have lost all interest about it." + +Again, in December, 1824:--"Taylor & Hessey finding their magazine +goes off very heavily at 2s. 6d., are prudently going to raise their +price another shilling; and having already more authors than they +want, intend to increase the number of them. If they set up against +the New Monthly, they must change their present hands. It is not tying +the dead carcase of a Review to a half-dead Magazine will do their +business." + +In January, 1825 (to Sarah Hutchinson):--"You ask about the editor of +the Lond. I know of none. This first specimen [of a new series] is +flat and pert enough to justify subscribers, who grudge at t'other +shilling." + +Next month Lamb writes, again to Barton:--"Our second Number [of the +new series] is all trash. What are T. & H. about? It is whip syllabub, +'thin sown with aught of profit or delight'. Thin sown! not a germ of +fruit or corn. Why did poor Scott die! There was comfort in writing +with such associates as were his little band of scribblers, some gone +away, some affronted away, and I am left as the solitary widow [in one +of Barton's poems] looking for watercresses." + +Finally, in August, 1825:--"Taylor has dropt the 'London'. It was +indeed a dead weight. It was Job in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle +off my part of the pack, and stand like Christian with light and merry +shoulders." + +In addition to Lamb and Hazlitt the _London Magazine_ had more or +less regular contributions, in its best days, from De Quincey, Allan +Cunningham (Nalla), T.G. Wainewright, afterwards the poisoner, but +in those days an amusing weaver of gay artificial prose, John Clare, +Bernard Barton, H.F. Cary, Richard Ayton, George Darley, Thomas Hood, +John Hamilton Reynolds, Sir John Bowring, John Poole, B.W. Procter; +while among occasional writers for it were Thomas Carlyle, Landor and +Julius Hare. + +The essay, "Stage Illusion," in the number for August, 1825, was, +I believe, the last that Lamb contributed. (In this connection see +Mr. Bertram Dobell's _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903.) Lamb then +passed over to Colburn's _New Monthly Magazine_, where the "Popular +Fallacies" appeared, together with certain other of his later essays. +His last contribution to that magazine was dated September, 1826. In +1827 he was chiefly occupied in selecting Garrick play extracts for +Hone's _Table Book_, at the British Museum, and for a while after that +he seems to have been more interested in writing acrostics and album +verses than prose. In 1831, however, Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_ +offered harbourage for anything Lamb cared to give it, and a brief +revival of Elia (under the name of Peter) resulted. With its death in +October, 1831, Lamb's writing career practically ceased. + + * * * * * + +Page 1. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1820. + +Although the "Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married +People," "Valentine's Day," and "On the Acting of Munden," were all +written before this essay, it is none the less the first of the +essays of Elia. I have remarked, in the notes to a small edition of +_Elia_, that it is probably unique in literature for an author to +find himself, as Lamb did, in his forty-fourth year, by recording +impressions gathered in his seventeenth; but I think now that Lamb +probably visited his brother at the South-Sea House from time to time +in later years, and gathered other impressions then. I am led to this +conclusion partly by the fact that Thomas Tame was not appointed +Deputy-Accountant until four or five years after Lamb had left. + +We do not know exactly what Lamb's duties were at the South-Sea +House or how long he was there: probably only for the twenty-three +weeks--from September, 1791--mentioned in the receipt below, +discovered by Mr. J.A. Rutter in a little exhibition of documents +illustrative of the South Sea Bubble in the Albert Museum at Exeter:-- + + Rec'd 8th feby 1792 of the Honble South Sea Company by the hands + of their Secretary Twelve pounds 1s. 6d. for 23 weeks attendance + in the Examiners Office. + + £12 1 6. CHAS. LAMB. + +This shows that Lamb's salary was half a guinea weekly, paid +half-yearly. His brother John was already in the service of the +Company, where he remained till his death, rising to Accountant. It +has been conjectured that it was through his influence that Charles +was admitted, with the view of picking up book-keeping; but the real +patron and introducer was Joseph Pake, one of the directors, whom we +meet on page 92. Whether Lamb had ideas of remaining, or whether he +merely filled a temporary gap in the Examiners' Office, we cannot +tell. He passed to the East India House in the spring of 1792. + +The South Sea Company was incorporated in 1710. The year of the Bubble +was 1720. The South-Sea House, remodelled, is now a congeries of +offices. + +Page 2, line 11. _Forty years ago_. To be accurate, twenty-eight to +thirty. + +Page 3, line 1. _Accounts ... puzzle me_. Here Elia begins his +"matter-of-lie" career. Lamb was at this time in the Accountants' +Office of the India House, living among figures all day. + +Page 3, line 7 from foot. _Evans_. William Evans. The Directories of +those days printed lists of the chief officials in some of the public +offices, and it is possible to trace the careers of the clerks whom +Lamb names. All are genuine. Evans, whose name is given one year as +Evan Evans, was appointed cashier (or deputy-cashier) in 1792. + +Page 4, line 4. _Ready to imagine himself one_. Lamb was fond of this +conceit. See his little essay "The Last Peach" (Vol. I.), and the +mischievous letter to Bernard Barton, after Fauntleroy's trial, +warning him against peculation. + +Page 4, line 7. _Anderton's_. Either the coffee-shop in Fleet Street, +now Anderton's Hotel, or a city offshoot of it. The portrait, if it +ever was in existence, is no longer known there. + +Page 5, line 17. _John Tipp_. John Lamb succeeded Tipp as Accountant +somewhen about 1806. + +Page 5, line 27. _I know not, etc._ This parenthesis was not in the +_London Magazine_, but the following footnote was appended to the +sentence:-- + + "I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is + a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some + choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which + I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same + time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. + Lamb has the character of a right courteous and communicative + collector." + +Mr. Lamb was, of course, John Lamb, or James Elia (see the essay "My +Relations"), then (in 1820) Accountant of the South-Sea House. He left +the Milton to his brother. It is now in America. + +Page 6, line 5 from foot. _Henry Man_. This was Henry Man (1747-1790), +deputy-secretary of the South-Sea House from 1776, and an author +of light trifles in the papers, and of one or two books. The +_Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose of the late Henry Man_ was +published in 1802, among the subscribers being three of the officials +named in this essay--John Evans, R. Plumer, and Mr. Tipp, and also +Thomas Maynard, who, though assigned to the Stock Exchange, is +probably the "childlike, pastoral M----" of a later paragraph. Small +politics are for the most part kept out of Man's volumes, which are +high-spirited rather than witty, but this punning epigram (of which +Lamb was an admirer) on Lord Spencer and Lord Sandwich may be +quoted:-- + + Two Lords whose names if I should quote, + Some folks might call me sinner: + The one invented _half a coat_, + The other _half a dinner_. + + Such lords as these are useful men, + Heaven sends them to console one; + Because there's now not one in ten, + That can procure a _whole one_. + +Page 7, line 13. _Plumer_. Richard Plumer (spelled Plomer in the +directories), deputy-secretary after Man. Lamb was peculiarly +interested in the Plumers from the fact that his grandmother, Mrs. +Field, had been housekeeper of their mansion at Blakesware, near Ware +(see notes to "Dream-Children" and "Blakesmoor in H----shire"). The +fine old Whig was William Plumer, who had been her employer, and was +now living at Gilston. He died in 1821. + +The following passage from the memoir of Edward Cave (1691-1754), +which Dr. Johnson wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (which Cave +established) in 1754, shows that Lamb was mistaken about Plumer:-- + + He [Cave] was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the + franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and + often stopped franks which were given by members of parliament to + their friends; because he thought such extension of a peculiar + right illegal. This raised many complaints, and having stopped, + among others, a frank given to the old dutchess of _Marlborough_ + by Mr. _Walter Plummer_, he was cited before the house, as for + breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, + of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great + harshness and severity, but declining their questions by pleading + his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And it must be + recorded to his honour, that when he was ejected from his office, + he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but continued + to refuse to his nearest friends any information about the + management of the office. + +I borrow from Canon Ainger an interesting note on Walter Plumer, +written in the eighteen-eighties, showing that Lamb was mistaken on +other matters too:-- + + The present Mr. Plumer, of Allerton, Totness, a grandson of + Richard Plumer of the South-Sea House, by no means acquiesces in + the tradition here recorded as to his grandfather's origin. He + believes that though the links are missing, Richard Plumer was + descended in regular line from the Baronet, Sir Walter Plumer, + who died at the end of the seventeenth century. Lamb's memory + has failed him here in one respect. The "Bachelor Uncle," Walter + Plumer, uncle of William Plumer of Blakesware, was most certainly + not a bachelor (see the pedigree of the family in Cussans' + _Hertfordshire_). + +Page 7, line 10 from foot. M----. According to the Key to the initials +and blanks in some of the essays, which Lamb filled in for a curious +correspondent, M---- stood for one Maynard. "Maynard, hang'd himself" +is Lamb's entry. He was chief clerk in the Old Annuities and Three Per +Cents, 1788-1793. + + * * * * * + +Page 8. OXFORD IN THE VACATION. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1820, where it is dated at the end, +"August 5, 1820. From my rooms facing the Bodleian." My own belief +is that Lamb wrote the essay at Cambridge, under the influence of +Cambridge, where he spent a few weeks in the summers of 1819 and 1820, +and transferred the scene to Oxford by way of mystification. He knew +Oxford, of course, but he had not been there for some years, and it +was at Cambridge that he met Dyer and saw the Milton MSS. + +Concerning a visit to Oxford (in 1810), Hazlitt had written, in his +_Table Talk_ essay "On the Conversation of Authors," in the preceding +(the September) number of the _London Magazine_:-- + + L---- [that is, Lamb] once came down into the country to see us. + He was "like the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." The + country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his + jokes. It would be strange if they had; for he did not make any + while he staid. But when we crossed the country to Oxford, then he + spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well-met; + and in the quadrangles, he "walked gowned." + +The quotation is a reference to Lamb's sonnet, "I was not Trained in +Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in 1819:-- + + Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, + Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap; + My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, + And I walk _gownèd_. + +Page 8, line 6 from foot. _Agnize_. Lamb was fond of this word. I +have seen it stated ingeniously that it was of his own coinage--from +_agnus_, a lamb--but the derivation is _ad gnoscere_, to acknowledge, +to recognise, and the word is to be found in other places--in +"Othello," for example (Act I., Scene 3, line 232):-- + + I do agnise + A natural and prompt alacrity. + +Page 9, middle. _Red-letter days_. See note on page 351. The holidays +at the India House, which are given in the London directories of +Lamb's early time there, make a considerable list. But in 1820 the +Accountants' Office, where Lamb was, kept only five days in the year. + +Page 10, line 11. _I can here ... enact the student._ Lamb had +distilled the matter of this paragraph into his sonnet, "I was not +Trained in Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in August of the +preceding year (see above and Vol. IV.). + +Page 11, line 12 from foot. _Unsettle my faith._ At this point, in the +_London Magazine_, Lamb appended the footnote:-- + + "There is something to me repugnant, at any time, in written hand. + The text never seems determinate. Print settles it. I had thought + of the Lycidas as of a full-grown beauty--as springing up with all + its parts absolute--till, in evil hour, I was shown the original + written copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its + author, in the Library of Trinity, kept like some treasure to be + proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, + after the latter cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How + it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore! interlined, + corrected! as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable + at pleasure! as if they might have been otherwise, and just + as good! as if inspirations were made up of parts, and those + fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the + work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his + picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were + to be alive again, and painting another Galatea." + +In the Appendix to Vol. I., page 428, I have printed a passage from +the original MS. of _Comus_, which there is reason to believe was +contributed to the _London Magazine_ by Lamb. + +Page 11, line 9 from foot. _G.D._ George Dyer (1755-1841), Lamb's +friend for many years. This is the first mention of him in the essays; +but we shall meet him again, particularly in "Amicus Redivivus." +George Dyer was educated at Christ's Hospital long before Lamb's +time there, and, becoming a Grecian, had entered Emmanuel College, +Cambridge. He became at first an usher in Essex, then a private tutor +to the children of Robert Robinson, the Unitarian, whose life he +afterwards excellently wrote, then an usher again, at Northampton, one +of his colleagues being John Clarke, father of Lamb's friend, Charles +Cowden Clarke. In 1792 he settled in Clifford's Inn as a hack; wrote +poems, made indexes, examined libraries for a great bibliographical +work (never published), and contributed "all that was original" to +Valpy's classics in 141 volumes. Under this work his sight gave way; +and he once showed Hazlitt two fingers the use of which he had lost +in copying out MSS. of Procrus and Plotinus in a fine Greek hand. +Fortunately a good woman took him under her wing; they were married in +1825; and Dyer's last days were happy. His best books were his _Life +of Robert Robinson_ and his _History of the University and Colleges +of Cambridge_. Lamb and his friends laughed at him and loved him. In +addition to the stories told by Lamb in his letters and essays, there +are amusing characteristics of Dyer in Crabb Robinson's diary, in +Leigh Hunt, in Hazlitt, in Talfourd, and in other places. All bear +upon his gentleness, his untidiness and his want of humour. One of +the most famous stories tells of Dyer's criticism of Williams, the +terrible Ratcliffe Highway murderer. Dyer, who would never say an ill +word of any one, was asked his opinion of this cold-blooded assassin +of two families. "He must," he replied after due thought, "be rather +an eccentric character." + +Page 12, line 10. _Injustice to him._ In the _London Magazine_ the +following footnote came here, almost certainly by Lamb:-- + + "Violence or injustice certainly none, Mr. Elia. But you will + acknowledge that the charming unsuspectingness of our friend has + sometimes laid him open to attacks, which, though savouring (we + hope) more of waggery than malice--such is our unfeigned respect + for G.D.--might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such was + that silly joke of L[amb], who, at the time the question of the + Scotch Novels was first agitated, gravely assured our friend--who + as gravely went about repeating it in all companies--that Lord + Castlereagh had acknowledged himself to be the author of Waverly! + _Note--not by Elia."_ + +Page 12, line 11. _"Strike an abstract idea."_ I do not find this +quotation--if it be one; but when John Lamb once knocked Hazlitt down, +during an argument on pigments, Hazlitt refrained from striking back, +remarking that he was a metaphysician and dealt not in blows but in +ideas. Lamb may be slyly remembering this. + +Page 12, line 15. C----. Cambridge. Dyer added a work on _Privileges +of the University if Cambridge_ to his _History_. + +Page 12, line 8 from foot. _Our friend M.'s._ Basil Montagu, Q.C. +(1770-1851), legal writer, philanthropist, editor of Bacon, and the +friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge. The Mrs. M. here referred to was +Montagu's third wife, a Mrs. Skepper. It was she who was called by +Edward Irving "the noble lady," and to whom Carlyle addressed some +early letters. A.S. was Anne Skepper, afterwards Mrs. Bryan Waller +Procter, a fascinating lady who lived to a great age and died as +recently as 1888. The Montagus then lived at 25 Bedford Square. + +Page 13, line 17. _Starts like a thing surprised._ Here we have an +interesting example of Lamb's gift of fused quotation. Wordsworth's +line in the "Ode on Intimations of Immortality," + + Tremble like a guilty thing surprised, + +and Shakespeare's phrase in "Hamlet" (Act I., Scene 1, line 148), + + Started like a guilty thing, + +were probably both in his mind as he wrote. + +Page 13, line 24. _Obtruded personal presence._ In the _London +Magazine_ the following passage came here:-- + + "D. commenced life, after a course of hard study in the 'House of + pure Emanuel,' as usher to a knavish fanatic schoolmaster at ***, + at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. + Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the + laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, + that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes + compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at + arrears, Dr. *** would take no immediate notice, but, after + supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would + never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, + and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire + of them--ending with 'Lord, keep thy servants, above all things + from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, + us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish,'--and the + like;--which to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine + full of Christian prudence and simplicity,--but to poor D. was a + receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least. + + "And D. has been under-working for himself ever since;--drudging + at low rates for unappreciating booksellers,--wasting his fine + erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those + unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall + to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell + themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which + do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his + own,--and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient + literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he + could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what + he terms them, _crotchets;_ voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and + Spring; effusions; little tributes, and offerings, left behind + him, upon tables and window-seats, at parting from friends' + houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been + courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his + muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion + in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the + sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own + healthy natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation." + +The foregoing passage called forth a protest from one W.K. +necessitating the following reply from Lamb, which was printed in the +_London Magazine_, under the "Lion's Head," for December, 1820:-- + + "Elia requests the Editor to inform W.K. that in his article on + Oxford, under the initials G.D., it is his ambition to make more + familiar to the public, a character, which, for integrity and + single-heartedness, he has long been accustomed to rank among the + best patterns of his species. That, if he has failed in the end + which he proposed, it was an error of judgment merely. That, if + in pursuance of his purpose, he has drawn forth some personal + peculiarities of his friend into notice, it was only from the + conviction that the public, in living subjects especially, do not + endure pure panegyric. That the anecdotes, which he produced, + were no more than he conceived necessary to awaken attention to + character, and were meant solely to illustrate it. That it is an + entire mistake to suppose, that he undertook the character to + set off his own wit or ingenuity. That, he conceives, a candid + interpreter might find something intended, beyond a heartless + jest. That G.D., however, having thought it necessary to disclaim + the anecdote respecting Dr. ----, it becomes him, who never for + a moment can doubt the veracity of his friend, to account for + it from an imperfect remembrance of some story he heard long + ago, and which, happening to tally with his argument, he set + too hastily to the account of G.D. That, from G.D.'s strong + affirmations and proofs to the contrary, he is bound to believe + it belongs to no part of G.D.'s biography. That the transaction, + supposing it true, must have taken place more than forty years + ago. That, in consequence, it is not likely to 'meet the eye of + many who might be justly offended.' + + "Finally, that what he has said of the Booksellers, referred to a + period of many years, in which he has had the happiness of G.D.'s + acquaintance; and can have nothing to do with any present or + prospective engagements of G.D., with those gentlemen, to the + nature of which he professes himself an entire stranger." + +The result of the protest was that Lamb omitted the passage objected +to when he collected _Elia_ in 1823. It might well be restored now; +but I have preferred to print everything in the body of this edition +as Lamb arranged it for press. + + * * * * * + +Page 14. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1820. + +This essay, which is based upon the "Recollections of Christ's +Hospital" in Vol. I., is a curious blend of Lamb's own experiences at +school with those of Coleridge. Both boys entered at the same time--on +July 17, 1782: Coleridge was then nearly ten, Lamb was seven and a +half. Coleridge was "clothed" on July 18 and went to Hertford for +a while; Lamb was clothed on October 9. Lamb left the school in +November, 1789, Coleridge in September, 1791. + +The school which Lamb knew is now no more. The boys are now all in new +buildings in the midst of green fields near Horsham, many miles from +Lamb's city and its roar. + +Page 14, line 15. _The worthy sub-treasurer._ Randal Norris (see note +to "A Death-Bed"). I have not been able to discover the cause of his +influence. + +Page 14, lines 18, 19. _Crug ... piggins._ Crug is still current +slang. In the school museum one of these piggins is preserved. + +Page 14, line 25. _Three banyan days._ Three vegetarian days. +Coleridge complains (in a letter to Poole) that he was never +sufficiently fed except on Wednesdays. He gives the following table of +food:-- + + Our diet was very scanty. Every morning a bit of dry bread and + some bad small beer. Every evening a larger piece of bread, and + cheese or butter, whichever we liked. For dinner,--on Sunday, + boiled beef and broth; Monday, bread and butter, and milk and + water; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, bread and butter, and + rice milk; Thursday, boiled beef and broth; Friday, boiled mutton + and broth; Saturday, bread and butter, and pease-porridge. Our + food was portioned; and, excepting on Wednesdays, I never had a + bellyfull. Our appetites were damped, never satisfied; and we had + no vegetables. + +Page 14, line 8 from foot. _Caro equina._ Horseflesh. Mr. Pearce's +chapter on food at the school in his excellent _Annals of Christ's +Hospital_ is very interesting, and records great changes. +Rotten-roasted or rare, _i.e._, over-roasted or under-done. + +Page 15, line 3. _The good old relative._ Aunt Hetty, or more +properly, Sarah Lamb. Compare the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral," Vol. IV.:-- + + I have not forgot + How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet + A prating schoolboy: I have not forgot + The busy joy on that important day, + When, childlike, the poor wanderer was content + To leave the bosom of parental love, + His childhood's play-place, and his early home, + For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand, + Hard, uncouth tasks, and schoolboys' scanty fare. + How did thine eyes peruse him round and round + And hardly knew him in his yellow coats, + Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue. + +Page 15, line 13. _I was a poor friendless boy._ Here Lamb speaks as +Coleridge, who came all the way from Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire +(not Calne, in Wiltshire), and had no London friends. In _John +Woodvil_ Lamb borrowed St. Mary Ottery again (see Vol. IV.). Coleridge +has recorded how unhappy he was in his early days at school. + +Page 15, line 12 from foot. _Whole-day-leaves._ In this connection +the following passage from Trollope's _History of Christ's Hospital_, +1834, is interesting:-- + +Those days, on which _leave_ is given to be absent from the Hospital +during the whole day, are called _whole-day leaves_.... A _ticket_ is +a small oval medal attached to the button-hole, without which, except +on leaves, no boy is allowed to pass the gates. Subjoined is a list of +the holidays, which have been hitherto kept at Christ's Hospital; but +it is in contemplation to abridge them materially. Of the policy of +such a measure great doubts may fairly be entertained, inasmuch as the +vacations are so short as to give sufficient respite neither to master +nor scholar; and these occasional breaks, in the arduous duties of the +former more especially, enable him to repair the exhausted energies of +body and mind by necessary relaxation. If those days, which are marked +with an asterisk, fall on a Sunday, they are kept on the Monday +following; and likewise the state holidays. + +HOLIDAYS KEPT AT CHRIST'S HOSPITAL + +Jan. 25. St. Paul's conversion. + *30. King Charles's martyrdom. +Feb. 2. Candlemas Day. + 24. St. Matthias. + Shrove Tuesday. + Ash Wednesday. +March 25. Lady Day. +April 23. St. George. + 25. St. Mark. +May 1. St. Philip and St. James. + *29. Restoration of King + Charles II. + Ascension Day. + Whit Monday. + Whit Tuesday. +June 11. St. Barnabas. + 24. St. John Baptist. + 29. St. Peter. +July 25. St. James. + Thursday after St. + James. (Nurses' Holiday.) +Aug. 24. St. Bartholomew. +Sept. *2. London burnt. + *21. St. Matthew. + 29. St. Michael. +Oct. 18. St. Luke. + *23. King Edward VI. born. + 28. St. Simon and St. Jude. +Nov. 1. All Saints. + *5. Gunpowder Plot. + *9. Lord Mayor's Day. + *17. Queen Elizabeth's birthday. + 30. St. Andrew. +Dec. 21. St. Thomas. + +Also the birthdays of the King and Queen, and the Prince and Princess +of Wales: and the King's accession, proclamation, and coronation. + +In addition to the generous allowance of holidays above given the boys +had every alternate Wednesday for a whole day; eleven days at Easter, +four weeks in the summer, and fifteen days at Christmas. In 1837 the +holiday system was remodelled. Compare Lamb's other remarks on his +whole-day rambles in "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" (Vol. I.) +and in the essays in the present volume entitled "Amicus Redivivus" +and "Newspapers." + +Page 16, line 14. _The Tower_. Blue-coat boys still have this right +of free entrance to the Tower; but the lions are no more. They were +transferred to the Zoological Gardens in 1831. + +Page 16, line 16. _L.'s governor_. Meaning Samuel Salt, M.P.; but it +was actually his friend Mr. Timothy Yeats who signed Lamb's paper. +More accurately, Lamb's father lived under Salt's roof. + +Page 16, line 7 from foot. _H----_. According to Lamb's Key this was +Hodges; but in the British Museum copy of _Elia_, first edition, some +one has written Huggins. It is immaterial. Nevis and St. Kitt's (St. +Christopher's) are islands in the British West Indies. Tobin would +be James Webbe Tobin, of Nevis, who died in 1814, the brother of the +playwright John Tobin, author of "The Honeymoon." + +Page 17, line 2. _A young ass_. The general opinion at Christ's +Hospital is that Lamb invented this incident; and yet it has the air +of being true. + +Page 17, line 18. _L.'s admired Perry_. John Perry, steward from 1761 +to 1785, mentioned in Lamb's earlier essay. + +Page 17, foot. _Gags_. Still current slang. + +Page 17, foot. ----. No name in the Key. The quotation is an +adaptation of:-- + + It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh + Which some did die to look on. + + "Antony and Cleopatra," Act I., Scene 4, lines 67-68. + +It is perhaps worth remarking that in _David Copperfield_ Dickens has +a school incident of a similar character. + +Page 18, line 14 from foot. _Mr. Hathaway_. Matthias Hathaway, steward +from 1790 to 1813. + +Page 19, line 8. _I was a hypochondriac lad_. Here Lamb drops the +Coleridge mask and speaks as himself. + +Page 20, line 15. _Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert_. Bamber +Gascoigne, M.P. (1725-1791), of Bifrons, in Essex. Of Peter Aubert +I can find nothing, except that the assistant secretary of the East +India Company at the time Lamb wrote this essay was Peter Auber, +afterwards full secretary. His name here may be a joke. + +Page 20, line 6 from foot. _Matthew Field_. The Rev. Matthew Feilde, +also vicar of Ugley and curate of Berden. For the Rev. James Boyer see +below. + +Page 21, line 18. _"Peter Wilkins," etc. The Adventures of Peter +Wilkins_, by Robert Paltock, 1751, is still read; but _The Voyages and +Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle_, 1736, has had its day. It was a +blend of unconvincing travel and some rather free narrative: a piece +of sheer hackwork to meet a certain market. See Lamb's sonnet to +Stothard, Vol. IV. _The Fortunate Blue-Coat Boy_ I have not seen. +Canon Ainger describes it as a rather foolish romance, showing how a +Blue-coat boy marries a rich lady of rank. The sub-title is "Memoirs +of the Life and Happy Adventures of Mr. Benjamin Templeman; formerly a +Scholar in Christ's Hospital. By an Orphanotropian," 1770. + +Page 22, footnote. I have not discovered a copy of Matthew Feilde's +play. + +Page 23, line 17 from foot. _Squinting W----_. Not identifiable. + +Page 23, line 7 from foot. _Coleridge, in his literary life_. +Coleridge speaks in the _Biographia Literaria_ of having had the +"inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a +very severe master, the Reverend James Bowyer [Boyer]," and goes on to +attribute to that master's discrimination and thoroughness much of his +own classical knowledge and early interest in poetry and criticism. +Coleridge gives this example of Boyer's impatient humour:-- + + In our own English compositions (at least for the last three years + of our school education), he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, + or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense + might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer + words. _Lute, harp_ and _lyre, Muse, Muses_ and _inspirations, + Pegasus, Parnassus_ and _Hippocrene_, were all an abomination to + him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? + Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, muse? Your nurse's + daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh, aye! the cloister pump, I + suppose!" + +Touching Boyer's cruelty, Coleridge adds that his "severities, even +now, not seldom furnish the dreams by which the blind fancy would fain +interpret to the mind the painful sensations of distempered sleep." + +In _Table Talk_ Coleridge tells another story of Boyer. "The +discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time," he says, "was +ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. 'Boy!' I +remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of +my return after the holidays, 'Boy! the school is your father! Boy! +the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school +is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second +cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more +crying!'" + +Leigh Hunt in his autobiography also has reminiscences of Boyer and +Feilde. + +James Boyer or Bowyer was born in 1736, was admitted to the school in +1744, and passed to Balliol. He resigned his Upper Grammar Mastership +in 1799, and probably retired to the rectory of Gainscolne to which +he had been appointed by the school committee six years earlier. They +also gave him £500 and a staff. + +Page 23, line 6 from foot. _Author of the Country Spectator_. Thomas +Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822), afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who was +at school with Lamb and Coleridge. In the little statuette group which +is called the Coleridge Memorial, subscribed for in 1872, on the +centenary of Coleridge's birth, and held in rotation by the ward in +which most prizes have been gained in the year, Middleton is the +tallest figure. It is reproduced in my large edition. The story which +it celebrates is to the effect that Middleton found Coleridge reading +Virgil in the playground and asked him if he were learning a lesson. +Coleridge replied that he was "reading for pleasure," an answer which +Middleton reported to Boyer, and which led to Boyer taking special +notice of him. The _Country Spectator_ was a magazine conducted by +Middleton in 1792-1793. + +Page 23, line 3 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge again. + +Page 24, line 4. _Lancelot Pepys Stevens_. Rightly spelled Stephens, +afterwards Under Grammar Master at the school. + +Page 24, line 6. _Dr. T----e_. Arthur William Trollope (1768-1827), +who succeeded Boyer as Upper Grammar Master. He resigned in 1826. + +Page 24, line 21. _Th----_. Sir Edward Thornton (1766-1852), +diplomatist, who was sent as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister +Plenipotentiary to Lower Saxony, to Sweden, to Denmark and other +courts, afterwards becoming minister to Portugal. + +Page 24, line 23. _Middleton_. See note above. The treatise was _The +Doctrine of the Greek Article as applied to the Criticism and the +Illustration of the New Testament_, 1808. It was directed chiefly +against Granville Sharpe. Middleton was the first Bishop of Calcutta. + +Page 24, line 8 from foot. _Richards_. This was George Richards +(1767-1837). His poem on "Aboriginal Britons," which won a prize +given in 1791 by Earl Harcourt, is mentioned favourably in Byron's +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Richards became vicar of St. +Martin's-in-the-Fields and a Governor of Christ's Hospital. He founded +a gold medal for Latin hexameters. + +Page 24, foot. _S---- ... M----_. According to the Key "Scott, died in +Bedlam," and "Maunde, dismiss'd school." + +Page 24, foot. "_Finding some of Edward's race._" From Prior's Carmen +Seculare for 1700:-- + + Finding some of Stuart's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Lamb alters Stuart to Edward because Edward VI. founded Christ's +Hospital. + +Page 25, line 12. _C.V. Le G----_. Charles Valentine Le Grice +(1773-1858), whom we meet also in the essay on "Grace Before Meat." +Le Grice, in his description of Lamb as a schoolboy in Talfourd's +_Memorials_, remarked: "I never heard his name mentioned without +the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the +name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there was an implied +kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle manners excited +that kindness." + +Page 25, line 20. _Allen_. Robert Allen, whom we meet again in the +essay on "Newspapers." After a varied and not fortunate career he died +of apoplexy in 1805. + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _The junior Le G----_. Samuel Le Grice +became a soldier and died in the West Indies. Lamb wrote of him to +Coleridge in 1796, after the tragedy at his home, at a time when +friends were badly needed, "Sam Le Grice who was then in town was with +me the first 3 or 4 days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every +hour of his time to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in +constant attendance and humouring my poor father." + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _F----_. Joseph Favell, afterwards Captain, +who had a commission from the Duke of York--as had Sam Le Grice--and +was killed in the Peninsula, at Salamanca, 1812. Lamb states in the +essay on "Poor Relations," where Favell figures as "W.," that he met +his death at St. Sebastian. Both Sam Le Grice and Favell were to have +accompanied Coleridge and Southey to the Susquehanna as Pantisocrats. + +Page 26, line 1. _Fr----_. Frederick William Franklin, master of the +Hertford branch of the school from 1801 to 1827. He died in 1836. + +Page 26, line 2. _Marmaduke T----_. Marmaduke Thompson, to whom Lamb +dedicated _Rosamund Gray_ in 1798. + +Page 26, line 3. _Catalogue of Grecians_. Lamb was at Christ's +Hospital from 1782 to 1789, and his list is not quite complete. +He himself never was a Grecian; that is to say, one of the picked +scholars on the grammar side of the school, two of whom were sent +up to Cambridge with a hospital exhibition every year, on the +understanding that they should take orders. Lamb was one of the +Deputy-Grecians from whom the Grecians were chosen, but his stammer +standing in his way and a Church career being out of the question, he +never became a full Grecian. Writing to George Dyer, who had been a +Grecian, in 1831, Lamb says: "I don't know how it is, but I keep my +rank in fancy still since school days. I can never forget I was a +deputy Grecian!... Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk, or +India pensioner, to a deputy Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!" + +Lamb's memory is preserved at Christ's Hospital by a medal which is +given for the best English essays. It was first struck in 1875, the +centenary of his birth. + + * * * * * + +Page 26. THE TWO RACES OF MEN. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1820. + +Writing to Wordsworth in April of 1816, Lamb says:--"I have not bound +the poems yet. I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think +I shall get a chain and chain them to my shelves, _more Bodleiano_, +and people may come and read them at chain's length. For of those who +borrow, some read slow; some mean to read but don't read; and some +neither read nor meant to read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of +their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends the justice to +say that there is nothing of this caprice or wantonness of alienation +in them. When they borrow my money they never fail to make use of it." + +Probably the germ of the essay is to be found in this passage, as Lamb +never forgot his thoughts. + +Page 26, line 17 of essay. _Brinsley_. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the +dramatist and a great spendthrift. He died in 1816. Lamb knew him +slightly. + +Page 26, line 9 from foot. _Beyond Tooke_. That is, beyond the +philological theories of _The Diversions of Purley_ by John Home Tooke +(1736-1812). + +Page 27, line 22. _Ralph Bigod_. John Fenwick, an unlucky friend of +the Lambs, an anticipatory Micawber, of whom we know too little, +and seem likely to find out little more. Lamb mentions him again in +the essay on "Chimney Sweepers," and in that on "Newspapers," in +his capacity as editor of _The Albion_, for which Lamb wrote its +extinguishing epigram in the summer of 1801. There are references to +the Fenwicks in Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart and in Lamb's +letters; but nothing very informing. After financial embarrassments in +England they emigrated to America. + +Page 29, line 12. _Comberbatch_. Coleridge, who had enlisted as a +young man in the 15th Light Dragoons as Silas Titus Comberback. + +Page 29, line 16. _Bloomsbury_. Lamb was then in rooms at 20 Great +Russell Street (now Russell Street), Covent Garden, which is not in +Bloomsbury. + +Page 29, line 27. _Should he go on acting_. The _Letters_ contain +references to this habit of Coleridge's. Writing to him in 1809 Lamb +says, referring among other loans to the volume of Dodsley with +Vittoria Corombona ("The White Devil," by John Webster) in it:--"While +I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books which you had at the +_Courier_ Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, +containing the 'White Devil, 'Green's 'Tu Quoque,' and the 'Honest +Whore,' perhaps the most valuable volume of them all--_that_ I could +not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where +you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word, for, to use +the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had +three), the _Arcadia_ and _Daniel_, enriched with manuscript notes. I +wish every book I have were so noted. They have thoroughly converted +me to relish _Daniel_, or to say I relish him, for after all, I +believe I did relish him." + +And several years later (probably in 1820) we find him addressing +Coleridge with reference to Luther's _Table Talk:_--"Why will you make +your visits, which should give pleasure, matter of regret to your +friends? You never come but you take away some folio, that is part of +my existence. With a great deal of difficulty I was made to comprehend +the extent of my loss. My maid, Becky, brought me a dirty bit of +paper, which contained her description of some book which Mr. +Coleridge had taken away. It was _Luster's Tables_, which, for some +time, I could not make out. 'What! has he carried away any of the +_tables_, Becky?' 'No, it wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he +called _Luster's Tables_.' I was obliged to search personally among my +shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the true nature +of the damage I had sustained." + +Allsop tells us that Lamb once said of Coleridge: "He sets his mark +upon whatever he reads; it is henceforth sacred. His spirit seems to +have breathed upon it; and, if not for its author, yet for his sake, +we admire it." + +Page 30, line 1. _John Buncle_. Most of Lamb's books are in America; +Lamb's copy of _John Buncle_, with an introductory note written in by +Coleridge, was sold, with other books from his library, in New York +in 1848. _The Life of John Buncle, Esq_., a book highly praised by +Hazlitt, was by Thomas Amory (1691?-1788), published, Part I. in 1756 +and Part II. in 1766. A condensed reprint was issued in 1823 entitled +_The Spirit of Buncle_, in which, Mr. W.C. Hazlitt suggests, Lamb may +have had a hand with William Hazlitt. + +Page 30, line 19. _Spiteful K._ James Kenney (1780-1849), the +dramatist, then resident at Versailles, where Lamb and his sister +visited him in 1822. He married Louisa Mercier, daughter of Louis +Sebastian Mercier, the French critic, and widow of Lamb's earlier +friend, Thomas Holcroft. One of their two sons was named Charles Lamb +Kenney (1821-1881). Lamb recovered Margaret of Newcastle's _Letters_ +(folio, 1664), which is among the books in America, as is also the +Fulke Greville (small folio, 1633). + +Page 31, line 4. _S.T.C.... annotations_. Lamb's copy of Daniel's +_Poetical Works_, two volumes, 1718, and of Browne's _Enquiries +into Vulgar and Common Errors_, folio, 1658, both with marginalia +by himself and Coleridge, are in existence, but I cannot say where: +probably in America. Lamb's copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, with +Coleridge's notes (see "Old China"), is, however, safe in the British +Museum. His Fulke Greville, as I have said, is in America, but I +fancy it has nothing of Coleridge in it, nor has his Burton--quarto, +1621--which still exists. + +Coleridge's notes in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio are not numerous, +but usually ample and seriously critical. At the foot of a page of the +"Siege of Corinth," on which he had written two notes (one, "O flat! +flat! flat! Sole! Flounder! Place! all stinking! stinkingly flat!"), +he added:-- + + _N.B._--I shall not be long here, Charles!--I gone, you will not + mind my having spoiled a book in order to leave a Relic. + + S.T.C. + + Octr. 1811. + +Underneath the initials S.T.C. are the initials W.W. which suggest +that Wordsworth was present. + +The Museum also has Lamb's Milton, with annotations by himself and +Coleridge. + +In the _Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Charles Lamb_, +privately issued by the New York Dibdin Club in 1897, is a list +of five of Lamb's books now in America containing valuable and +unpublished marginalia by Coleridge: _The Life of John Buncle_, +Donne's _Poems_ ("I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you +will not be vexed that I have scribbled your book. S.T.C., 2d May, +1811"), Reynolds' _God's Revenge against ... Murder_, 1651 ("O what +a beautiful _concordia discordantium_ is an unthinking good man's +soul!"), _The History of Philip de Commines_ in English, and Petwin's +_Letters Concerning the Mind_. + + * * * * * + +Page 31. NEW YEAR'S EVE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1821. + +The melancholy pessimism of this essay led to some remonstrance from +robuster readers of the _London Magazine_. In addition to the letter +from "A Father" referred to below, the essay produced, seven months +later, in the August number of the _London Magazine_, a long poetical +"Epistle to Elia," signed "Olen," in which very simply and touchingly +Lamb was reminded that the grave is not the end, was asked to consider +the promises of the Christian faith, and finally was offered a glimpse +of some of the friends he would meet in heaven--among them Ulysses, +Shakespeare and Alice W----n. Taylor, the publisher and editor of the +magazine, sent Lamb a copy. He replied, acknowledging the kindness of +the author, and adding:--"Poor Elia ... does not pretend to so very +clear revelations of a future state of being as 'Olen' seems gifted +with. He stumbles about dark mountains at best; but he knows at least +how to be thankful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for +certain relationships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible +resumption of the gift. He is too apt to express himself lightly, and +cannot be sorry for the present occasion, as it has called forth a +reproof so Christian-like." + +Lamb thought the poet to be James Montgomery, but it was in reality +Charles Abraham Elton. The poem was reprinted in a volume entitled +_Boyhood and other Poems_, in 1835. + +It is conceivable that Lamb was reasoned with privately upon the +sentiments expressed in this essay; and perhaps we may take the +following sonnet which he contributed over his own name to, the +_London Magazine_ for April, 1821, as a kind of defiant postscript +thereto, a further challenge to those who reproached him for his +remarks concerning death, and who suggested that he did not really +mean them:-- + + They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, + That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, + Which only works and business can redress: + Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, + Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. + But might I, fed with silent meditation, + Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-- + _Improbus labor_, which my spirits hath broke-- + I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit-- + Fling in more days than went to make the gem + That crowned the white top of Methusalem-- + Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, + Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, + The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity. + +It was also probably the present essay which led to Lamb's difference +with Southey and the famous letter of remonstrance. Southey accused +_Elia_ of wanting "a sounder religious feeling," and Lamb suggests in +his reply that "New Year's Eve" was the chief offender. See Vol. I. +for Lamb's amplification of one of its passages. + +It may be interesting here to quote Coleridge's description of Lamb +as "one hovering between heaven and earth, neither hoping much nor +fearing anything." + +Page 31, line 10 from foot. _Bells_. The music of bells seems always +to have exerted fascination over Lamb. See the reference in the story +of the "First Going to Church," in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, Vol. +III.; in his poem "Sabbath Bells," Vol. IV.; and his "John Woodvil," +Vol. IV. + +Page 31, foot. "_I saw the skirts of the departing Year_." From +Coleridge's "Ode to the Departing Year," as printed in 1796 and +1797. Lamb was greatly taken by this line. He wrote to Coleridge on +January 2, 1797, in a letter of which only a small portion has been +printed:--"The opening [of the Ode] is in the spirit of the sublimest +allegory. The idea of the 'skirts of the departing year, seen far +onwards, waving in the wind,' is one of those noble Hints at which +the Reader's imagination is apt to kindle into grand conceptions." +Afterwards Coleridge altered "skirts" to "train." + +Page 32, line 21. _Seven.... years_. See note to "Dream-Children." +Alice W--n is identified with Ann Simmons, who lived near Blakesware +when Lamb was a youth, and of whom he wrote his love sonnets. +According to the Key the name is "feigned." + +Page 32, line 25. _Old Dorrell_. See the poem "Going or Gone," +Vol. IV. There seems really to have been such an enemy of the Lamb +fortunes. He was one of the witnesses to the will of John Lamb, the +father--William Dorrell. + +Page 33, line 5. _Small-pox at five_. There is no other evidence than +this casual mention that Lamb ever suffered from this complaint. +Possibly he did not. He went to Christ's Hospital at the age of seven. + +Page 33, line 13. _From what have I not fallen_. Lamb had had this +idea many years before. In 1796 he wrote this sonnet (text of 1818):-- + + We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, + The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, + And Innocence her name. The time has been + We two did love each other's company; + Time was, we two had wept to have been apart: + But when by show of seeming good beguil'd, + I left the garb and manners of a child, + And my first love for man's society, + Defiling with the world my virgin heart-- + My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled, + And hid in deepest shades her awful head. + Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-- + In what delicious Eden to be found-- + That I may seek thee the wide world around? + +Page 33, line 27. _Phantom cloud of Elia_. The speculations in the +paragraph that ends with these words were fantastical at any rate to +one reader, who, under the signature "A Father," contributed to the +March number of the _London Magazine_ a eulogy of paternity, in which +Elia was reasoned with and rebuked. "Ah! Elia! hadst thou possessed +'offspring of thine own to dally with,' thou wouldst never have made +the melancholy avowal that thou hast 'almost ceased to hope!'" Lamb +did not reply. + +Page 33, line 7 from foot. _Not childhood alone ..._ The passage +between these words and "freezing days of December" was taken by +Charles Lloyd, Lamb's early friend, as the motto of a poem, in his +_Poems_, 1823, entitled "Stanzas on the Difficulty with which, in +Youth, we Bring Home to our Habitual Consciousness the Idea of Death." + +Page 34, line 15 from foot. _Midnight darlings_. Leigh Hunt +records, in his essay "My Books," that he once saw Lamb kiss an old +folio--Chapman's _Homer_. + +Page 34, line 8 from foot. "_Sweet assurance of a look_." A favourite +quotation of Lamb's (here adapted) from Matthew Roydon's elegy on Sir +Philip Sidney:-- + + A sweet attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks. + +A portion of the poem is quoted in the Elia essay on "Some Sonnets of +Sir Philip Sidney." + + * * * * * + +Page 37. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. + +_London Magazine_, February, 1821. + +Mrs. Battle was probably, in real life, to a large extent Sarah +Burney, the wife of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's friend, and the +centre of the whist-playing set to which he belonged. The theory that +Lamb's grandmother, Mrs. Field, was the original Mrs. Battle, does +not, I think, commend itself, although that lady may have lent a trait +or two. It has possibly arisen from the relation of the passage in the +essay on Blakesware, where Mrs. Battle is said to have died in the +haunted room, to that in "Dream-Children," where Lamb says that Mrs. +Field occupied this room. + +The fact that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were both Sarahs is a small +piece of evidence towards their fusion, but there is something more +conclusive in the correspondence. Writing in March, 1830, concerning +the old whist days, to William Ayrton, one of the old whist-playing +company, and the neighbour of the Burneys in Little James Street, +Pimlico, Lamb makes use of an elision which, I think, may be taken as +more than support of the theory that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were +largely the same--practically proof. "Your letter, which was only +not so pleasant as your appearance would have been, has revived some +old images; Phillips (not the Colonel), with his few hairs bristling +up at the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible; the old +Captain's significant nod over the right shoulder (was it not?); +Mrs. B----'s determined questioning of the score, after the game was +absolutely gone to the d----l." Lamb, I think, would have written out +Mrs. Burney in full had he not wished to suggest Mrs. Battle too. + +This conjecture is borne out by the testimony of the late Mrs. +Lefroy, in her youth a friend of the Burneys and the Lambs, who +told Canon Ainger that though Mrs. Battle had many differing points +she was undoubtedly Mrs. Burney. But of course there are the usual +cross-trails--the reference to the pictures at Sandham; to Walter +Plumer; to the legacy to Lamb; and so forth. Perhaps among the +Blakesware portraits was one which Lamb chose as Mrs. Battle's +presentment; perhaps Mrs. Field had told him of an ancient dame who +had certain of Mrs. Battle's characteristics, and he superimposed Mrs. +Burney upon this foundation. + +For further particulars concerning the Burney whist parties see the +notes to the "Letter to Southey," Vol. I. + +Admiral Burney (1750-1821), a son of Dr. Burney, the historian of +music, and friend of Johnson and Reynolds, was the brother of Fanny +Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay. See also "The Wedding," page 275 +of this volume, for another glimpse of Lamb's old friend. Admiral +Burney wrote _An Essay on the Game of Whist_, which was published in +1821. As he lived until November, 1821, he probably read the present +essay. Writing to Wordsworth, March 20, 1822, Lamb says: "There's +Capt. Burney gone!--what fun has whist now; what matters it what you +lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking over you?" + +Page 37, line 1 of essay. "_A clean hearth_." To this, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put the footnote:-- + +"This was before the introduction of rugs, reader. You must remember +the intolerable crash of the unswept cinder, betwixt your foot and the +marble." + +Page 37, line 8 of essay. _Win one game, and lose another_. To this, +in the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the note:-- + + "As if a sportsman should tell you he liked to kill a fox one day, + and lose him the next." + +Page 38, line 26. _Mr. Bowles_. The Rev. William Lisle Bowles +(1762-1850), whose sonnets had so influenced Coleridge's early +poetical career. His edition of Pope was published in 1806. I have +tried in vain to discover if Mr. Bowles' MS. and notes for this +edition are still in existence. If so, they might contain Lamb's +contribution. But it is rather more likely, I fear, that Lamb invented +the story. The game of ombre is in Canto III. of _The Rape of the +Lock_. + +The only writing on cards which we know Lamb to have done, apart from +this essay, is the elementary rules of whist which he made out for +Mrs. Badams quite late in his life as a kind of introduction to the +reading of Admiral Burney's treatise. This letter is in America and +has never been printed except privately; nor, if its owner can help +it, will it. + +Page 40, line 26. _Old Walter Plumer_. See the essay on "The South-Sea +House." + +Page 42, line 18 from foot. _Bad passions_. Here came in the _London +Magazine_, in parenthesis, "(dropping for a while the speaking mask of +old Sarah Battle)." + +Page 43, line 2. _Bridget Elia_. This is Lamb's first reference in +the essays to Mary Lamb under this name. See "Mackery End" and "Old +China." + +A little essay on card playing in the _Every-Day Book_, the authorship +of which is unknown, but which may be Hone's, ends with the following +pleasant passage:-- + + Cousin Bridget and the gentle Elia seem beings of that age wherein + lived Pamela, whom, with "old Sarah Battle," we may imagine + entering their room, and sitting down with them to a _square_ + game. Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times: she, full of + kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;--he, no less + kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse + with the world, and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu + and De Foe would admire, and portraits that Deuner and Hogarth + would rise from their graves to paint. + + * * * * * + +Page 43. A CHAPTER ON EARS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1821. + +Lamb was not so utterly without ear as he states. Crabb Robinson in +his diary records more than once that Lamb hummed tunes, and Barron +Field, in the memoir of Lamb contributed by him to the _Annual +Biography and Obituary_ for 1836, mentions his love for certain +beautiful airs, among them Kent's "O that I had wings like a dove" +(mentioned in this essay), and Handel's "From mighty kings." Lamb says +that it was Braham who awakened a love of music in him. Compare Lamb's +lines to Clara Novello, Vol. IV., page 101, and also Mary Lamb's +postscript to his "Free Thoughts on Eminent Composers," same volume. + +Page 43, foot. _I was never ... in the pillory_. This sentence led +to an amusing article in the _London Magazine_ for the next month, +April, 1821, entitled "The Confessions of H.F.V.H. Delamore, Esq.," +unmistakably, I think, by Lamb, which will be found in Vol. I. of this +edition, wherein Lamb confesses to a brief sojourn in the stocks at +Barnet for brawling on Sunday, an incident for the broad truth of +which we have the testimony of his friend Brook Pulham. + +Page 44, lines 6 and 7. "_Water parted from the sea_," "_In Infancy_." +Songs by Arne in "Artaxerxes," Lamb's "First Play" (see page 113). + +Page 44, line 11. _Mrs. S----_. The Key gives "Mrs. Spinkes." We meet +a Will Weatherall in "Distant Correspondents," page 120; but I have +not been able to discover more concerning either. + +Page 44, line 17. _Alice W----n_. See note to "Dream Children." + +Page 44, line 26. _My friend A._ Probably William Ayrton (1777-1818), +the musical critic, one of the Burneys' whist-playing set, and a +friend and correspondent of Lamb's. See the musical rhyming letter to +him from Lamb, May 17, 1817. + +Page 47, line 5. _My friend, Nov----_. Vincent Novello (1781-1861), +the organist, the father of Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and a great friend of +Lamb. + +Page 47, footnote. Another friend of Vincent Novello's uses the same +couplet (from Watt's _Divine Songs for Children_, Song XXVIII., +"For the Lord's Day, Evening") in the description of glees by the +old cricketers at the Bat and Ball on Broad Halfpenny Down, near +Hambledon--I refer to John Nyren, author of _The Young Cricketer's +Tutor_, 1833. There is no evidence that Lamb and Nyren ever met, but +one feels that they ought to have done so, in Novello's hospitable +rooms. + +Page 48, line 3. _Lutheran beer_. Edmund Ollier, the son of Charles +Ollier, the publisher of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, in his reminiscences of +Lamb, prefixed to one edition of _Elia_, tells this story: "Once at a +musical party at Leigh Hunt's, being oppressed with what to him was +nothing but a prolonged noise ... he said--'If one only had a pot of +porter, one might get through this.' It was procured for him and he +weathered the Mozartian storm." + +In the _London Magazine_ this essay had the following postscript:-- + + "P.S.--A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who + has been entertaining the town for the last twelve months, with + some very pleasant lucubrations, under the assumed signature of + _Leigh Hunt_[1], in his Indicator, of the 31st January last, has + thought fit to insinuate, that I _Elia_ do not write the little + sketches which bear my signature, in this Magazine; but that the + true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe the critical period + at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on the very + eve of the publication of our last number--affording no scope + for explanation for a full month--during which time, I must + needs lie writhing and tossing, under the cruel imputation of + nonentity.--Good heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed + _to be_-- + + "They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of + anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. + + "Take away my moral reputation: I may live to discredit that + calumny. + + "Injure my literary fame,--I may write that up again-- + + "But when a gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he? + + "Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing + trifle at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very + essence; who not only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have + been_ at all. Let our ancestors look to it-- + + "Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes-street, + Cavendish-square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years + ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we + flourished four centuries back, before the barbarous name of + Boldero[2] was known to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly + scion of our name, transplanted into England, in the reign of the + seventh Henry, nothing? Are the archives of the steel yard, in + succeeding reigns (if haply they survive the fury of our envious + enemies) showing that we flourished in prime repute, as merchants, + down to the period of the commonwealth, nothing? + + "Why then the world, and all that's in't is nothing-- + The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia is nothing.-- + + "I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move + me so." + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Indicator_, January 31 and February 7, 1821, had +reprinted from _The Examiner_ a review of Lamb's _Works_, with a few +prefatory remarks in which it was stated: "We believe we are taking no +greater liberty with him [Charles Lamb] than our motives will warrant, +when we add that he sometimes writes in the _London Magazine_ under +the signature of Elia." + +In _The Indicator_ of March 7, 1821, Leigh Hunt replied to Elia. Leigh +Hunt was no match for Lamb in this kind of raillery, and the first +portion of the reply is rather cumbersome. At the end, however, he +says: "There _was_, by the bye, a family of the name of Elia who came +from Italy,--Jews; which may account for this boast about Genoa. See +also in his last article in the London Magazine [the essay on "Ears"] +some remarkable fancies of conscience in reference to the Papal +religion. They further corroborate what we have heard; _viz._ that the +family were obliged to fly from Genoa for saying that the Pope was +the author of Rabelais; and that Elia is not an anagram, as some have +thought it, but the Judaico-Christian name of the writer before us, +whose surname, we find, is not Lamb, but Lomb;--Elia Lomb! What a +name! He told a friend of ours so in company, and would have palmed +himself upon him for a Scotchman, but that his countenance betrayed +him." + +It is amusing to note that Maginn, writing the text to accompany the +Maclise portrait of Lamb in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1835, gravely +states that Lamb's name was really Lomb, and that he was of Jewish +extraction. + +The subject of Lamb's birth reopened a little while later. In +the "Lion's Head," which was the title of the pages given to +correspondence in the _London Magazine_, in the number for November, +1821, was the following short article from Lamb's pen:-- + + "ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS.--A Correspondent, who writes himself + Peter Ball, or Bell,--for his hand-writing is as ragged as his + manners--admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under + a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had + need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' + I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamours + upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems that + in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had + called my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on + Ears,') I profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish + Square, deducing my remoter origin from Italy. But who does not + see, except this tinkling cymbal, that in that idle fiction + of Genoese ancestry I was answering a fool according to his + folly--that Elia there expresseth himself ironically, as to an + approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and can be + no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to his + delusions; or, leading him from error still to contradictory + error, to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give + him line till he suspend himself. No understanding reader could + be imposed upon by such obvious rhodomontade to suspect me + for an alien, or believe me other than English.--To a second + Correspondent, who signs himself 'a Wiltshire man,' and claims me + for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in my + 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over + the Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely + detects a more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to + strike upon. Referring to the passage (in page 484 of our second + volume[3]), I must confess, that the term 'native town,' applied + to Calne, _primâ facie_ seems to bear out the construction which + my friendly Correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context + too, I am afraid, a little favours it. But where the words of + an author, taken literally, compared with some other passage + in his writings, admitted to be authentic, involve a palpable + contradiction, it hath been the custom of the ingenuous + commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition, that + in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly + intended. So by the word 'native,' I may be supposed to mean a + town where I might have been born; or where it might be desirable + that I should have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, + upon a dry chalky soil, in which I delight; or a town, with the + inhabitants of which I passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, + so agreeably, that they and it became in a manner native to me. + Without some such latitude of interpretation in the present case, + I see not how we can avoid falling into a gross error in physics, + as to conceive that a gentleman may be born in two places, from + which all modern and ancient testimony is alike abhorrent. Bacchus + cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to have honoured + with the epithet 'Twice born.'[4] But not to mention that he is so + called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather + than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth + he may probably be challenged for a Theban--in a strict way of + speaking, he was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense + as he had been before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but + a secondary and tralatitious way of being born, and he but a + denizen of the second house of his geniture. Thus much by way of + explanation was thought due to the courteous 'Wiltshire man.'--To + 'Indagator,' 'Investigator,' 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, + that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth--as + if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his + parish--to all such churchwarden critics he answereth, that, any + explanation here given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his + nativity (like a rusty vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he + seeth occasion, or the argument shall demand it, he will be born + again, in future papers, in whatever place, and at whatever + period, shall seem good unto him. + + "Modò me Thebis--modò Athenis. + + "ELIA." + +[Footnote 1: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."] + +[Footnote 2: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."] + +[Footnote 3: See page 15 of this volume.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo + Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum est) + Insuitur femori-- + Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi. + + "_Metamorph._ lib. iii., 310."] + + * * * * * + +Page 48. ALL FOOLS' DAY. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Page 49, line 1. _Empedocles_. Lamb appended this footnote in the +_London Magazine_:-- + + He who, to be deem'd + A god, leap'd fondly into Etna's flames. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 470-471 [should be 469-470]. + +Page 49, line 5. _Cleombrotus_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ footnote:-- + + He who, to enjoy + Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the sea. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 471-472. + +Page 49, line 8. _Plasterers at Babel_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ +note:-- + + The builders next of Babel on the plain + Of Sennaar. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 466-467. + +Page 49, line 10. _My right hand_. Lamb, it is probably unnecessary to +remind the reader, stammered too. + +Page 49, line 13 from foot. _Duns_, Duns Scotus (1265?-1308?), +metaphysician, author of _De modis significandi sive Grammatica +Speculativa_ and other philosophic works. Known as Doctor Subtilis. +There was nothing of Duns in the _London Magazine_; the sentence ran: +"Mr. Hazlitt, I cannot indulge you in your definitions." This was at a +time when Lamb and Hazlitt were not on good terms. + +Page 49, last line. _Honest R----_. Lamb's Key gives "Ramsay, London +Library, Ludgate Street; now extinct." I have tried in vain to find +out more about Ramsay. The London Library was established at 5 Ludgate +Street in 1785. Later, the books were lodged at Charles Taylor's house +in Hatton Garden, and were finally removed to the present London +Institute in Finsbury Circus. + +Page 50, line 6. _Good Granville S----_. Lamb's Key gives Granville +Sharp. This was the eccentric Granville Sharp, the Quaker abolitionist +(1735-1813). + + * * * * * + +Page 51. A QUAKER'S MEETING. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with Quakers was somewhat intimate throughout +his life. In early days he was friendly with the Birmingham +Lloyds--Charles, Robert and Priscilla, of the younger generation, +and their father, Charles Lloyd, the banker and translator of Horace +and Homer (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, 1898); and later with +Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet of Woodbridge. Also he had loved from +afar Hester Savory, the subject of his poem "Hester" (see Vol. IV.). A +passage from a letter written in February, 1797, to Coleridge, bears +upon this essay:--"Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning Quaker, +and have been reading, or am rather just beginning to read, a most +capital book, good thoughts in good language, William Penn's 'No +Cross, No Crown,' I like it immensely. Unluckily I went to one of his +meetings, tell him, in St. John Street [Clerkenwell] yesterday, and +saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some 'inevitable presence.' +This cured me of Quakerism; I love it in the books of Penn and +Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the +Spirit...." + +Both Forster and Hood tell us that Lamb in outward appearance +resembled a Quaker. + +Page 52, line 13. _The uncommunicating muteness of fishes_. Lamb had +in mind this thought on the silence of fishes when he was at work on +_John Woodvil_. Simon remarks, in the exquisite passage (Vol. IV.) in +reply to the question, "What is it you love?" + + The fish in th' other element + That knows no touch of eloquence. + +Page 53, second quotation. "_How reverend ..._" An adaptation of +Congreve's description of York Minster in "The Mourning Bride" (Mary +Lamb's "first play"), Act I., Scene 1:-- + + How reverend is the face of this tall pile ... + Looking tranquillity! + +Page 53, middle. _Fox and Dewesbury_. George Fox (1624-1691) founded +the Society of Friends. William Dewesbury was one of Fox's first +colleagues, and a famous preacher. William Penn (1644-1718), the +founder of Pennsylvania, was the most illustrious of the early +converts to Quakerism. Lamb refers to him again, before his judges, in +the essay on "Imperfect Sympathies," page 73. George Fox's _Journal_ +was lent to Lamb by a friend of Bernard Barton's in 1823. On returning +it, Lamb remarked (February 17, 1823):--"I have quoted G.F. in my +'Quaker's Meeting' as having said he was 'lifted up in spirit' (which +I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase),' and the Judge and Jury +were as dead men under his feet.' I find no such words in his Journal, +and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure +I did not mean to invent. I must have put some other Quaker's words +into his mouth." + +Sewel was a Dutchman--William Sewel (1654-1720). His title runs: +_History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the Christian People +called Quakers, written originally in Low Dutch by W. Sewel, and by +himself translated into English_, 1722. James Naylor (1617-1660) was +one of the early Quaker martyrs--"my favourite" Lamb calls him in a +letter. John Woolman (1720-1772) was an American Friend. His principal +writings are to be found in _A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, +and Christian Experiences of that faithful minister of Jesus Christ, +John Woolman, late of Mount Holly in the Province of Jersey, North +America_, 1795. Modern editions are obtainable. + + * * * * * + +Page 56. THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1821. + +Page 56, line 9. _Ortelius ... Arrowsmith_. Abraham Ortellius +(1527-1598), the Dutch geographer and the author of _Theatrum +Orbis Terræ_, 1570. Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) was a well-known +cartographer at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lamb would +perhaps have known something of his _Atlas of Southern India_, a very +useful work at the East India House. + +Page 56, line 13. _A very dear friend_. Barren Field (see the essay on +"Distant Correspondents"). + +Page 56, line 10 from foot. _My friend M_. Thomas Manning (1772-1840), +the mathematician and traveller, and Lamb's correspondent. + +Page 56, last line. "_On Devon's leafy shores_." From Wordsworth's +_Excursion_, III. + +Page 57, line 16. _Daily jaunts_. Though Lamb was then (1821) living +at 20 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, he rented rooms at 14 +Kingsland Row, Dalston, in which to take holidays and do his literary +work undisturbed. At that time Dalston, which adjoins Shackleton, was +the country and Kingsland Green an open space opposite Lamb's lodging. + +Page 58, line 23. _The North Pole Expedition_. This would probably +be Sir John Franklin's expedition which set out in 1819 and ended in +disaster, the subject of Franklin's book, _Narrative of a Journey to +the Shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, 22_ (1823). Sir +John Ross made an expedition in 1818, and Sir William Edward Parry in +1819, and again in 1821-1823 with Lyon. The panorama was possibly +at Burford's Panorama in the Strand, afterwards moved to Leicester +Square. + +Page 60, line 17. _Tractate on Education_. Milton's _Tractate on +Education_, addressed to his friend, Samuel Hartlib, was published in +1644. The quotation above is from that work. This paragraph of Lamb's +essay was afterwards humorously expanded in his "Letter to an Old +Gentleman whose Education has been Neglected" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 60, last line. _Mr. Bartley's Orrery._ George Bartley +(1782?-1858), the comedian, lectured on astronomy and poetry at the +Lyceum during Lent at this time. An orrery is a working model of the +solar system. The Panopticon was, I assume, a forerunner of the famous +Panopticon in Leicester Square. + +Page 61, line 8. "_Plaything for an hour_." A quotation, from Charles +and Mary Lamb's _Poetry for Children_--"Parental Recollections":-- + + A child's a plaything for an hour. + +Page 63, end of essay. "_Can I reproach her for it_." After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + + "These kind of complaints are not often drawn from me. I am aware + that I am a fortunate, I mean a prosperous man. My feelings + prevent me from transcribing any further." + + * * * * * + +Page 63. VALENTINE'S DAY. + +This essay first appeared in _The Examiner_, February 14 and 15, 1819, +and again in _The Indicator_, February 14, 1821. Signed *** + +Page 64, line 18. _Twopenny postman._ Hone computed, in his _Every-Day +Book_, Vol. I., 1825, that "two hundred thousand letters beyond the +usual daily average annually pass through the two-penny post-office in +London on Valentine's Day." The Bishop's vogue is now (1911) almost +over. + +Page 65, line 15 from foot. E.B. Lamb's Key gives "Edward Burney, half +brother of Miss Burney." This was Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848), +who illustrated many old authors, among them Richardson. + + * * * * * + +Page 66. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1821, where the title ran: "Jews, Quakers, +Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies." + +Page 69, line 18 from foot. _A print ... after Leonardo._ The Virgin +of the Rocks. See Vol. IV. for Lamb's and his sister's verses on this +picture. Crabb Robinson's MS. diary tells us that the Scotchman was +one Smith, a friend of Godwin. His exact reply to Lamb's remark about +"my beauty" was: "Why, sir, from all I have heard of you, as well +as from what I have myself seen, I certainly entertain a very high +opinion of your abilities, but I confess that I have not formed any +opinion concerning your personal pretensions." + +Page 70, line 10. _The poetry of Burns._ "Burns was the god of my +idolatry," Lamb wrote to Coleridge in 1796. Coleridge's lines on +Burns, "To a Friend who had declared his intention of writing no more +poetry," were addressed to Lamb. Barry Cornwall records seeing Lamb +kiss his copy of the poet. + +Page 70, line 17. _You can admire him_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added:-- + + "I have a great mind to give up Burns. There is certainly + a bragging spirit of generosity, a swaggering assertion of + independence, and _all that_, in his writings." + +Page 70, line 18. _Smollett_. Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), the +novelist, came of a Dumbartonshire family. Rory was Roderick Random's +schoolboy name. His companion was Strap. See _Roderick Random_, +Chapter XIII., for the passage in question. Smollett continued the +_History of England_ of David Hume (1711-1776), also a Scotchman, and +one of the authors whom Lamb could not read (see "Detached Thoughts on +Books and Reading," page 196). + +Lamb's criticism of Scotchmen did not pass without comment. The +pleasantest remark made upon it was that of Christopher North +(John Wilson) some dozen years later (after he had met Lamb), in a +_Blackwood_ paper entitled "Twaddle on Tweedside" (May, 1833), wherein +he wrote:-- + + Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant + way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield; for Scotland + loves Charles Lamb; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, + and conceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than + Christopher North. But what will not Christopher forgive to Genius + and Goodness? Even Lamb bleating libels on his native land. Nay, + he learns lessons of humanity, even from the mild malice of Elia, + and breathes a blessing on him and his household in their Bower of + Rest. + +Coleridge was much pleased by this little reference to his friend. He +described it as "very sweet indeed" (see his _Table Talk_, May 14, +1833). + +Page 70, line 14 from foot. _Hugh of Lincoln_. Hugh was a small +Lincoln boy who, tradition states, was tortured to death by the Jews. +His dead body being touched by a blind woman, she received sight. + +Many years earlier Lamb had spoken of the Jew in English society with +equal frankness (see his note to the "Jew of Malta" in the _Dramatic +Specimens_). + +Page 71, line 18. _B----_. John Braham, _née_ Abraham (1774?-1856), +the great tenor. Writing to Manning in 1808, Lamb says:--"Do you like +Braham's singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like +as the boys followed Tom the Piper. He cures me of melancholy as +David cured Saul.... I was insensible to music till he gave me a new +sense.... Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. +Siddons's or Mr. Kemble's acting! and when it is not impassioned it is +as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little +Jew!" + +Two years later Lamb tells Manning of Braham's absence from London, +adding: "He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the +angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could +not tell which preponderated." In this essay Lamb refers to Braham's +singing in Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt." Concerning Braham's +abandonment of the Jewish faith see Lamb's sarcastic essay "The +Religion of Actors," Vol. I., page 338. + +Page 73, line 17 from foot. _I was travelling_. Lamb did not really +take part in this story. It was told him by Sir Anthony Carlisle +(1768-1840), the surgeon, as he confessed to his Quaker friend, +Bernard Barton (March 11, 1823), who seemed to miss its point. Lamb +described Carlisle as "the best story-teller I ever heard." + + * * * * * + +Page 74. WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1821. + +Compare with this essay Maria Howe's story of "The Witch Aunt," in +_Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.), which Lamb had written +thirteen years earlier. + +Page 75, line 12 from foot. _History of the Bible, by Stackhouse_. +Thomas Stackhouse (1677-1752) was rector of Boldon, in Durham; his +_New History of the Holy Bible from the Beginning of the World to the +Establishment of Christianity_--the work in question--was published in +1737. + +Page 75, line 6 from foot. _The Witch raising up Samuel_. This +paragraph was the third place in which Lamb recorded his terror of +this picture of the Witch of Endor in Stackhouse's _Bible_, but the +first occasion in which he took it to himself. In one draft of _John +Woodvil_ (see Vol. IV.), the hero says:-- + + I can remember when a child the maids + Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me, + As silly women use, and tell me stories + Of Witches--make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft," + And in conclusion show me in the Bible, + The old Family Bible, with the pictures in it, + The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel, + Which so possest my fancy, being a child, + That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came + And sat upon my pillow. + +Then again, in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in the story of Maria Howe, +called "The Witch Aunt," one of the three stories in that book which +Lamb wrote, Stackhouse's _Bible_ is found once more. In my large +edition I give a reproduction of the terrible picture. Page 77, foot. +_Dear little T.H._ This was the unlucky passage which gave Southey his +chief text in his criticism of _Elia_ as a book wanting "a sounder +religious feeling," and which led to Lamb's expostulatory "Letter" +(see Vol. I.). Southey commented thus:-- + + This poor child, instead of being trained up in the way in which + he should go, had been bred in the ways of modern philosophy; he + had systematically been prevented from knowing anything of that + Saviour who said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and + forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven;" care had + been taken that he should not pray to God, nor lie down at night + in reliance upon His good Providence! + +T.H. was Thornton Hunt, Leigh Hunt's eldest son and Lamb's "favourite +child" (see verses to him in Vol. IV.). + +Page 79, line 18 from foot. _Barry Cornwall_. Bryan Waller Procter +(1787-1874), Lamb's friend. The reference is to "A Dream," a poem in +Barry Cornwall's _Dramatic Scenes_, 1819, which Lamb greatly admired. +See his sonnet to the poet in Vol. IV., where it is mentioned again. + +Page 80, last paragraph of essay. In the original MS. of this essay +(now in the Dyce and Forster collection at South Kensington) the last +paragraph ran thus:-- + + "When I awoke I came to a determination to write prose all the + rest of my life; and with submission to some of our young writers, + who are yet diffident of their powers, and balancing perhaps + between verse and prose, they might not do unwisely to decide the + preference by the texture of their natural dreams. If these are + prosaic, they may depend upon it they have not much to expect in + a creative way from their artificial ones. What dreams must not + Spenser have had!" + + * * * * * + +Page 80. MY RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1821. + +Page 80, beginning. _At that point of life_. Lamb was forty-six on +February 10, 1821. + +Page 80, line 12 of essay. _I had an aunt_. Aunt Hetty, who died in +1797 (see the essay on "Christ's Hospital"). + +Page 81, line 6. _The chapel in Essex-street_. The headquarters of +"that heresy," Unitarianism. Lamb was at first a Unitarian, but +afterwards dropped away from all sects. + +Page 81, line 23. _Brother, or sister, I never had any--to know them_. +Lamb is writing strictly as the imagined Elia, Elia being Lamb in mind +rather than Lamb in fact. It amused him to present his brother John +and his sister Mary as his cousins James and Bridget Elia. We have +here an excellent example of his whimsical blending of truth and +invention: brothers and sisters he denies, yet admits one sister, +Elizabeth, who died in both their infancies. Lamb had in reality two +sisters named Elizabeth, the former of whom he never knew. She was +born in 1762. The second Elizabeth, his parents' fifth child, was born +in 1768, seven years before Charles. Altogether the Lambs had seven +children, of whom only John (born 1763), Mary Anne (born 1764) and +Charles (born 1775) grew up. Again Lamb confesses to several cousins +in Hertfordshire, and to two others. The two others were fictitious, +but it was true that he had Hertfordshire relations (see the essay +"Mackery End, in Hertfordshire"). + +John Lamb's character is perhaps sufficiently described in this essay +and in "Dream-Children." He was a well-to-do official in the South-Sea +House, succeeding John Tipp as accountant. Crabb Robinson found him +too bluff and noisy to be bearable; and he once knocked Hazlitt down +in a dispute about painting. He died on October 26, 1821, to his +brother's great grief, leaving Charles everything. He married late in +life a Mrs. Dowden. Probably she had her own money and needed none of +her second husband's. Hence the peculiarity of the will. Mrs. John +Lamb died in 1826. + +John Lamb's sympathy with animals led him to write in 1810 a pamphlet +entitled _A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on his +opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals_--Mr. Windham having expressed it as his opinion that the +subject was not one for legislation. Lamb sent the pamphlet to Crabb +Robinson on February 7, 1810, saying:--"My Brother whom you have met +at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written +a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the +Publisher has put it in his head that you can get it Reviewed for him. +I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could +put it into any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted +Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with +chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a +moment's notice.--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw +at and would willingly consign them all to Hell flames and Megæra's +snaky locks. + +"But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember +she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are +directed against that very process." + +This is the passage--one red-hot sentence--concerning eels:-- + + "If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in + the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that + it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that + he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's + usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use + her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for + food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for + however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the + culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness + therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if + the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin + him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the + extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to + death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the + dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call + the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he + had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which + man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines + him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that + men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such + insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the + only sufferers; that lobsters and other shell fish were put into + cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of + the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities, + were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of + mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion + that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals + designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow + so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that + she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have + desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he + inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel + spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon + animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty + Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, + highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar + and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that + man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to + his use are imperfect obligations!" + +The poem "The Beggar-Man," in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. +III.), was also from John Lamb's pen. + +Page 85, asterisks. _Society for the Relief of_--Distrest Sailors, +says Lamb's Key. + +Page 86, last line of essay. "_Through the green plains of pleasant +Hertfordshire_." This line occurs in a sonnet of Lamb's written many +years before the essay (see Vol. IV.). Probably, however, Lamb did +not invent it, for (the late W.J. Craig pointed out) in Leland's +_Itinerary_, which Lamb must have known, if only on account of the +antiquary's remarks on Hertfordshire, is quoted a poem by William +Vallans (_fl._ 1578-1590), "The Tale of the Two Swans," containing +the line-- + + The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire-- + +which one can easily understand would have lingered in Lamb's mind +very graciously. + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay ended with the words, "Till then, +Farewell." + + * * * * * + +Page 86. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1821. Reprinted in _Elia_, 1823, as written, +save for the omission of italics from many passages. + +Bridget Elia, who is met also in "Mrs. Battle," in "My Relations," and +in "Old China," was, of course, Mary Lamb. + +Page 86, line 11 from foot. _She must have a story_. Thomas Westwood, +in his reminiscences of the Lambs in later years, printed in _Notes +and Queries_, speaks of Mary Lamb's passion for novel-reading in the +Enfield days, when he was a boy. + +Page 87, line 6. _Margaret Newcastle_. Lamb's devotion to this lady is +expressed again in the essay on "The Two Races of Men," in the essay +on Beggars, and in "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading." + +Page 87, line 8. _Free-thinkers_ ... William Godwin, perhaps alone +among Lamb's friends, quite answers to the description of leader +of novel philosophies and systems; but there had been also Thomas +Holcroft and John Thelwall among the Lambs' acquaintance. And Hazlitt +and Leigh Hunt would come within this description. + +Page 87, foot. _Good old English reading_. The reference is to Samuel +Salt's library in the Temple (see note to "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple"). + +Page 88, line 14. _Mackery End_. The farmhouse still stands, although +new front rooms have been added. At the end of the present hall, one +passes through what was in Lamb's time the front door, and thereafter +the house is exactly as it used to be save that its south windows have +been filled in. By kind invitation of Mr. Dolphin Smith, the farmer, +who had been there over forty years, I spent in 1902 some time in the +same parlour in which the Lambs had been entertained. Harpenden, on +the north-west, has grown immensely since Lamb's day, and the houses +at the Folly, between Wheathampstead and the Cherry Trees, are new; +but Mackery End, or Mackrye End as the farmer's waggons have it, +remains unencroached upon. Near by is the fine old mansion which is +Mackery End house proper; Lamb's Mackery End was the farm. + +Lamb's first visit there must have been when he was a very little +boy--somewhere about 1780. Probably we may see recollections of it in +Mary Lamb's story "The Farmhouse" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III. of this edition). + +Page 88, line 18. _A great-aunt_. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, was +Mary Bruton, whose sister married, as he says, a Gladman, and was the +great-aunt mentioned. The present occupier of the farm is neither +Gladman nor Bruton; but both names are still to be found in the +county. A Miss Sarah Bruton, a direct descendant of Lamb's great-aunt, +was living at Wheathampstead in 1902. She had on her walls two +charming oval portraits of ancestresses, possibly--for she was +uncertain as to their identity--two of the handsome sisters whom Lamb +extols. + +Writing to Manning, May 28, 1819, Lamb says:--"How are my cousins, +the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton is a +glorious woman. + + "Hail, Mackery End! + +"This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but +got no further." + +Page 89, verse. "_But thou, that didst appear so fair ..._" From +Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," Stanza 6. Writing to Wordsworth in +1815, Lamb said of this stanza that he thought "no lovelier" could be +found in "the wide world of poetry." From a letter to Taylor, of the +_London Magazine_, belonging to the summer of 1821, we gather that the +proof-reader had altered the last word of the third line to "air" to +make it rhyme to "fair." Lamb says: "_Day_ is the right reading, and +_I implore you to restore it_." + +Page 90, line 4. _B.F._ Barron Field (see note to "Distant +Correspondents"), then living in Sydney, where he composed, and had +printed for private circulation in 1819, a volume of poems reviewed by +Lamb (see Vol. I.), in 1819, one of which was entitled "The Kangaroo." +It was the first book printed in Australia. Field edited Heywood for +the old Shakespeare Society. Although a Field, he was no kinsman of +Lamb's. + + * * * * * + +Page 90. MODERN GALLANTRY. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1822. + +De Quincey writes in "London Reminiscences" concerning the present +essay:-- + + Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not how it is + that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis and depth of + his courtesy. This quality was in him a really chivalrous feeling, + springing from his heart, and cherished with the sanctity of a + duty. He says somewhere in speaking of himself[?] under the mask + of a third person, whose character he is describing, that, in + passing a servant girl, even at a street-crossing, he used to take + off his hat. Now, the _spirit_ of Lamb's gallantry would have + prompted some such expression of homage, though the customs of + the country would not allow it to be _literally_ fulfilled, for + the very reason that would prompt it--_viz_., in order to pay + respect--since the girl would, in such a case, suppose a man + laughing at her. But the instinct of his heart was to think + highly of female nature, and to pay a real homage (not the hollow + demonstration of outward honour which a Frenchman calls his + "homage," and which is really a mask for contempt) to the sacred + _idea_ of pure and virtuous womanhood. + +Barry Cornwall has the following story in his Memoir of Lamb:-- + + Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy + package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles + inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon + his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place + of destination. Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a + female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope + that she would intercede with the poor boy's master, in order to + prevent his being over-weighted in future. "Sir," said the dame, + after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, "I buy my sugar + and have nothing to do with the man's manner of sending it." Lamb + at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off + his hat, said, humbly, "Then I hope, ma'am, you'll give me a drink + of small beer." This was of course refused. He afterwards called + upon the grocer, on the boy's behalf. With what effect I do not + know. + +Page 90, line 2 of essay. _Upon the point of gallantry_. Here, in the +_London Magazine_, came the words:-- + + "as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old classic ages. + This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or + deferential respect, paid to females, as females." + +Page 92, line 3. _Joseph Paice_. Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out +to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that +Lamb records. According to Miss Anne Manning's _Family Pictures_, +1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb +into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 +to learn book-keeping and business habits. He passed thence to the +South-Sea House and thence to the East India House. Miss Manning (who +was the author of _Flemish Interiors_) helps to fill out Lamb's sketch +into a full-length portrait. She tells us that Mr. Paice's life was +one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities. + + Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a + market-woman's fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a + sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who + was requesting him to direct her on her way. These traits are + quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:--his + carrying presents of game _himself_, for instance, to humble + friends, who might ill have spared a shilling to a servant; and + his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, + draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy + day. Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial + companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad + weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the + hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his + fare. At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits + from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in + buying shares of an unlucky number. About the time the numbers + were being drawn, there would be a ring at the gate-bell, perhaps + at dinner time. His spectacles would be elevated, an anxious + expression would steal over his face, as he half raised himself + from his seat, to obtain a glance at the intruder--"Ah, I thought + so, I expected as much," he would gently say. "I expected I should + soon have a visit from poor Mrs. ---- or Mrs. ----. Will you + excuse me, my dear madam," (to my grandmother) "for a moment, + while I just tell her it is quite out of my power to help her?" + counting silver into his hand all the time. Then, a parley would + ensue at the hall-door--complainant telling her tale in a doleful + voice: "My good woman, I really cannot," etc.; and at last the + hall-door would be shut. "Well, sir," my grandmother used to say, + as Mr. Paice returned to his seat, "I do not think you have sent + Mrs. ---- away quite penniless." "Merely enough for a joint of + meat, my good madam--just a trifle to buy her a joint of meat." + +_Family Pictures_ should be consulted by any one who would know more +of this gentleman and of Susan Winstanly. + +Page 92, line 5. _Edwards_. Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of +_Canons of Criticism_, 1748. The sonnet in question, which was +modelled on that addressed by Milton to Cyriack Skinner, was addressed +to Paice, as the author's nephew, bidding him carry on the family +line. Paice, however, as Lamb tells us, did not marry. + + * * * * * + +Page 94. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with the Temple was fairly continuous until 1817, +when he was thirty-eight. He was born at No. 2 Crown Office Row in +1775, and he did not leave it, except for visits to Hertfordshire, +until 1782, when he entered Christ's Hospital. There he remained, save +for holidays, until 1789, returning then to Crown Office Row for the +brief period between leaving school and the death of Samuel Salt, +under whose roof the Lambs dwelt, in February, 1792. The 7 Little +Queen Street, the 45 and 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, and the first +34 Southampton Buildings (with Gutch) periods, followed; but in 1801 +Lamb and his sister were back in the Temple again, at 16 Mitre Court +Buildings, since rebuilt. They moved from there, after a brief return +to 34 Southampton Buildings, to 4 Inner Temple Lane (since rebuilt and +now called Johnson's Buildings) in 1809, where they remained until the +move to 20 Great Russell Street in 1817. With each change after that +(except for another and briefer sojourn in Southampton Buildings +in 1830), Lamb's home became less urban. His last link with the +Temple may be said to have snapped with the death of Randal Morris, +sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, in 1827 (see "A Death-Bed"), +although now and then he slept at Crabb Robinson's chambers. + +The Worshipful Masters of the Bench of the Hon. Society of the Inner +Temple--to give the Benchers their full title--have the government of +the Inner Temple in their hands. + +Page 97, line 12 from foot, _J----ll_. Joseph Jekyll, great-nephew of +Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, well known as a wit and diner-out. +He became a Bencher in 1795, and was made a Master in Chancery in +1815, through the influence of the Prince Regent. Under his direction +the hall of the Inner Temple and the Temple Church were restored, and +he compiled a little book entitled _Facts and Observations relating to +the Temple Church and the Monuments contained in it_, 1811. He became +a K.C. in 1805, and died in 1837, aged eighty-five. Jekyll was a +friend of George Dyer, and was interested in Lamb's other friends, the +Norrises. & letter from him, thanking Lamb for a copy of the _Last +Essays of Elia_, is printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _The Lambs_. He had +another link of a kind with Lamb in being M.P. for "sweet Calne in +Wiltshire." Jekyll's chambers were at 6 King's Bench Walk. On the same +staircase lived for a while George Colman the Younger. + +Page 97, line 9 from foot. _Thomas Coventry_. Thomas Coventry became a +Bencher in 1766. He was the nephew of William, fifth Earl of Coventry, +and resided at North Cray Place, near Bexley, in Kent, and in +Serjeant's Inn, where he died in 1797, in his eighty-fifth year. He +is buried in the Temple Church. Coventry was a sub-governor of the +South-Sea House, and it was he who presented Lamb's friend, James +White, to Christ's Hospital. He was M.P. for Bridport from 1754 to +1780. As an illustration of Coventry's larger benefactions it may +be remarked that he presented £10,000 worth of South Sea stock to +Christ's Hospital in 1782. + +Page 98, line 9. _Samuel Salt_. Samuel Salt was the son of the Rev. +John Salt, of Audley, in Staffordshire; and he married a daughter of +Lord Coventry, thus being connected with Thomas Coventry by marriage. +He was M.P. for Liskeard for some years, and a governor of the +South-Sea House. Samuel Salt, who became a Bencher in 1782, rented +at No. 2 Crown Office Row two sets of chambers, in one of which the +Lamb family dwelt. John Lamb, Lamb's father, who is described as a +scrivener in Charles's Christ's Hospital application form, was Salt's +right-hand man, not only in business, but privately, while Mrs. Lamb +acted as housekeeper and possibly as cook. Samuel Salt played the part +of tutelary genius to John Lamb's two sons. It was he who arranged +for Charles to be nominated for Christ's Hospital (by Timothy Yeats); +probably he was instrumental also in getting him into the East India +House; and in all likelihood it was he who paved the way for the +younger John Lamb's position in the South-Sea House. It was also +Samuel Salt who gave to Charles and Mary the freedom of his library +(see the reference in the essay on "Mackery End"): a privilege which, +to ourselves, is the most important of all. Salt died in February, +1792, and is buried in the vault of the Temple Church. He left to John +Lamb £500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth +Lamb £200 in money; but with his death the prosperity of the family +ceased. + +Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below. + +Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Blandy was the daughter +of Francis Blandy, a lawyer at Henley-on-Thames. The statement that +she was to inherit £10,000 induced an officer in the marines, named +Cranstoun, a son of Lord Cranstoun, to woo her, although he already +had a wife living. Her father proving hostile, Cranstoun supplied her +with arsenic to bring about his removal. Mr. Blandy died on August +14, 1751. Mary Blandy was arrested, and hanged on April 6 in the next +year, after a trial which caused immense excitement. The defence was +that Miss Blandy was ignorant of the nature of the powder, and thought +it a means of persuading her father to her point of view. In this +belief the father, who knew he was being tampered with, also shared. +Cranstoun avoided the law, but died in the same year. Lamb had made +use of Salt's _faux pas_, many years earlier, in "Mr. H." (see Vol. +IV.). + +Page 99, line 13. _His eye lacked lustre_. At these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "Lady Mary Wortley Montague was an exception to her sex: she says, + in one of her letters, 'I wonder what the women see in S. I do not + think him by any means handsome. To me he appears an extraordinary + dull fellow, and to want common sense. Yet the fools are all + sighing for him.'" + +I have not found the passage. + +Page 99, line 14. _Susan P----_. This is Susannah Peirson, sister of +the Peter Peirson to whom we shall come directly. Samuel Salt left her +a choice of books in his library, together with a money legacy and a +silver inkstand, hoping that reading and reflection would make her +life "more comfortable." B----d Row would be Bedford Row. + +Page 99, line 12 from foot, _F., the counsel_. I cannot be sure who +this was. The Law Directory of that day does not help. + +Page 99, foot. _Elwes_. John Elwes, the miser (1714-1789), whose +_Life_ was published in 1790 after running through _The World_--the +work of Topham, that paper's editor, who is mentioned in Lamb's essay +on "Newspapers." + +Page 100, line 15. _Lovel_. Lovel was the name by which Lamb refers to +his father, John Lamb. We know nothing of him in his prime beyond what +is told in this essay, but after the great tragedy, there are in the +_Letters_ glimpses of him as a broken, querulous old man. He died in +1799. Of John Lamb's early days all our information is contained in +this essay, in his own _Poetical Pieces_, where he describes his life +as a footman, and in the essay on "Poor Relations," where his boyish +memories of Lincoln are mentioned. Of his verses it was perhaps too +much (though prettily filial) to say they were "next to Swift and +Prior;" but they have much good humour and spirit. John Lamb's poems +were printed in a thin quarto under the title _Poetical Pieces on +Several Occasions_. The dedication was to "The Forty-Nine Members of +the Friendly Society for the Benefit of their Widows, of whom I have +the honour of making the Number Fifty," and in the dedicatory epistle +it is stated that the Society was in some degree the cause of Number +Fifty's commencing author, on account of its approving and printing +certain lines which were spoken by him at an annual meeting it the +Devil Tavern. The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage +and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn +from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the +Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description +of a lady's footman's daily life, from within, has a good deal of +sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic +couplet. The last poem is a long rhymed version of the story of +Joseph. With this exception, for which Lamb's character-sketch does +not quite prepare us, it is very natural to think of the author as +Lovel. One of the pieces, a familiar letter to a doctor, begins +thus:-- + + My good friend, + For favours to my son and wife, + I shall love you whilst I've life, + Your clysters, potions, help'd to save, + Our infant lambkin from the grave. + +The infant lambkin was probably John Lamb, but of course it might have +been Charles. The expression, however, proves that punning ran in the +family. Lamb's library contained his father's copy of _Hudibras_. + +Lamb's phrase, descriptive of his father's decline, is taken with a +variation from his own poems--from the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral" (_Blank Verse_, 1798):-- + + One parent yet is left,--a wretched thing, + A sad survivor of his buried wife + A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, + A semblance most forlorn of what he was-- + A merry cheerful man. + +Page 100, line 17. "_Flapper_." This is probably an allusion to the +flappers in _Gulliver's Travels_--the servants who, in Laputa, carried +bladders with which every now and then they flapped the mouths and +ears of their employers, to recall them to themselves and disperse +their meditations. + +Page 100, line 9 from foot. _Better was not concerned_. At these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + +"He pleaded the cause of a delinquent in the treasury of the Temple so +effectually with S. the then treasurer--that the man was allowed +to keep his place. L. had the offer to succeed him. It had been a +lucrative promotion. But L. chose to forego the advantage, because the +man had a wife and family." + +Page 101, line 10. _Bayes_. Mr. Bayes is the author and stage manager +in Buckingham's "Rehearsal." This phrase is not in the play and must +have been John Lamb's own, in reference to Garrick. + +Page 101, line 23. _Peter Pierson_. Peter Peirson (as his name was +rightly spelled) was the son of Peter Peirson of the parish of St. +Andrew's, Holborn, who lived probably in Bedford Row. He became a +Bencher in 1800, died in 1808, and is buried in the Temple Church. +When Charles Lamb entered the East India House in April, 1792, Peter +Peirson and his brother, John Lamb, were his sureties. + +Page 101, line 11 from foot. _Our great philanthropist_. Probably John +Howard, whom, as we have seen in the essay on "Christ's Hospital," +Lamb did not love. He was of singular sallowness. + +Page 101, line 9 from foot. _Daines Barrington_. Daines Barrington +(1727-1800), the correspondent of Gilbert White, many of whose letters +in _The Natural History of Selborne_ are addressed to him. Indeed it +was Barrington who inspired that work:--a circumstance which must +atone for his exterminatory raid on the Temple sparrows. His Chambers +were at 5 King's Bench Walk. Barrington became a Bencher in 1777 and +died in 1800. He is buried in the Temple Church. His Episcopal brother +was Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop successively of Llandaff, +Salisbury and Durham. + +Page 102, line 1. _Old Barton_. Thomas Barton, who became a Bencher in +1775 and died in 1791. His chambers were in King's Bench Walk. He is +buried in the vault of the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 6. _Read_. John Reade, who became a Bencher in 1792 and +died in 1804. His rooms were in Mitre Court Buildings. + +Page 102, line 6. _Twopenny_. Richard, Twopenny was not a Bencher, but +merely a resident in the Temple. He was strikingly thin. Twopenny was +stockbroker to the Bank of England, and died in 1809. + +Page 102, line 8. _Wharry_. John Wharry, who became a Bencher in 1801, +died in 1812, and was buried in the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 22. _Jackson_. This was Richard Jackson, some time M.P. +for New Romney, to whom Johnson, Boswell tells us, refused the epithet +"Omniscient" as blasphemous, changing it to "all knowing." He was made +a Bencher in 1770 and died in 1787. + +Page 102, foot. _Mingay_. James Mingay, who was made a Bencher in +1785, died in 1812. He was M.P. for Thetford and senior King's +Counsel. He was also Recorder of Aldborough, Crabbe's town. He lived +at 4 King's Bench Walk. + +Page 103, line 1. _Baron Maseres_. This was Francis Maseres +(1731-1824), mathematician, reformer and Cursiter Baron of the +Exchequer. He lived at 5 King's Bench Walk, and at Reigate, and wore a +three-cornered hat and ruffles to the end. In April, 1801, Lamb wrote +to Manning:--"I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot +off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we +should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for +convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He +keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, +not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the +higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the +belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a +harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together." + +Baron Maseres, who was made a Bencher in 1774, died in 1824. + +Page 104, line 13. _Hookers and Seldens_. Richard Hooker (1554?-1600), +the "judicious," was Master of the Temple. John Selden (1584-1654), +the jurist, who lived in Paper Buildings and practised law in the +Temple, was buried in the Temple Church with much pomp. + + * * * * * + +Page 104. GRACE BEFORE MEAT. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1821. + +This was the essay, Lamb suggested, which Southey may have had in mind +when in an article in the _Quarterly Review_ he condemned _Elia_ as +wanting "a sounder religious feeling." In his "Letter to Southey" +(Vol. I.), which contained Lamb's protest against Southey's +strictures, he wrote:--"I am at a loss what particular essay you had +in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you +were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, +foremost.--Perhaps the Paper on 'Saying Graces' was the obnoxious +feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty--good in +place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded--from the charge +of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not +against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the +carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of +it." + +Page 108, line 12 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge; but Lamb may really +have said it. + +Page 108, foot. _The author of the Rambler_. Veal pie with prunes in +it was perhaps Dr. Johnson's favourite dish. + +Page 109, line 10. _Dagon_. The fish god worshipped by the +Philistines. See Judges xvi. 23 and I Samuel v. for the full +significance of Lamb's reference. + +Page 110, line 16. _C.V.L._ Charles Valentine le Grice. Later in life, +in 1798, Le Grice himself became a clergyman. + +Page 110, line 19. _Our old form at school_. The Christ's Hospital +graces in Lamb's day were worded thus:-- + + GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + Give us thankful hearts, O Lord God, for the Table which thou hast + spread for us. Bless thy good Creatures to our use, and us to thy + service, for Jesus Christ his sake. _Amen_. + + GRACE AFTER MEAT + + Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our + Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou + hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our + Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and + Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And + preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. _Amen_. + + * * * * * + +Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1821. + +Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the "Table Talk" in Leigh +Hunt's _Examiner_, December 9, 1813, under the title "Playhouse +Memoranda" (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in _The Indicator_, +December 13, 1820. + +Page 111, line 1. _Garrick's Drury_. Garrick's Drury Lane was +condemned in 1791, and superseded in 1794 by the new theatre, the +burning of which in 1809 led to the _Rejected Addresses_. It has +recently come to light that Lamb was among the competitors who sent in +to the management the real addresses. The present Drury Lane Theatre +dates from 1812. + +Page 111, line 11. _My godfather F._ Lamb's godfather was Francis +Fielde. _The British Directory_ for 1793 gives him as Francis +Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn. Whether or no he played the part in +Sheridan's matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know +(Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an +invented story. Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the +oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, +in March, 1772, and placed her in France. They were married near +Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773. Sheridan became +manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first +performance under his control being on September 21. Lamb is supposed +to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan. Mary Lamb speaks +of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; +but of the work we know nothing definite. I do not consider the play +printed in part in the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb, on the +authority of P.G. Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to +Mary Lamb's description. + +Page 118, line 8. _His testamentary beneficence_. Lamb was not joking. +Writing to _The Athenæum_, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:-- + + Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb's + possession I am happy to tell the world--or that small portion of + it to whom any fact about his life is precious--exactly where and + what this landed property is. By indentures of lease and release + dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two + yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis + Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the county + of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of £20., all that + messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, + edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances + therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West + Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said + county of Hertford, etc. On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New + Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of + two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, + real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde. + + This will was proved on November 5, 1809. By indentures of lease + and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed + the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, + gentleman. By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, + made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said + Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, + of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was + conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for £50. + +The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said +property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West +Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 +conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford's +Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same +condition as it was in 1815. + +The evidence that the Charles Lamb who conveyed the property in 1815 +is Elia himself is overwhelming. + +1. The essay itself gives the locality correctly: it is about two and +a half miles from Puckeridge. + +2. The plot of land contains as near as possible three-quarters of an +acre, with an old thatched cottage and small barn standing upon it. +The barn, specially mentioned in all the deeds, is a most unusual +adjunct of so small a cottage. The property, the deeds of which go +back to 1708, appears to have been isolated and held by small men, and +consists of a long narrow tongue of land jutting into the property now +of the Savile family (Earls of Mexborough), but formerly of the Earls +of Hardwicke. + +3. The witness to Charles Lamb's signature on the deed of 1815 is +William Hazlitt, of 19, York Street, Westminster. + +4. Lamb was living in Inner Temple Lane in 1815, and did not leave the +Temple till 1817. + +5. The essay was printed in the _London Magazine_ for December, 1821, +six years after "the estate has passed into more prudent hands." + +6. And lastly, the following letter in Charles Lamb's own handwriting, +found with the deeds which are in my possession, clinches the +matter:-- + + "MR. SARGUS,--This is to give you notice that I have parted with + the Cottage to Mr. Grig Junr. to whom you will pay rent from + Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not + wish you to pay me. I forgive it you as you may have been at some + expences in repairs. + + "Yours + + "CH. LAMB. + + "Inner Temple Lane, London, + + "_23 Feb., 1815._" + +It is certainly not the fact that Lamb acquired the property, as he +states, by the will of his godfather, for it was conveyed to him +some three years after the latter's death by Mrs. Fielde. But strict +accuracy of fact in Lamb's '_Essays_' we neither look for nor desire. +In all probability Mrs. Fielde conveyed him the property in accordance +with an expressed wish of her husband in his lifetime. Reading also +between the lines of the essay, it is interesting to notice that +Francis Fielde, the Holborn oilman of 1779, in 1809 has become Francis +Fielde, Esq., of New Cavendish Street. In the letter quoted above +Lamb speaks of his purchaser as "Mr. Grig Junr.," more, I am inclined +to think, from his desire to have his little joke than from mere +inaccuracy, for he must have known the correct name of his purchaser. +But Mr. Greg, Jun., was only just twenty-one when he bought the +property, and the expression "as merry as a grig" running in Lamb's +mind might have proved irresistible to him. Lastly, the property is +now called, and has been so far back as I can trace, "Button Snap." No +such name is found in any of the title-deeds, and it was impossible +before to understand whence it arose. Now it is not: Lamb must have so +christened his little property in jest, and the name has stuck. + +THOMAS GREG. + +Page 113, line 1. _The maternal lap_. With the exception of a brief +mention on page 33--"the gentle posture of maternal tenderness"--this +is Lamb's only reference to his mother in all the essays--probably +from the wish not to wound his sister, who would naturally read all he +wrote; although we are told by Talfourd that she spoke of her mother +with composure. But it is possible to be more sensitive for others +than they are for themselves. + +Page 113, line 3. _The play was Artaxerxes_. The opera, by Thomas +Augustine Arne (1710-1778), produced in 1762, founded on Metastasio's +"Artaserse." The date of the performance was in all probability +December 1, 1780, although Lamb suggests that it was later; for that +was the only occasion in 1780-81-82 on which "Artaxerxes" was followed +by "Harlequin's Invasion," a pantomime dating from 1759, the work of +Garrick. It shows Harlequin invading the territory of Shakespeare; +Harlequin is defeated and Shakespeare restored. + +Page 113, line 20. _The Lady of the Manor_. Here Lamb's memory, I +fancy, betrayed him. This play (a comic opera by William Kenrick) was +not performed at Drury Lane or Covent Garden in the period mentioned. +Lamb's pen probably meant to write "The Lord of the Manor," General +Burgoyne's opera, with music by William Jackson, of Exeter, which was +produced in 1780. It was frequently followed in the bill by "Robinson +Crusoe," but never by "Lun's Ghost," whereas Wycherley's "Way of the +World" was followed by "Lun's Ghost" at Drury Lane on January 9, 1782. +We may therefore assume that Lamb's second visit to the theatre was to +see "The Lord of the Manor," followed by "Robinson Crusoe," some time +in 1781, and his third to see "The Way of the World," followed by +"Lun's Ghost" on January 9, 1782. "Lun's Ghost" was produced on +January 3, 1782. Lun was the name under which John Rich (1682?-1761), +the pantomimist and theatrical manager, had played in pantomime. + +Page 113, last line. _Round Church ... of the Templars_. This allusion +to the Temple Church and its Gothic heads was used before by Lamb in +his story "First Going to Church" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III.). In that volume Mary Lamb had told the story of what we +may take to be her first play (see "Visit to the Cousins"), the piece +being Congreve's "Mourning Bride." + +Page 114, line 1. _The season 1781-2_. Lamb was six on February 10, +1781. He says, in his "Play-house Memoranda," of the same occasion, +"Oh when shall I forget first seeing a play, at the age of five or +six?" + +Page 114, line 3. _At school_. Lamb was at Christ's Hospital from 1782 +to 1789. + +Page 114, end. _Mrs. Siddons in "Isabella."_ Mrs. Siddons first played +this part at Drury Lane on October 10, 1782. The play was "Isabella," +a version by Garrick of Southerne's "Fatal Marriage." Mrs. Siddons +also appeared frequently as Isabella in "Measure for Measure;" but +Lamb clearly says "in" Isabella, meaning the play. Lamb's sonnet, +in which he collaborated with Coleridge, on Mrs. Siddons, which was +printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ in December, 1794 (see Vol. IV.), +was written when he was nineteen. It runs (text of 1797):-- + + As when a child on some long winter's night + Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees + With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight + Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees + Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell; + Or of those hags, who at the witching time + Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, + And mingle foul embrace with fiends of Hell: + Cold Horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear + More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell + Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, + Murder'd by cruel Uncle's mandate fell: + Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, + Ev'n so thou, SIDDONS! meltest my sad heart! + + * * * * * + +Page 115. DREAM-CHILDREN. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1822. + +John Lamb died on October 26, 1821, leaving all his property to his +brother. Charles was greatly upset by his loss. Writing to Wordsworth +in March, 1822, he said: "We are pretty well save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to every thing, which I think I may +date from poor John's Loss.... Deaths over-set one, and put one out +long after the recent grief." (His friend Captain Burney died in the +same month.) Lamb probably began "Dream-Children,"--in some ways, +I think, his most perfect prose work--almost immediately upon his +brother's death. The essay "My Relations" may be taken in connection +with this as completing the picture of John Lamb. His lameness was +caused by the fall of a stone in 1796, but I doubt if the leg were +really amputated. + +The description in this essay of Blakesware, the seat of the Plumers, +is supplemented by the essay entitled "Blakesmoor in H----shire." +Except that Lamb substitutes Norfolk for the nearer county, the +description is accurate; it is even true that there is a legend in the +Plumer family concerning the mysterious death of two children and the +loss of the baronetcy thereby--Sir Walter Plumer, who died in the +seventeenth century, being the last to hold the title. In his poem +"The Grandame" (see Vol. IV.), Lamb refers to Mrs. Field's garrulous +tongue and her joy in recounting the oft-told tale; and it may be to +his early associations with the old story that his great affection +for Morton's play, "The Children in the Wood," which he so often +commended--particularly with Miss Kelly in the caste--was due. The +actual legend of the children in the wood belongs, however, to +Norfolk. + +William Plumer's newer and more fashionable mansion was at Gilston, +which is not in the adjoining county, but also in Hertfordshire, near +Harlow, only a few miles distant from Blakesware. Mrs. Field died +of cancer in the breast in August, 1792, and was buried in Widford +churchyard, hard by Blakesware. + +According to Lamb's Key the name Alice W----n was "feigned." If by +Alice W----n Lamb, as has been suggested, means Ann Simmons, of +Blenheims, near Blakesware, he was romancing when he said that he had +courted her for seven long years, although the same statement is made +in the essay on "New Year's Eve." We know that in 1796 he abandoned +all ideas of marriage. Writing to Coleridge in November of that year, +in reference to his love sonnets, he says: "It is a passion of which I +retain nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even +a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me." This was +1796. Therefore, as he was born in 1775, he must have begun the wooing +of Alice W----n when he was fourteen in order to complete the seven +long years of courtship. My own feeling, as I have stated in the notes +to the love sonnets in Vol. IV., is that Lamb was never a very serious +wooer, and that Alice W----n was more an abstraction around which now +and then to group tender imaginings of what might have been than any +tangible figure. + +A proof that Ann Simmons and Alice W----n are one has been found +in the circumstance that Miss Simmons did marry a Mr. Bartrum, or +Bartram, mentioned by Lamb in this essay as being the father of +Alice's real children. Bartrum was a pawnbroker in Princes Street, +Coventry Street. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that Hazlitt had seen Lamb +wandering up and down before the shop trying to get a glimpse of his +old friend. + + * * * * * + +Page 118. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1822. + +The germ of this essay will be found in a letter to Barron Field, to +whom the essay is addressed, of August 31, 1817. Barron Field was a +son of Henry Field, apothecary to Christ's Hospital. His brother, +Francis John Field, through whom Lamb probably came to know Barron, +was a clerk in the India House. + +Barron Field was associated with Lamb on Leigh Hunt's _Reflector_ in +1810-1812. He also was dramatic critic for _The Times_ for a while. In +1816 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, +where he remained until 1824. For other information see the note, in +Vol. I., to his _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_, reviewed by Lamb. +In the same number of the _London Magazine_ which included the present +essay was Field's account of his outward voyage to New South Wales. + +Page 119, line 24. _Our mutual friend P._ Not identifiable: probably +no one in particular. The Bench would be the King's Bench Prison. A +little later one of Lamb's friends, William Hone, was confined there +for three years. + +Page 121, line 8. _The late Lord C._ This was Thomas Pitt, second +Baron Camelford (1775-1804), who after a quarrelsome life, first in +the navy and afterwards as a man about town, was killed in a duel at +Kensington, just where Melbury Road now is. The spot chosen by him +for his grave was on the borders of the Lake of Lampierre, near three +trees; but there is a doubt if his body ever rested there, for it lay +for years in the crypt of St. Anne's, Soho. Its ultimate fate was the +subject of a story by Charles Reade. + +Page 123, line 11. _Bleach_. Illegitimacy, according to some old +authors, wears out in the third generation, enabling a natural son's +descendant to resume the ancient coat-of-arms. Lamb refers to this +sanction. + +Page 123, line 20. _Hare-court_. The Lambs lived at 4 Inner Temple +Lane (now rebuilt as Johnson's Buildings) from 1809 to 1817. Writing +to Coleridge in June, 1809, Lamb says:--"The rooms are delicious, and +the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always +going. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like +living in a garden." + +Barron Field was entered on the books of the Inner Temple in 1809 and +was called to the Bar in 1814. + +Page 123, last paragraph. _Sally W----r_. Lamb's Key gives "Sally +Winter;" but as to who she was we have no knowledge. + +Page 123, end. _J.W._ James White. See next essay. + + * * * * * + +Page 124. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1822, where it has a sub-title, "A May-Day +Effusion." + +This was not Lamb's only literary association with chimney-sweepers. +In Vol. I. of this edition will be found the description of a sweep +in the country which there is good reason to believe is Lamb's work. +Again, in 1824, James Montgomery, the poet, edited a book--_The +Chimney-Sweepers' Friend and Climbing Boys' Album_--with the +benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the +climbing boys' life and producing legislation to alleviate it. The +first half of the book is practical: reports of committees, and so +forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William +Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children +forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes. Among the +"favourite poets of the day" to whom Montgomery applied were Scott, +Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Joanna Baillie and Lamb. Lamb replied +by copying out (with the alteration of Toddy for Dacre) "The +Chimney-Sweeper" from Blake's _Songs of Innocence_, described by +Montgomery as "a very rare and curious little work." In that poem it +will be remembered the little sweep cries "weep, weep, weep." Lamb +compares the cry more prettily to the "peep, peep" of the sparrow. + +Page 125, line 6. _Shop ..._ Mr. Thomas Read's Saloop Coffee House was +at No. 102 Fleet Street. The following lines were painted on a board +in Read's establishment:-- + + Come, all degrees now passing by, + My charming liquor taste and try; + To Lockyer come, and drink your fill; + Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. + The fumes of wine, punch, drams and beer, + It will expell; your spirits cheer; + From drowsiness your spirits free. + Sweet as a rose your breath will be, + Come taste and try, and speak your mind; + Such rare ingredients here are joined, + Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind. + +Page 127, line 12 from foot. _The young Montagu_. Edward Wortley +Montagu (1713-1776), the traveller, ran away from Westminster School +more than once, becoming, among other things, a chimney-sweeper. + +Page 127, line 9 from foot. _Arundel Castle_. The Sussex seat of the +Dukes of Norfolk. The "late duke" was Charles Howard, eleventh duke, +who died in 1815, and who spent enormous sums of money on curiosities. +I can find no record of the story of the sweep. Perhaps Lamb invented +it, or applied it to Arundel. + +Page 128, line 14 from foot. _Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), +who was at Christ's Hospital with Lamb, and who wrote _Falstaff's +Letters_, 1796, in his company (see Vol. I.). "There never was his +like," Lamb told another old schoolfellow, Valentine Le Grice, in +1833; "we shall never see such days as those in which he flourished." +See the essay "On Some of the Old Actors," for an anecdote of White. + +Page 128, line 8 from foot. _The fair of St. Bartholomew_. Held +on September 3 at Smithfield, until 1855. George Daniel, in his +recollections of Lamb, records a visit they paid together to the Fair. +Lamb took Wordsworth through its noisy mazes in 1802. + +Page 129, line 14. _Bigod_. John Fenwick (see note to "The Two Races +of Men"). + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Examiner_ for May 5, 1822, quoted some of the best +sentences of this essay. On May 12 a correspondent (L.E.) wrote a very +agreeable letter supporting Lamb's plea for generosity to sweeps and +remarking thus upon Lamb himself:-- + + I read the modicum on "Chimney-Sweepers," which your last paper + contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that + sort of mind which you justly denominate "gifted;" but which is + greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because they have no + sympathies in common with it. Many who might partially appreciate + such a spirit, do nevertheless object to it, from the snap-dragon + nature of its coruscations, which shine themselves, but shew every + thing around them to disadvantage. Your deep philosophers also, + and all the laborious professors of the art of sinking, may + elevate their nasal projections, and demand "cui bono"? For my + part I prefer a little enjoyment to a great deal of philosophy. It + is these gifted minds that enliven our habitations, and contribute + so largely to those _every-day_ delights, which constitute, after + all, the chief part of mortal happiness. Such minds are ever + active--their light, like the vestal lamp, is ever burning--and in + my opinion the man who refines the common intercourse of life, and + wreaths the altars of our household gods with flowers, is more + deserving of respect and gratitude than all the sages who waste + their lives in elaborate speculations, which tend to nothing, and + which _we_ cannot comprehend--nor they neither. + +On June 2, however, "J.C.H." intervened to correct what he considered +the "dangerous spirit" of Lamb's essay, which said so little of the +hardships of the sweeps, but rather suggested that they were a happy +class. J.C.H. then put the case of the unhappy sweep with some +eloquence, urging upon all householders the claims of the mechanical +sweeping machine. + + * * * * * + +Page 130. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1822. + +The origin of this essay was the activity at that time of the Society +for the Suppression of Mendicity, founded in 1818, of which a Mr. W.H. +Bodkin was the Hon. Secretary. The Society's motto was "Benefacta male +collocata, malefacta existima;" and it attempted much the same work +now performed by the Charity Organisation Society. Perhaps the delight +expressed in its annual reports in the exposure of impostors was a +shade too hearty--at any rate one can see therein cause sufficient for +Lamb's counter-blast. Lamb was not the only critic of Mr. Bodkin's +zeal. Hood, in the _Odes and Addresses_, published in 1825, included a +remonstrance to Mr. Bodkin. + +The Society's activity led to a special commission of the House +of Commons in 1821 to inquire into the laws relating to vagrants, +concerning which Lamb speaks, the clergyman alluded to being Dr. +Henry Butts Owen, of Highgate. The result of the commission was an +additional stringency, brought about by Mr. George Chetwynd's bill. + +It was this essay, says Hood, which led to his acquaintance with +Charles Lamb. After its appearance in the _London Magazine_, of which +Hood was then sub-editor, he wrote Lamb a letter on coarse paper +purporting to come from a grateful beggar; Lamb did not admit the +discovery of the perpetrator of the joke, but soon afterwards Lamb +called on Hood when he was ill, and a friendship followed to which we +owe Hood's charming recollections of Lamb--among the best that were +written of him by any one. + +Page 131, line 14. _The Blind Beggar_. The reference is to the ballad +of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the _Percy +Reliques_ relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son +of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and +left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb had written "Earl of Flanders," which +he altered to "Earl of Cornwall" in _Elia_. The ballad says Earl of +Leicester. + +Page 131, line 28. _Dear Margaret Newcastle_. One of Lamb's recurring +themes of praise (see "The Two Races of Men," "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," and "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading"). +"Romancical," according to the _New English Dictionary_, is Lamb's own +word. This is the only reference given for it. + +Page 133, line 7. _Spital sermons_. On Monday of Easter week it was +the custom for the Christ's Hospital boys to walk in procession to the +Royal Exchange, and on Tuesday to the Mansion House; on each occasion +returning with the Lord Mayor to hear a special sermon--a spital +sermon, as it was called--and an anthem. The sermon is now preached +only on Easter Tuesday. + +Page 133, line 24. _Overseers of St. L----_. Lamb's Key states that +both the overseers and the mild rector were inventions. In the _London +Magazine_ the rector's parish is "P----." + +Page 133, line 27. _Vincent Bourne_. See Lamb's essay on Vincent +Bourne, Vol. I. This poem was translated by Lamb himself, and was +first published in _The Indicator_ for May 3, 1820. See Vol. IV. for +Lamb's other translations from Bourne. + +Page 135, line 2. _A well-known figure_. This beggar I take to be +Samuel Horsey. He is stated to have been known as the King of the +Beggars, and a very prominent figure in London. His mutilation is +ascribed to the falling of a piece of timber in Bow Lane, Cheapside, +some nineteen years before; but it may have been, as Lamb says, in the +Gordon Riots of 1780. + +There is the figure of Horsey on his little carriage, with several +other of the more notable beggars of the day plying their calling, +in an etching of old houses at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, made by J.T. Smith in 1789 for his _Ancient Topography of +London_, 1815. I give it in my large edition. + +Page 137, end of essay. _Feigned or not._ In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued thus:-- + + "'Pray God your honour relieve me,' said a poor beadswoman to my + friend L---- one day; 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I, my + good woman,' retorted he, looking up at the welkin which was just + then threatening a storm--and the jest (he will have it) was as + good to the beggar as a tester. + + "It was at all events kinder than consigning her to the stocks, or + the parish beadle-- + + "But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical light + on some occasions. + + "ELIA. + + "P.S.--My friend Hume (not MP.) has a curious manuscript in his + possession, the original draught of the celebrated 'Beggar's + Petition' (who cannot say by heart the 'Beggar's Petition?') as it + was written by some school usher (as I remember) with corrections + interlined from the pen of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the + doctor's improvement, I recollect one most judicious alteration-- + + "_A pamper'd menial drove me from the door._ + + "It stood originally-- + + "_A livery servant drove me, &c._ + + "Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly + substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against + Wordsworth. + + "I think I must get H. to send it to the LONDON, as a corollary to + the foregoing." + +The foregoing passage needs some commentary. Lamb's friend L---- was +Lamb himself. He tells the story to Manning in the letter of January +2,1810.--Lamb's friend Hume was Joseph Hume of the victualling office, +Somerset House, to whom letters from Lamb will be found in Mr. W.C. +Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900. Hume translated _The Inferno_ of +Dante into blank verse, 1812.--The "Beggar's Petition," a stock piece +for infant recitation a hundred years ago, was a poem beginning +thus:-- + + Pity the sorrows of a poor old man + Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, + Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; + Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. + +In the reference to Wordsworth Lamb pokes fun at the statement, in his +friend's preface to the second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, that +the purpose of that book was to relate or describe incidents and +situations from common life as far as possible in a selection of +language really used by men. + +Lamb's _P.S._ concerning the "Beggar's Petition" was followed in the +_London Magazine_ by this _N.B._:-- + + "N.B. I am glad to see JANUS veering about to the old quarter. I + feared he had been rust-bound. + + "C. being asked why he did not like Gold's 'London' as well as + ours--it was in poor S.'s time--replied-- + + "_--Because there is no WEATHERCOCK + And that's the reason why._" + +The explanation of this note is that "Janus Weathercock"--one of the +pseudonyms of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright--after a long absence from +its pages, had sent to the previous month's _London Magazine_, May, +1822, an amusing letter of criticism of that periodical, commenting on +some of its regular contributors. Therein he said: "Clap Elia on the +back for such a series of good behaviour."--Who C. is cannot be said; +possibly Lamb, as a joke, intends Coleridge to be indicated; but poor +S. would be John Scott, the first editor of the _London Magazine_, +who was killed in a duel. C.'s reply consisted of the last lines +of Wordsworth's "Anecdote for Fathers; or, Falsehood Corrected." +Accurately they run:-- + + At Kelve there was no weather-cock + And that's the reason why. + +The hero of this poem was a son of Lamb's friend Basil Montagu. + +Gold's _London Magazine_ was a contemporary of the better known London +magazine of the same name. In Vol. III. appeared an article entitled +"The Literary Ovation," describing an imaginary dinner-party given by +Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock & Joy in February, 1821, at which Lamb was +supposed to be present and to sing a song by Webster, one of his old +dramatists. Mr. Bertram Dobell conjectures that Wainewright may have +written this squib. + + * * * * * + +Page 137. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1822. + +There has been some discussion as to the origin of the central idea of +this essay. A resemblance is found in a passage in _The Turkish Spy_, +where, after describing the annual burnt-offering of a bull by the +Athenians, _The Spy_ continues:-- + + In process of time a certain priest, in the midst of his bloody + sacrifice, taking up a piece of the broiled flesh which had fallen + from the altar on the ground, and burning his fingers therewith, + suddenly clapt them to his mouth to mitigate the pain. But, when + he had once tasted the sweetness of the fat, not only longed for + more of it, but gave a piece to his assistant; and he to others; + who, all pleased with the new-found dainties, fell to eating of + flesh greedily. And hence this species of gluttony was taught to + other mortals. + + +"Este," a contributor to _Notes and Queries_, June 21, 1884, wrote:-- + + A quarto volume of forty-six pages, once in "Charles Lamb's + library" (according to a pencilled note in the volume) is before + me, entitled: _Gli Elogi del Porco, Capitoli Berneschi di Tigrinto + Bistonio P.A., E. Accademico Ducale de' Dissonanti di Modena. + In Modena per gli Eredi di Bartolmeo Soliani Stampatori Ducali + MDCCLXI. Con Licenza de' Superiori_, [wherein] some former owner + of the volume has copied out Lamb's prose with many exact verbal + resemblances from the poem. + +It has also been suggested that Porphyry's tract on _Abstinence from +Animal Food_, translated by William Taylor, bears a likeness to the +passage. Taylor's translation, however, was not published till 1823, +some time after Lamb's essay. + +These parallels merely go to show that the idea was a commonplace; at +the same time it is not Lamb, but Manning, who told him the story, +that must declare its origin. Not only in the essay, but in a letter +to Barton in March, 1823, does Lamb express his indebtedness to his +traveller friend. Allsop, indeed, in his _Letters of Coleridge_, +claims to give the Chinese story which Manning lent to Lamb and which +produced the "Dissertation." It runs thus:-- + + A child, in the early ages, was left alone by its mother in a + house in which was a pig. A fire took place; the child escaped, + the pig was burned. The child scratched and pottered among the + ashes for its pig, which at last it found. All the provisions + being burnt, the child was very hungry, and not yet having any + artificial aids, such as golden ewers and damask napkins, began to + lick or suck its fingers to free them from the ashes. A piece of + fat adhered to one of his thumbs, which, being very savoury alike + in taste and odour, he rightly judged to belong to the pig. Liking + it much, he took it to his mother, just then appearing, who also + tasted it, and both agreed that it was better than fruit or + vegetables. + + They rebuilt the house, and the woman, after the fashion of good + wives, who, says the chronicle, are now very scarce, put a pig + into it, and was about to set it on fire, when an old man, one + whom observation and reflection had made a philosopher, suggested + that a pile of wood would do as well. (This must have been the + father of economists.) The next pig was killed before it was + roasted, and thus + + "From low beginnings, + We date our winnings." + +Manning, by the way, contributed articles on Chinese jests to the _New +Monthly Magazine_ in 1826. + +A preliminary sketch of the second portion of this essay will be found +in the letter to Coleridge dated March 9, 1822. See also the letters +to Mr. and Mrs. Bruton, January 6, 1823, to Mrs. Collier, November 2, +1824, and to H. Dodwell, October 7, 1827, all in acknowledgment of +pigs sent to Lamb probably from an impulse found in this essay. + +Later, Lamb abandoned the extreme position here taken. In the little +essay entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," 1833 (see Vol. I.), he +says: "Time was, when Elia ... preferred to all a roasted pig. But he +disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future." + +Page 141, verse. "Ere sin could blight ..." From Coleridge's "Epitaph +on an Infant." + +Page 142, line 7 from foot. _My good old aunt_. Probably Aunt Hetty. +See the essay on "Christ's Hospital," for another story of her. The +phrase, "Over London Bridge," unless an invention, suggests that +before this aunt went to live with the Lambs--probably not until they +left the Temple in 1792--she was living on the Surrey side. But it was +possibly an Elian mystification. Lamb had another aunt, but of her we +know nothing. + +Page 143, line 11 from foot. _St. Omer's_. The French Jesuit College. +Lamb, it is unnecessary to say, was never there. + + * * * * * + +Page 144. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE. + +This is, by many years, the earliest of these essays. It was printed +first in _The Reflector_, No. IV., in 1811 or 1812. When Lamb brought +his _Works_ together, in 1818, he omitted it. In September, 1822, it +appeared in the _London Magazine_ as one of the reprints of Lamb's +earlier writings, of which the "Confessions of a Drunkard" (see Vol. +I.)was the first. In that number also appeared the "Dissertation upon +Roast Pig," thereby offering the reader an opportunity of comparing +Lamb's style in 1811 with his riper and richer style of 1822. The +germ of the essay must have been long in Lamb's mind, for we find him +writing to Hazlitt in 1805 concerning Mrs. Rickman: "A good-natured +woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, +whom you got acquainted with as a bachelor." + +Page 147, line 6. "_Love me, love my dog_." See "Popular Fallacies," +page 302, for an expansion of this paragraph. + + * * * * * + +Page 150. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS. + +In February, 1822, Lamb began a series of three articles in the +_London Magazine_ on "The Old Actors." The second was printed in April +and the third in October of the same year. Afterwards, in reprinting +them in _Elia_, he rearranged them into the essays, "On Some of the +Old Actors," "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "On +the Acting of Munden," omitting a considerable portion altogether. The +essay in its original tripart form will be found in the Appendix to +this volume. + +In one of his theatrical notices in _The Examiner_ (see Vol. I.) Lamb +remarks, "Defunct merit comes out upon us strangely," and certain +critics believe that he praised some of the old actors beyond their +deserts. But no one can regret any such excesses. + +Page 150, beginning. _Twelfth Night_. When recalling early playgoing +days in "Old China," Lamb refers again to this play--Viola in Illyria. + +Page 150, foot. _Whitfield, Packer, Benson, Burton, Phillimore_ and +_Barrymore_. Whitfield, who made his London début as Trueman in +"George Barnwell" about 1776, was a useful man at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--John Hayman Packer (1730-1806), known in Lamb's time for +his old men. He acted at Drury Lane until 1805.--Benson, who married a +sister of Mrs. Stephen Kemble, wrote one or two plays, and was a good +substitute in emergencies. He committed suicide during brain fever +in 1796.--Burton was a creditable utility actor at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--Phillimore filled small parts at Drury Lane.--Barrymore +was of higher quality, a favourite character actor both at Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. + +Page 151, line 6. _Mrs. Jordan_. Mrs. Jordan, born in 1762, ceased to +act in England in 1814 and died in 1816. Nell was her famous part, in +Coffey's "The Devil to Pay." Miss Hoyden is in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." +Lamb is referring to Viola in Act I., Scene 5, and Act II., Scene 4, +of "Twelfth Night." + +Page 151, line 8 from foot. _Mrs. Powel_. Mrs. Powel, previously known +as Mrs. Farmer, and afterwards Mrs. Renaud, was at Drury Lane from +1788 to 1811. She ended her London career in 1816 and died in 1829. + +Page 152, line 8. _Of all the actors_. The _London Magazine_ article +began at this point. Robert Bensley (1738?-1817?) was at Drury +Lane from 1775 to 1796, when he retired (alternating it with the +Haymarket). G.H. Boaden and George Colman both bear out Lamb's eulogy +of Bensley as Malvolio; but otherwise he is not the subject of much +praise. + +Page 152, line 15. _Venetian incendiary_. Pierre in Otway's "Venice +Preserved." Lamb appended the passage in a footnote in the _London +Magazine_. + +Page 153, line 12. _Baddeley ... Parsons ... John Kemble_. Robert +Baddeley (1733-1794), the husband of Mrs. Baddeley, and the original +Moses in the "School for Scandal." William Parsons (1736-1795), the +original Crabtree in the "School for Scandal," and a favourite actor +of Lamb's. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who managed Drury Lane from +1788 to 1801. + +Page 153, line 11 from foot. _Of birth and feeling_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 153, line 6 from foot. _Length of service_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 154, line 24. _House of misrule_. A long passage came here in the +_London Magazine_ (see page 317). + +Page 154, line 8 from foot. _Hero of La Mancha_. Compare a similar +analysis of Don Quixote's character on page 264. + +Page 155, line 23. _Dodd_. James William Dodd (1740?-1796). + +Page 155, line 24. _Lovegrove_. William Lovegrove (1778-1816), famous +in old comedy parts and as Peter Fidget in "The Boarding House." + +Page 155, foot. _The gardens of Gray's Inn._ These gardens are said to +have been laid out under the supervision of Bacon, who retained his +chambers in the Inn until his death. As Dodd died in 1796 and Lamb +wrote in 1822, it would be fully twenty-six years and perhaps more +since Lamb met him. + +Page 156, lines 26-29. _Foppington, etc._ Foppington in Vanbrugh's +"Relapse," Tattle in Congreve's "Love for Love," Backbite in +Sheridan's "School for Scandal," Acres in "The Rivals" by the same +author, and Fribble in Garrick's "Miss in her Teens." + +Page 157, line 13. _If few can remember._ The praise of Suett that +follows is interpolated here from the third part of Lamb's original +essay (see page 332). Richard Suett, who had been a Westminster +chorister (not St. Paul's), left the stage in June, 1805, and died in +July. + +Page 157, footnote, _Jem White_. See note above. + +Page 158, line 22. _His friend Mathews._ Charles Mathews (1776-1835), +whom Lamb knew. + +Page 159, line 1. _Jack Bannister._ John Bannister retired from the +stage in 1815. He died in 1836. + +Page 159, line 7. _Children in the Wood._ Morton's play, of which Lamb +was so fond. It is mentioned again in "Barbara S----" and "Old China." + +Page 159, line 19. _The elder Palmer._ The first part of the essay is +here resumed again. The elder Palmer was John Palmer, who died on the +stage, in 1798, when playing in "The Stranger." Lamb's remarks tend +to confuse him with Gentleman Palmer, who died before Lamb was born. +Robert Palmer, John's brother, died about 1805. + +Page 159, line 22. _Moody_. John Moody (1727?-1812), famous as Teague +in "The Committee." + +Page 159, lines 31 to 36. _The Duke's Servant, etc._ The Duke's +servant in Garrick's "High Life below Stairs," Captain Absolute in +Sheridan's "Rivals," Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's "Confederacy." + +Page 160, line 1. _Young Wilding ... Joseph Surface._ In Foote's +"Liar" and Sheridan's "School for Scandal." + + * * * * * + +Page 161. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors." + +See also "A Vision of Horns" (Vol. I.) for, as it seems to me, a +whimsical extension to the point of absurdity of the theory expressed +in this essay--a theory which Lord Macaulay, in his review of Leigh +Hunt's edition of the Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, etc., in +1840, opposed with characteristic vigour. + +Hartley Coleridge, in a letter to Edward Moxon concerning Leigh Hunt's +edition of Wycherley and Congreve, happily remarked: "Nothing more or +better can be said in defence of these writers than what Lamb has said +in his delightful essay ... which is, after all, rather an apology for +the audiences who applauded and himself who delighted in their plays, +than for the plays themselves.... But Lamb always took things by the +better handle." + +Page 163, line 16. _The Fainalls, etc_. Fainall in Congreve's "Way +of the World," Mirabel in Farquhar's "Inconstant," Dorimant in +Etheredge's "Man of Mode," and Lady Touchstone in Congreve's "Double +Dealer." + +Page 163, line 12 from foot. _Angelica_. In "Love for Love." + +Page 164, line 26, etc. _Sir Simon, etc_. All these characters are in +Wycherley's "Love in a Wood." + +Page 166, line 21. _King_. Thomas King (1730-1805), at one time +manager of Drury Lane, the original Sir Peter Teazle, on May 8, 1777, +the first night of the "School for Scandal," and the most famous actor +in the part until he retired in 1802. + +Page 167, line 14. _Miss Pope_. Jane Pope (1742-1818), the original +Mrs. Candour, left the stage in 1808. + +Page 167, line 15 from foot. _Manager's comedy_. Sheridan was manager +of Drury Lane when the "School for Scandal" was produced. + +Page 167, same line. _Miss Farren ... Mrs. Abingdon_. Elizabeth +Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, played Lady Teazle for the last +time in 1797. Mrs. Abingdon had retired from Drury Lane in 1782. + +Page 167, line 10 from foot. _Smith_. "Gentleman" Smith took his +farewell of the stage, as Charles Surface, in 1788. + +Page 168, end of essay. _Fashionable tragedy_. See page 328, line 21, +for the continuation of this essay in the _London Magazine_. + + * * * * * + +Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors" above. Lamb lifted +this essay into the _London Magazine_ from _The Examiner_, where it +had appeared on November 7 and 8, 1819, with slight changes. + +Page 168, title. _Munden_. Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832) acted at +Covent Garden practically continuously from 1790 to 1811. He moved +to Drury Lane in 1813, and remained there till the end. His farewell +performance was on May 31, 1824. We know Lamb to have met Munden from +Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_. + +Page 168, line 2 of essay. _Cockletop_. In O'Keeffe's farce "Modern +Antiques." This farce is no longer played, although a skilful hand +might, I think, make it attractive to our audiences. Barry Cornwall in +his memoir of Lamb has a passage concerning Munden as Cockletop, which +helps to support Lamb's praise. Support is not necessary, but useful; +it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live +only in the praise of his critics. + + In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed + him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of + the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor. + Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary + credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an + almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people + around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon. + What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial + visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true. + The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial + nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's + tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it. + "What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands + a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern + gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit + ditties of no tone;" and you imagine Æolian strains. At last, + William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat + him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the + scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of + acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap + of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and + solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning + himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and + enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he + tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and + finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly, + and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear + the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you + tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile, + and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint + in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several + times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of + Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that + archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the + son of Hagar, wandered about the Judæan deserts and became an + archer. + +Page 169, line 16. _Edwin_. This would probably be John Edwin the +Elder (1749-1790). But John Edwin the Younger (1768-1805) might have +been meant. He was well known in Nipperkin, one of Munden's parts. + +Page 169, line 21. _Farley...Knight...Liston_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), mainly known as the deviser of Covent Garden pantomimes; +Edward Knight (1774-1826), an eccentric little comedian; John Listen +(1776?-1846), whose mock biography Lamb wrote (see Vol. I.). + +Page 169, line 7 from foot. _Sir Christopher Curry...Old Dornton_. Sir +Christopher in "Inkle and Yarico," by the younger Colman; Old Dornton +in Holcroft's "Road to Ruin." + +Page 170, line 6. _The Cobbler of Preston_. A play, founded on "The +Taming of the Shrew," by Charles Johnson, written in 1716. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + + +Page 171. PREFACE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823, where it was entitled "A Character +of the late Elia. By a Friend." Signed Phil-Elia. Lamb did not reprint +it for ten years, and then with certain omissions. + +In the _London Magazine_ the "Character" began thus:-- + + "A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA + + "BY A FRIEND + + "This gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining + way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. He just + lived long enough (it was what he wished) to see his papers + collected into a volume. The pages of the LONDON MAGAZINE will + henceforth know him no more. + + "Exactly at twelve last night his queer spirit departed, and + the bells of Saint Bride's rang him out with the old year. The + mournful vibrations were caught in the dining-room of his friends + T. and H.; and the company, assembled there to welcome in another + First of January, checked their carousals in mid-mirth and were + silent. Janus wept. The gentle P----r, in a whisper, signified his + intention of devoting an Elegy; and Allan C----, nobly forgetful + of his countrymen's wrongs, vowed a Memoir to his _manes_, full + and friendly as a Tale of Lyddal-cross." + +_Elia_ had just been published when this paper appeared, and it was +probably Lamb's serious intention to stop the series. He was, however, +prevailed to continue. T. and H. were Taylor & Hessey, the owners of +the _London Magazine_. Janus was Janus Weathercock, Thomas Griffiths +Wainewright; P----r was Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, who +afterwards wrote Lamb's life, and Allan C---- was Allan Cunningham, +who called himself "Nalla" in the _London Magazine_. "The Twelve Tales +of Lyddal Cross" ran serially in the magazine in 1822. + +Page 171, line 9 from foot. _A former Essay_. In the _London Magazine_ +"his third essay," referring to "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty +Years Ago." + +Page 172, line 7. _My late friend_. The opening sentences of this +paragraph seem to have been deliberately modelled, as indeed is the +whole essay, upon Sterne's character of Yorick in _Tristram Shandy_, +Vol. I., Chapter XI. + +Page 172, line 12 from foot. _It was hit or miss with him_. Canon +Ainger has pointed out that Lamb's description of himself in +company is corroborated by Hazlitt in his essay "On Coffee-House +Politicians":-- + + I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in + the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company + he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom + it may be said, _Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your + manners_. He is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever + opinion you seem to entertain of him. He cannot outgo the + apprehensions of the circle; and invariably acts up or down to + the point of refinement or vulgarity at which they pitch him. He + appears to take a pleasure in exaggerating the prejudices of + strangers against him; a pride in confirming the prepossessions + of friends. In whatever scale of intellect he is placed, he is as + lively or as stupid as the rest can be for their lives. If you + think him odd and ridiculous, he becomes more and more so every + minute, _à la folie_, till he is a wonder gazed at by all--set him + against a good wit and a ready apprehension, and he brightens more + and more ... + +P.G. Patmore's testimony is also corroborative:-- + + To those who did not know him, or, knowing, did not or could + not appreciate him, Lamb often passed for something between an + imbecile, a brute, and a buffoon; and the first impression he made + on ordinary people was always unfavourable--sometimes to a violent + and repulsive degree. + +Page 174, line 3. _Some of his writings_. In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued:-- + + "He left property behind him. Of course, the little that is left + (chiefly in India bonds) devolves upon his cousin Bridget. A few + critical dissertations were found in his escritoire, which have + been handed over to the Editor of this Magazine, in which it is + to be hoped they will shortly appear, retaining his accustomed + signature. + + "He has himself not obscurely hinted that his employment lay in a + public office. The gentlemen in the Export department of the East + India House will forgive me, if I acknowledge the readiness with + which they assisted me in the retrieval of his few manuscripts. + They pointed out in a most obliging manner the desk at which he + had been planted for forty years; showed me ponderous tomes of + figures, in his own remarkably neat hand, which, more properly + than his few printed tracts, might be called his 'Works.' They + seemed affectionate to his memory, and universally commended his + expertness in book-keeping. It seems he was the inventor of some + ledger, which should combine the precision and certainty of the + Italian double entry (I think they called it) with the brevity + and facility of some newer German system--but I am not able to + appreciate the worth of the discovery. I have often heard him + express a warm regard for his associates in office, and how + fortunate he considered himself in having his lot thrown + in amongst them. There is more sense, more discourse, more + shrewdness, and even talent, among these clerks (he would say) + than in twice the number of authors by profession that I have + conversed with. He would brighten up sometimes upon the 'old + days of the India House,' when he consorted with Woodroffe, and + Wissett, and Peter Corbet (a descendant and worthy representative, + bating the point of sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet), and + Hoole who translated Tasso, and Bartlemy Brown whose father (God + assoil him therefore) modernised Walton--and sly warm-hearted old + Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those days), and Campe, + and Fombelle--and a world of choice spirits, more than I can + remember to name, who associated in those days with Jack Burrell + (the _bon vivant_ of the South Sea House), and little Eyton (said + to be a _facsimile_ of Pope--he was a miniature of a gentleman) + that was cashier under him, and Dan Voight of the Custom House + that left the famous library. + + "Well, Elia is gone--for aught I know, to be reunited with + them--and these poor traces of his pen are all we have to show for + it. How little survives of the wordiest authors! Of all they said + or did in their lifetime, a few glittering words only! His Essays + found some favourers, as they appeared separately; they shuffled + their way in the crowd well enough singly; how they will _read_, + now they are brought together, is a question for the publishers, + who have thus ventured to draw out into one piece his 'weaved-up + follies.' + + "PHIL-ELIA." + +This passage calls for some remark. Cousin Bridget was, of course, +Mary Lamb.--Lamb repeated the joke about his _Works_ in his +"Autobiography" (see Vol. I.) and in "The Superannuated Man."--Some +record of certain of the old clerks mentioned by Lamb still remains; +but I can find nothing of the others. Whether or not Peter Corbet +really derived from the Bishop we do not know, but the facetious +Bishop Corbet was Richard Corbet (1582-1635), Bishop of Oxford and +Norwich, whose conviviality was famous and who wrote the "Fairies' +Farewell." John Hoole (1727-1803), who translated Tasso and wrote the +life of Scott of Amwell and a number of other works, was principal +auditor at the end of his time at the India House. He retired about +1785, when Lamb was ten years old. Writing to Coleridge on January 5, +1797, Lamb speaks of Hoole as "the great boast and ornament of the +India House," and says that he found Tasso, in Hoole's translation, +"more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared." The moderniser +of Walton would be Moses Browne (1704-1787), whose edition of _The +Complete Angler_, 1750, was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. +Johnson. + + * * * * * + +Page 174. BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE + +_London Magazine_, September, 1824. + +With this essay Lamb made his reappearance in the magazine, after +eight months' absence. + +By Blakesmoor Lamb meant Blakesware, the manor-house near Widford, in +Hertfordshire, where his grandmother, Mary Field, had been housekeeper +for many years. Compare the essay "Dream-Children." + +Blakesware, which was built by Sir Francis Leventhorpe about 1640, +became the property of the Plumers in 1683, being then purchased by +John Plumer, of New Windsor, who died in 1718. It descended to William +Plumer, M.P. for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, and afterwards for +Hertfordshire, who died in 1767, and was presumably Mrs. Field's first +employer. His widow and the younger children remained at Blakesware +until Mrs. Plumer's death in 1778, but the eldest son, William Plumer, +moved at once to Gilston, a few miles east of Blakesware, a mansion +which for a long time was confused with Blakesware by commentators on +Lamb. This William Plumer, who was M.P. for Lewes, for Hertfordshire, +and finally for Higham Ferrers, and a governor of Christ's Hospital, +kept up Blakesware after his mother's death in 1778 (when Lamb was +three) exactly as before, but it remained empty save for Mrs. Field +and the servants under her. Mrs. Field became thus practically +mistress of it, as Lamb says in "Dream-Children." Hence the increased +happiness of her grandchildren when they visited her. Mrs. Field died +in 1792, when Lamb was seventeen. William Plumer died in 1822, aged +eighty-six, having apparently arranged with his widow, who continued +at Gilston, that Blakesware should be pulled down--a work of +demolition which at once was begun. This lady, _née_ Jane Hamilton, +afterwards married a Mr. Lewin, and then, in 1828, Robert Ward +(1765-1846), author of _Tremaine_ and other novels, who took the name +of Plumer-Ward, and may be read of, together with curious details of +Gilston House, in P.G. Patmore's _My Friends and Acquaintances_. + +Nothing now remains but a few mounds, beneath which are bricks and +rubble. The present house is a quarter of a mile behind the old +one, high on the hill. In Lamb's day this hillside was known as the +Wilderness, and where now is turf were formal walks with clipped yew +hedges and here and there a statue. The stream of which he speaks is +the Ashe, running close by the walls of the old house. Standing there +now, among the trees which mark its site, it is easy to reconstruct +the past as described in the essay. + +The Twelve Cæsars, the tapestry and other more notable possessions of +Blakesware, although moved to Gilston on the demolition of Blakesware, +are there no longer, and their present destination is a mystery. +Gilston was pulled down in 1853, following upon a sale by auction, +when all its treasures were dispersed. Some, I have discovered, +were bought by the enterprising tenant of the old Rye House Inn +at Broxbourne, but absolute identification of anything now seems +impossible. + +Blakesware is again described in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in Mary +Lamb's story of "The Young Mahometan." There the Twelve Cæsars are +spoken of as hanging on the wall, as if they were medallions; but Mr. +E.S. Bowlby tells me that he perfectly remembers the Twelve Cæsars at +Gilston, about 1850, as busts, just as Lamb says. In "Rosamund Gray" +(see Vol. I.) Lamb describes the Blakesware wilderness. See also notes +to "The Last Peach," Vol. I., to "Dream-Children" in this volume, and +to "Going or Gone," Vol. IV. + +Lamb has other references to Blakesware and the irrevocability of his +happiness there as a child, in his letters. Writing to Southey on +October 31, 1799, he says:--"Dear Southey,--I have but just got +your letter, being returned from Herts, where I have passed a few +red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to +you, as you have done by Devonshire; but alas! I am a poor pen at that +same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bedroom, the +'Judgment of Solomon' composing one pannel, and 'Actæon spying Diana +naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's +prints, and the Roman Cæsars in marble hung round. I could tell of +a _wilderness_, and of a village church, and where the bones of my +honoured grandam lie; but there are feelings which refuse to be +translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised in another +soil. Of this nature are old family faces, and scenes of infancy." + +And again, to Bernard Barton, in August, 1827:--"You have well +described your old-fashioned grand paternall Hall. Is it not odd that +every one's earliest recollections are of some such place. I had my +Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the 'London'). Nothing fills a child's mind +like a large old Mansion ... better if un- or partially-occupied; +peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the County and +Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of +one, with my feelings at 7 years old! + +"Those marble busts of the Emperors, they seem'd as if they were to +stand for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in +that old Marble Hall, and I to partake of their permanency; Eternity +was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are +toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old Dwelling and +its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about +the grounds escaped his scythe only by my littleness. Ev'n now he is +whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. +Well!" + +Writing to Barton in August, 1824, concerning the present essay, Lamb +describes it as a "futile effort ... 'wrung from me with slow pain'." + +Page 175, line 15 from foot. _Mrs. Battle_. There was a haunted room +at Blakesware, but the suggestion that the famous Mrs. Battle died +in it was probably due to a sudden whimsical impulse. Lamb states in +"Dream-Children" that Mrs. Field occupied this room. + +Page 177, line 22. _The hills of Lincoln_. See Lamb's sonnet "On the +Family Name," Vol. IV. Lamb's father came from Lincoln. + +Page 177, line 11 from foot. _Those old W----s_. Lamb thus disguised +the name of Plumer. He could not have meant Wards, for Robert Ward did +not marry William Plumer's widow till four years after this essay was +printed. + +Page 178, line 2. _My Alice_. See notes to "Dream-Children." + +Page 178, line 2. _Mildred Elia, I take it_. Alter these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "From her, and from my passion for her--for I first learned love + from a picture--Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical + lines, which thou mayst see, if haply thou hast never seen them, + Reader, in the margin.[1] But my Mildred grew not old, like the + imaginery Helen." + +This ballad, written in gentle ridicule of Lamb's affection for the +Blakesware portrait, and Mary Lamb's first known poem, was printed in +the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, and in the _Works_, 1818. + +[Footnote 1: + "High-born Helen, round your dwelling, + These twenty years I've paced in vain: + Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty + Hath been to glory in his pain. + + "High-born Helen, proudly telling + Stories of thy cold disdain; + I starve, I die, now you comply, + And I no longer can complain. + + "These twenty years I've lived on tears, + Dwelling for ever on a frown; + On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; + I perish now you kind are grown. + + "Can I, who loved ray beloved + But for the scorn 'was in her eye,' + Can I be moved for my beloved, + When she returns me sigh for sigh? + + "In stately pride, by my bedside, + High-born Helen's portrait hung; + Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays + Are nightly to the portrait sung. + + "To that I weep, nor ever sleep, + Complaining all night long to her.-- + Helen, grown old, no longer cold, + Said--'you to all men I prefer.'"] + + * * * * * + +Page 178. POOR RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1823. + +Page 179, line 10. _A pound of sweet._ After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came one more descriptive clause--"the bore _par +excellence_." + +Page 181, line 4, _Richard Amlet, Esq._ In "The Confederacy" by Sir +John Vanbrugh--a favourite part of John Palmer's (see the essay "On +Some of the Old Actors"). + +Page 181, line 16. _Poor W----_. In the Key Lamb identifies W---- with +Favell, who "left Cambridge because he was asham'd of his father, who +was a house-painter there." Favell has already been mentioned in the +essay on "Christ's Hospital." + +Page 183, line 22. _At Lincoln._ The Lambs, as we have seen, came from +Lincolnshire. The old feud between the Above and Below Boys seems now +to have abated, but a social gulf between the two divisions of the +city remains. + +Page 184, line 11 from foot. _John Billet_. Probably not the real +name. Lamb gives the innkeeper at Widford, in "Rosamund Gray," the +name of Billet, when it was really Clemitson. + + * * * * * + +Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was entitled "Imperfect +Dramatic Illusion." + +This was, I think, Lamb's last contribution to the _London_, which had +been growing steadily heavier and less hospitable to gaiety. Some one, +however, contributed to it from time to time papers more or less in +the Elian manner. There had been one in July, 1825, on the Widow +Fairlop, a lady akin to "The Gentle Giantess." In September, 1825, was +an essay entitled "The Sorrows of ** ***" (an ass), which might, +both from style and sympathy, be almost Lamb's; but was, I think, by +another hand. And in January, 1826, there was an article on whist, +with quotations from Mrs. Battle, deliberately derived from her +creator. These and other essays are printed in Mr. Bertram Dobell's +_Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903, with interesting comments. + +The present essay to some extent continues the subject treated of in +"The Artificial Comedy," but it may be taken also as containing some +of the matter of the promised continuation of the essay "On the +Tragedies of Shakspeare," which was to deal with the comic characters +of that dramatist (see Vol. I.). + +Page 185, line 15 from foot. _Jack Bannister_. See notes to the essay +on "The Old Actors." His greatest parts were not those of cowards; but +his Bob Acres was justly famous. Sir Anthony Absolute and Tony Lumpkin +were perhaps his chief triumphs. He left the stage in 1815. + +Page 186, line 24. _Gatty_. Henry Gattie (1774-1844), famous for +old-man parts, notably Monsieur Morbleu in Moncrieffs "Monsieur +Tonson." He was also the best Dr. Caius, in "The Merry Wives of +Windsor," of his time. He left the stage in 1833, and settled down as +a tobacconist and raconteur at Oxford. + +Page 186, line 30. _Mr. Emery._ John Emery (1777-1822), the best +impersonator of countrymen in his day. Zekiel Homespun in Colman's +"Heir at Law" was one of his great parts. Tyke was in Morton's "School +of Reform," produced in 1805, and no one has ever played it so well. +He also played Caliban with success. + +Page 187, line 4 from foot. _A very judicious actor._ This actor +I have not identified. Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843) was a dashing +comedian, a Wyndham of his day. In "Free and Easy" he played Sir John +Freeman. + + * * * * * + +Page 188. To THE SHADE OF ELLISTON. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831, where it formed, with the +following essay, one article, under the title "Reminiscences of +Elliston." + +Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), actor and manager, famous for his +stage lovers, both in comedy and tragedy. His Charles Surface was said +to be unequalled, and both in Hotspur and Hamlet he was great. His +last performance was in June, 1831, a very short time before his +death. + +Page 189, line 7. _Thin ghosts._ In the _London Magazine_ the passage +ran:-- + + "Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) admire, while + with uplifted toe retributive you inflict vengeance incorporeal + upon the shadowy rear of obnoxious author, just arrived:-- + + "'what _seem'd_ his tail + The likeness of a kingly kick had on. + * * * * * + "'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout + Vital in every part, not as frail man + In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, + Can in the liquid texture mortal wound + Receive no more, than can the liquid air, + All heart they live, all head, all eye.'" + +Page 189, line 11 from foot. _À la Foppington_. In Vanbrugh's +"Relapse." + +In the _Englishman's Magazine_ the article ended, after "Plaudito, et +Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive at +his d----n." + +The article was signed Mr. H., the point being that Elliston had +played Mr. H. at Drury Lane in Lamb's unlucky farce of that name in +1806. + + * * * * * + +Page 190. ELLISTONIANA. + +See note at the head of "To the Shade of Elliston," above. + +Page 190, line 3 of essay. _My first introduction._ This paragraph was +a footnote in the _Englishman's Magazine_. Elliston, according to +the _Memoirs_ of him by George Raymond, which have Lamb's phrase, +"Joyousest of once embodied spirits," for motto, opened a circulating +library at Leamington in the name of his sons William and Henry, and +served there himself at times. + +Possibly Lamb was visiting Charles Chambers at Leamington when he saw +Elliston. That he did see him there we know from Raymond's book, where +an amusing occurrence is described, illustrating Munden's frugality. +It seems that Lamb, Elliston and Munden drove together to Warwick +Castle. On returning Munden stopped the carriage just outside +Leamington, on the pretext that he had to make a call on an old +friend--a regular device, as Elliston explained, to avoid being +present at the inn when the hire of the carriage was paid. + +Page 191, line 11. _Wrench_. See notes to "The Old Actors." Wrench +succeeded Elliston at Bath, and played in the same parts, and with +something of the same manner. + +Page 191, line 11 from foot. _Appelles ... G.D._ Apelles, painter to +Alexander the Great, was said to let no day pass without experimenting +with his pencil. G.D. was George Dyer, whom we first met in "Oxford in +the Vacation." + +Page 192, line 6. _Ranger_. In Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," one of +Elliston's great parts. + +Page 192, line 17 from foot. _Cibber_. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), the +actor, who was a very vain man, created the part of Foppington in +1697--his first great success. + +Page 192, last line. _St. Dunstan's ... punctual giants._ Old St. +Dunstan Church, in Fleet Street, had huge figures which struck the +hours, and which disappeared with the church, pulled down to make room +for the present one some time before 1831. They are mentioned in Emily +Barton's story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.). Moxon +records that Lamb shed tears when the figures were taken away. + +Page 193, line 6. _Drury Lane_. Drury Lane opened, under Elliston's +management, on October 4, 1819, with "Wild Oats," in which he played +Rover. He left the theatre, a bankrupt, in 1826. + +Page 193, line 19. _The ... Olympic._ Lamb is wrong in his dates. +Elliston's tenancy of the Olympic preceded his reign at Drury Lane. +It was to the Surrey that he retired after the Drury Lane period, +producing there Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan" in 1829. + +Page 193, line 12 from foot. _Sir A---- C----_. Sir Anthony Carlisle +(see note to "A Quakers' Meeting"). + +Page 194, line 7. _A Vestris_. Madame Vestris (1797-1856), the great +comédienne, who was one of Elliston's stars at Drury Lane. + +Page 195, line 6. _Latinity_. Elliston was buried in St. John's +Church, Waterloo Road, and a marble slab with a Latin inscription +by Nicholas Torre, his son-in-law, is on the wall. Elliston was the +nephew of Dr. Elliston, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, +who sent him to St. Paul's School--not, however, that founded by +Colet--but to St. Paul's School, Covent Garden. He was intended for +the Church. + + * * * * * + +Page 195. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1822, where, at the end, were the words, "To +be continued;" but Lamb did not return to the topic. + +For some curious reason Lamb passed over this essay when collecting +_Elia_ for the press. It was not republished till 1833, in the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 195, motto. _The Relapse_. The comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. +Lamb liked this quotation. He uses it in his letter about William +Wordsworth, junior, to Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25, 1819; and +again in his "Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 195, foot. _I can read any thing which I call a book_. Writing to +Wordsworth in August, 1815, Lamb says: "What any man can write, surely +I may read." + +Page 195, last line. _Pocket Books_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added in parenthesis "the literary excepted," the reference being to +the _Literary Pocket Book_ which Leigh Hunt brought out annually from +1819 to 1822. + +Page 196, line 2. _Hume ... Jenyns_. Hume would be David Hume +(1711-1776), the philosopher and historian of England; Edward Gibbon +(1737-1794), historian of Rome; William Robertson, D.D. (1721-1793), +historian of America, Charles V., Scotland and India; James Beattie +(1735-1803), author of "The Minstrel" and a number of essays, who +had, however, one recommendation to Lamb, of which Lamb may have been +unaware--he loved Vincent Bourne's poems and was one of the first +to praise them; and Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), author of _The Art +of Dancing_, and the _Inquiry into Evil_ which Johnson reviewed so +mercilessly. It is stated in Moore's _Diary_, according to Procter, +that Lamb "excluded from his library Robertson, Gibbon and Hume, +and made instead a collection of the works of the heroes of _The +Dunciad_." + +Page 196, line 14. _Population Essay_. That was the day of population +essays. Malthus's _Essay on Population_, 1798, had led to a number of +replies. + +Page 196, line 22. _My ragged veterans_. Crabb Robinson recorded in +his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he +ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, +I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My +Books" in _The Literary Examiner_, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's library +had + + an handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a + selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;--now + a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas + Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old + English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are + "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline + of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old + Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: + there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, + Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir + Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high + fantastical" Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, + is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to + trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids. + +It is in the same essay that Leigh Hunt mentions that he once saw +Lamb kiss an old folio--Chapman's Homer--the work he paraphrased for +children under the title _The Adventures of Ulysses_. + +Page 197, line 15. _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_. Lamb's copy, a +folio containing also the "Philosophical Letters," is in America. + +Page 197, line 20. _Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton_... I cannot say +where are Lamb's copies of Sidney and Fuller; but the British Museum +has his Milton, rich in MS. notes, a two-volume edition, 1751. The +Taylor, which Lamb acquired in 1798, is the 1678 folio _Sermons_. I +cannot say where it now is. + +Page 197, line 26. _Shakspeare_. Lamb's Shakespeare was not sold at +the sale of his library; only a copy of the _Poems_, 12mo, 1714. +His annotated copy of the _Poems_, 1640, is in America. There is a +reference to one of Rowe's plates in the essay "My First Play." The +Shakespeare gallery engravings were the costly series of illustrations +to Shakespeare commissioned by John Boydell (1719-1804), Lord Mayor of +London in 1790. The pictures were exhibited in the Shakespeare Gallery +in Pall Mall, and the engravings were published in 1802. + +After the word "Shakespeare," in the _London Magazine_, came the +sentence: "You cannot make a _pet_ book of an author whom everybody +reads." + +In a letter to Wordsworth, February 1, 1806, Lamb says: "Shakespear is +one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just +before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book." In the same letter +he says of binding: "The Law Robe I have ever thought as comely and +gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear." + +Page 197, line 7 from foot. _Beaumont and Fletcher._ See note to "The +Two Races of Men" for an account of Lamb's copy, now in the British +Museum. + +Page 197, line 5 from foot. _No sympathy with them._ After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came, "nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben +Jonson." This edition by Lamb's old enemy, William Gifford, editor of +the _Quarterly_, was published in 1816. Lamb's copy of Ben Jonson was +dated 1692, folio. It is now in America, I believe. + +Page 197, foot. _The reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy_. This +reprint was, I think, published in 1800, in two volumes, marked ninth +edition. Lamb's copy was dated 1621, quarto. I do not know where it +now is. + +Page 198, line 4. _Malone_. This was Edmund Malone (1741-1812), the +critic and editor of Shakespeare, who in 1793 persuaded the Vicar of +Stratford-on-Avon to whitewash the coloured bust of the poet in the +chancel. A _Gentleman's Magazine_ epigrammatist, sharing Lamb's view, +wrote:-- + + Stranger, to whom this monument is shown, + Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone; + Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays, + And daubs his tombstone, as he mars his plays. + +Lamb has been less than fair to Malone. To defend his action in the +matter of the bust of Shakespeare is impossible, except by saying that +he acted in good faith and according to the fashion of his time. But +he did great service to the fame of Shakespeare and thus to English +literature, and was fearless and shrewd in his denunciation of the +impostor Ireland. + +Page 198, line 26. _The Fairy Queen_. Lamb's copy was a folio, 1617, +12, 17, 13. Against Canto XI., Stanza 32, he has written: "Dear Venom, +this is the stave I wot of. I will maintain it against any in the +book." + +Page 199, line 14. _Nando's_. A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the +east corner of Inner Temple Lane, and thus at one time close to Lamb's +rooms. + +Page 199, line 16. "_The Chronicle is in hand, Sir._" In the _London +Magazine_ the following paragraph was here inserted:-- + + "As in these little Diurnals I generally skip the Foreign News, + the Debates--and the Politics--I find the Morning Herald by far + the most entertaining of them. It is an agreeable miscellany, + rather than a newspaper." + +The _Morning Herald_, under Alexander Chalmers, had given more +attention to social gossip than to affairs of State; but under Thomas +Wright it suddenly, about the time of Lamb's essay, became politically +serious and left aristocratic matters to the _Morning Post_. + +Page 199, line 20. _Town and Country Magazine_. This magazine +flourished between 1769 and 1792. + +Page 199, line 26. _Poor Tobin_. Possibly John Tobin (1770-1804), the +playwright, though I think not. More probably the Tobin mentioned in +Lamb's letter to Wordsworth about "Mr. H." in June, 1806 (two years +after John Tobin's death), to whom Lamb read the manager's letter +concerning the farce. This would be James, John Tobin's brother. + +Page 200, line 13. _The five points_. After these words came, in the +_London Magazine_, the following paragraph:-- + + "I was once amused--there is a pleasure in _affecting_ + affectation--at the indignation of a crowd that was justling in + with me at the pit-door of Covent Garden theatre, to have a sight + of Master Betty--then at once in his dawn and his meridian--in + Hamlet. I had been invited quite unexpectedly to join a party, + whom I met near the door of the playhouse, and I happened to have + in my hand a large octavo of Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, + which, the time not admitting of my carrying it home, of course + went with me to the theatre. Just in the very heat and pressure + of the doors opening--the _rush_, as they term it--I deliberately + held the volume over my head, open at the scene in which the young + Roscius had been most cried up, and quietly read by the lamplight. + The clamour became universal. 'The affectation of the fellow,' + cried one. 'Look at that gentleman _reading_, papa,' squeaked a + young lady, who in her admiration of the novelty almost forgot her + fears. I read on. 'He ought to have his book knocked out of his + hand,' exclaimed a pursy cit, whose arms were too fast pinioned to + his side to suffer him to execute his kind intention. Still I read + on--and, till the time came to pay my money, kept as unmoved, + as Saint Antony at his Holy Offices, with the satyrs, apes, and + hobgoblins, mopping, and making mouths at him, in the picture, + while the good man sits undisturbed at the sight, as if he were + sole tenant of the desart.--The individual rabble (I recognised + more than one of their ugly faces) had damned a slight piece of + mine but a few nights before, and I was determined the culprits + should not a second time put me out of countenance." + +Master Betty was William Henry West Betty (1791-1874), known as the +"Young Roscius," whose Hamlet and Douglas sent playgoers wild in +1804-5-6. Pitt, indeed, once adjourned the House in order that his +Hamlet might be witnessed. His most cried-up scenes in "Hamlet" were +the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, and the fencing scene before the +king and his mother. The piece of Lamb's own which had been hissed +was, of course, "Mr. H.," produced on December 10, 1806; but very +likely he added this reference as a symmetrical afterthought, for he +would probably have visited Master Betty much earlier in his career, +that phenomenon's first appearance at Covent Garden being two years +before the advent of the ill-fated Hogsflesh. + +Page 200, line 22. _Martin B----_. Martin Charles Burney, son of +Admiral Burney, and a lifelong friend of the Lambs--to whom Lamb +dedicated the prose part of his _Works_ in 1818 (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 200, line 28. _A quaint poetess_. Mary Lamb. The poem is in +_Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. III. of this edition). In line +17 the word "then" has been inserted by Lamb. The punctuation also +differs from that of the _Poetry for Children_. + + * * * * * + +Page 201. THE OLD _MARGATE HOY_. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1823. This, like others of Lamb's essays, was +translated into French and published in the _Revue Britannique_ in +1833. It was prefaced by the remark: "L'auteur de cette délicieuse +esquisse est Charles Lamb, connu sous le nom d'Eliah." + +Page 201, beginning. _I have said so before._ See "Oxford in the +Vacation." + +Page 201, line 5 of essay. _My beloved Thames._ Lamb describes a +riparian holiday at and about Richmond in a letter to Robert Lloyd in +1804. + +Page 201, line 8 of essay. _Worthing_... There is no record of the +Lambs' sojourn at Worthing or Eastbourne. They were at Brighton in +1817, and Mary Lamb at any rate enjoyed walking on the Downs there; in +a letter to Miss Wordsworth of November 21, 1817, she described them +as little mountains, _almost as good as_ Westmoreland scenery. They +were at Hastings--at 13 Standgate Street--in 1823 (see Lamb's letters +to Bernard Barton, July 10, 1823, to Hood, August 10, 1824, and to +Dibdin, June, 1826). The only evidence that we have of Lamb knowing +Worthing is his "Mr. H.". That play turns upon the name Hogsflesh, +afterwards changed to Bacon. The two chief innkeepers at Worthing at +the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of its prosperity +were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, and there was a rhyme concerning them +which was well known (see notes to "Mr. H." in Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 11 of essay. _Many years ago_. A little later Lamb says +he was then fifteen. This would make the year 1790. It was probably on +this visit to Margate that Lamb conceived the idea of his sonnet, "O, +I could laugh," which Coleridge admired so much (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 17 of essay. _Thou old Margate Hoy_. This old +sailing-boat gave way to a steam-boat, the _Thames_, some time after +1815. The _Thames_, launched in 1815, was the first true steam-boat +the river had seen. The old hoy, or lighter, was probably sloop +rigged. + +Page 202, foot. _Our enemies_. Lamb refers here to the attacks of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ on the Cockneys, among whom he himself had been +included. In the _London Magazine_ he had written "unfledged" for +"unseasoned." + +Page 206, line 14. _Gebir_. _Gebir_, by Walter Savage Landor +(1775-1864), who was a fortnight older than Lamb, and who afterwards +came to know him personally, was published in 1798. + +Page 206, line 16. _This detestable Cinque Port_. A letter from Mary +Lamb to Randal Norris, concerning this, or another, visit to Hastings, +says: "We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk +up hill and down hill all day long." Lamb, in a letter to Barton, +admitted a benefit: "I abused Hastings, but learned its value." + +Page 208, line 5. _Lothbury_. Probably in recollection of Wordsworth's +"Reverie of Poor Susan," which Lamb greatly liked. + + * * * * * + +Page 208. THE CONVALESCENT. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1825. + +We learn from the _Letters_ that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown +in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House. +Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a +free man. + + * * * * * + +Page 212. SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the +Popular Fallacies under the title, "That great Wit is allied to +Madness;" beginning: "So far from this being true, the greatest wits +will ever be found to be the sanest writers..." and so forth. Compare +the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," Vol. I. Lamb's thesis is +borrowed from Dryden's couplet (in _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I., +lines 163, 164):-- + + Great wits are sure to madness near allied, + And thin partitions do their bounds divide. + +Page 213, line 14. _Kent ... Flavius_. Lamb was always greatly +impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on "Hogarth," Vol. +I.; his "Table Talk," Vol. I.; and his versions, in the _Tales from +Shakespear_, of "King Lear" and "Timon," Vol. III.). + + * * * * * + +Page 215. CAPTAIN JACKSON. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1824. + +No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson. The suggestion +has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the +circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the _Last Essays_, +included "A Death-Bed," with a differing portrait of Randal Norris +therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory. Perhaps the +captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every +now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, +1826), "to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;" although his +reality seems overpowering. + +Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in +constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly +unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber. + +Page 217, line 22. _Glover ... Leonidas_. Richard Glover (1712-1785), +the poet, author of _Leonidas_, 1737. I cannot find that he ever lived +at Westbourne Green. + +Page 218, foot. _The old ballad_. The old ballad "Waly, Waly." This +was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola's Extract Book. + +Page 219, line 8. _Tibbs, and Bobadil_. Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's +"Citizen of the World," and Bobadil in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His +Humour." + + * * * * * + +Page 219. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1825. + +Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is +practically a record of fact. After thirty-three years of service at +the East India House he went home "for ever" on Tuesday, March 29, +1825, with a pension of £441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, +less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister. At +a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up: +"Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant +General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and +it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, +and is now in receipt of an income of £730 per annum, he be allowed +a pension of £450 ... to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to +Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss +Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put +it to Barton:-- + + "DEAR B.B.--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much + more mind, to compose a letter. + + "I am free, B.B.--free as air. + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such Liberty! + + "I was set free on Tuesday in last week at 4 o'clock. + + "I came home for ever!... + + "I went and sat among 'em all at my old 33 years desk yester + morning; and deuce take me if I had not yearnings at leaving all + my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry sociable lads, at leaving them + in the Lurch, fag, fag, fag. + + "I would not serve another 7 years for seven hundred thousand + pound." + +To Miss Hutchinson Lamb said; "I would not go back to my prison for +seven years longer for £10000 a year." + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay was divided into two parts, with +the two quotations now at the head apportioned each to one part. +Part II. began at "A fortnight has passed," on page 224. The essay +was signed "J.D.," whose address was given as "Beaufort-terrace, +Regent-street; late of Ironmonger-court, Fenchurch-street." + +Page 220, line 3. _Recreation_. At "recreation," in the _London +Magazine_, came the footnote:-- + + "Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's day, + could distinguish between a day of religious rest and a day of + recreation; and while they exacted a rigorous abstinence from all + amusements (even to the walking out of nursery maids with their + little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath; in the lieu of the + superstitious observance of the Saints days, which they abrogated, + they humanely gave to the apprentices, and poorer sort of people, + every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport and recreation. + A strain of piety and policy to be commended above the profane + mockery of the Stuarts and their Book of Sports." + +Lamb had said the same thing to Barton in a letter in the spring, +1824, referring there to "Southey's book" as his authority--this being +_The Book of the Church_, 1824. + +Page 220, line 25. _Native ... Hertfordshire_. This was a slight +exaggeration. Lamb was London born and bred. But Hertfordshire was his +mother and grandmother's county, and all his love of the open air was +centred there (see the essay on "Mackery End"). + +Page 221, line 1. _My health_. Lamb had really been seriously unwell +for some time, as the _Letters_ tell us. + +Page 221, line 6. _I was fifty_. Lamb was fifty on February 10, 1825. + +Page 231, line 7. _I had grown to my desk_. In his first letter to +Barton (September 11, 1822) Lamb wrote: "I am like you a prisoner to +the desk. I have been chained to that galley thirty years, a long +shot. I have almost grown to the wood." Again, to Wordsworth: "I sit +like Philomel all day (but not singing) with my breast against this +thorn of a Desk." + +Page 222, line 7. _Boldero, Merryweather ..._ Feigned names of course. +It was Boldero that Lamb once pretended was Leigh Hunt's true name. +And in his fictitious biography of Liston (Vol. I.) Liston's mother +was said to have been a Miss Merryweather. In Lamb's early city days +there was a banking firm in Cornhill, called Boldero, Adey, Lushington +& Boldero. + +Page 222, line 12 from foot. _I could walk it away_. Writing to +Wordsworth in March, 1822, concerning the possibility of being +pensioned off, Lamb had said:--"I had thought in a green old age (O +green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End--emblematic name--how +beautiful! in the Ware road, there to have made up my accounts with +heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and Cheshunt, anon +stretching on some fine Izaac Walton morning, to Hoddsdon or Amwell, +careless as a Beggar, but walking walking ever till I fairly walkd +myself off my legs, dying walking." + +And again, writing to Southey after the emancipation, he says (August, +1825): "Mary walks her twelve miles a day some days, and I twenty on +others. 'Tis all holiday with me now, you know." + +Page 224, line 9. _Ch----_. John Chambers, son of the Rev. Thomas +Chambers, Vicar of Radway-Edgehill, Warwickshire, and an old Christ's +Hospitaller, to whom Lamb wrote the famous letter on India House +society, printed in the _Letters_, Canon Ainger's edition, under +December, 1818. John Chambers lived until 1872, and had many stories +of Lamb. + +Page 224, line 9. _Do----_. Probably Henry Dodwell, to whom Lamb wrote +the letters of July, 1816, from Calne, and that of October 7, 1827, +thanking him for a gift of a sucking pig. But there seems (see the +letter to Chambers above referred to) to have been also a clerk named +Dowley. It was Dodwell who annoyed Lamb by reading _The Times_ till +twelve o'clock every morning. + +Page 224, line 10. _Pl----_. According to the late H.G. Bohn's notes +on Chambers' letter, this was W.D. Plumley. + +Page 224, line 18. My "_works_." See note to the preface to the _Last +Essays of Elia_. The old India House ledgers of Lamb's day are no +longer in existence, but a copy of Booth's _Tables of Interest_ is +preserved, with some mock notices from the press on the fly-leaves in +Lamb's hand. Lamb's portrait by Meyer was bought for the India Office +in 1902. + +Page 224, line 12 from foot. _My own master_. As a matter of fact Lamb +found the time rather heavy on his hands now and then; and he took to +searching for beauties in the Garrick plays in the British Museum as a +refuge. The Elgin marbles were moved there in 1816. + +Page 225, line 16 from foot. _And what is it all for_? At these words, +in the _London Magazine_, came the passage:-- + + "I recite those verses of Cowley, which so mightily agree with my + constitution. + + "Business! the frivolous pretence + Of human lusts to shake off innocence: + Business! the grave impertinence: + Business! the thing which I of all things hate: + Business! the contradiction of my fate. + + "Or I repeat my own lines, written in my Clerk state:-- + + "Who first invented work--and bound the free + And holyday-rejoicing spirit down + To the ever-haunting importunity + Of business, in the green fields, and the town-- + To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad, + To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood? + Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, + Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad + Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, + That round and round incalculably reel-- + For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-- + In that red realm from whence are no returnings; + Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye + He, and his thoughts, keep pensive worky-day! + + "O this divine Leisure!--Reader, if thou art furnished with the + Old Series of the London, turn incontinently to the third volume + (page 367), and you will see my present condition there touched in + a 'Wish' by a daintier pen than I can pretend to. I subscribe to + that Sonnet _toto corde_." + +The sonnet referred to, beginning-- + + They talk of time and of time's galling yoke, + +will be found quoted above, in the notes to "New Year's Eve." It was, +of course, by Lamb himself. To the other sonnet he gave the title +"Work" (see Vol. IV.). Cowley's lines are from "The Complaint." + +Page 225, line 14 from foot. _NOTHING-TO-DO_. Lamb wrote to Barton in +1827: "Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, +and next to that perhaps--good works." + + * * * * * + +Page 226. THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826, where it was one of the Popular +Fallacies, under the title, "That my Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William +Temple are models of the Genteel Style in Writing.--We should prefer +saying--of the Lordly and the Gentlemanly. Nothing," &c. + +Page 226, beginning. _My Lord Shaftesbury_, Anthony Ashley Cooper, +third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), the grandson of the great +statesman, and the author of the _Characteristicks of Men, Manners, +Opinions and Times_, 1711, and other less known works. In the essay +"Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" Lamb says, "Shaftesbury is +not too genteel for me." + +Page 226, beginning. _Sir William Temple._ Sir William Temple +(1628-1699), diplomatist and man of letters, the patron of Swift, +and the husband of the letter-writing Dorothy Osborne. His first +diplomatic mission was in 1665, to Christopher Bernard von Glialen, +the prince-bishop of Munster, who grew the northern cherries (see page +228). Afterwards he was accredited to Brussels and the Hague, and +subsequently became English Ambassador at the Hague. He was recalled +in 1670, and spent the time between then and 1674, when he returned, +in adding to his garden at Sheen, near Richmond, and in literary +pursuits. He re-entered active political life in 1674, but retired +again in 1680, and moved to an estate near Farnham; which he named +Moor Park, laid out in the Dutch style, and made famous for its wall +fruit. Hither Swift came, as amanuensis, in 1689, and he was there, +with intervals of absence, in 1699, when Temple died, "and with him," +Swift wrote in his _Diary_, "all that was good and amiable among men." +He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart, by his special +wish, was placed in a silver casket under the sun-dial at Moor Park, +near his favourite window seat. + +Temple's essays, under the title of _Miscellanea_, were published in +1680 and 1692; his works, in several volumes, between 1700 and 1709. +The best-known essay is that on "Ancient and Modern Learning," but +Lamb refers also to those "On Health and Long Life," "Of the Cure of +the Gout," "Of Gardening." The quotation on page 228 does not exactly +end Temple's garden essay, as Lamb says. Lamb has slightly altered +Temple's punctuation. + + * * * * * + +Page 230. BARBARA S----. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1825. + +This little story exhibits, perhaps better than anything that Lamb +wrote, his curious gift of blending fact and fancy, of building upon +a foundation of reality a structure of whimsicality and invention. +In the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb's works is printed a +letter from Miss Kelly, the actress, and a friend of the Lambs, +in which the true story is told; for it was she, as indeed Lamb +admitted to Wordsworth in a letter in 1825, who told him the +incident--"beautifully," he says elsewhere. + +Miss Kelly wrote, in 1875:-- + + I perfectly remember relating an incident of my childhood to + Charles Lamb and his dear sister, and I have not the least doubt + that the intense interest he seemed to take in the recital, + induced him to adopt it as the principal feature in his beautiful + story of "Barbara S----." Much, however, as I venerate the + wonderful powers of Charles Lamb as a writer--grateful as I ever + must feel to have enjoyed for so many years the friendship of + himself and his dear sister, and proudly honoured as I am by the + two exquisite sonnets he has given to the world as tributary to my + humble talent, I have never been able thoroughly to appreciate the + extraordinary skill with which he has, in the construction of his + story, desired and contrived so to mystify and characterize + the events, as to keep me out of sight, and render it utterly + impossible for any one to guess at me as the original heroine.... + + In the year 1799, Miss Jackson, one of my mother's daughters, by + her first husband, was placed under the special care of dear old + Tate Wilkinson, proprietor of the York Theatre, there to practice, + as in due progression, what she had learned of Dramatic Art, while + a Chorus Singer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, coming back, as + she did after a few years, as the wife of the late celebrated, + inimitable Charles Mathews, to the Haymarket Theatre. In 1799, + through the influence of my uncle, Michael Kelly, the celebrated + singer and composer of that day, I was allowed to become a + miniature chorister in her place.... + + One Saturday, during the limited season of nine months in the + year, Mr. Peake (dear, good old gentleman!) looking, as I remember + he always did--anxiously perplexed--doubtless as to how he could + best dole out the too frequently insufficient amount provided for + the ill-paid company, silently looked me in the face, while he + carefully folded a very _dirty, ragged_ bank note--put it into my + hand, patted my cheek, and with a slight pressure on my shoulder, + hinting there was no time for our usual gossip--as good as said, + "go, my dear," and I hurried down the long gallery, lined down + each side with performers of all degrees, more than one of whom + whispered as I passed--"Is it full pay, dear?" I nodded "Yes," and + proceeded to my seat on the window of the landing-place. + + It was a great comfort in those days, to have a bank-note to + look at; but not always easy to open one. Mine had been cut and + repaired with a line of gum paper, about twenty times as thick as + the note itself, threatening the total destruction of the thin + part. + + Now observe in what small matters Fanny and Barbara were in a + marked degree different characters. Barbara, at 11 years of age, + was some time before she felt the different size of a guinea to a + half guinea, _held tight in her hand_. I, at nine years old, was + not so untaught, or innocent. I was a woman of the world. I took + _nothing_ for granted. I had a deep respect for Mr. Peake, but the + join might have disfigured the note--destroyed its currency; and + it was my business to see all safe. So, I carefully opened it. A + two pound-note instead of one! The blood rushed into my face, the + tears into my eyes, and for a moment, something like an ecstasy + of joy passed through my mind. "Oh! what a blessing to my dear + mother!"--"To whom?"--in an instant said my violently beating + heart,--"My mother?" Why she would spurn me for the wish. How + shall I ever own to her my guilty thought? I trembled violently--I + staggered back on my way to the Treasury, but no one would let me + pass, until I said, "But Mr. Peake has given me too much." "Too + much, has he?" said one, and was followed by a coarse, cold, + derisive, general laugh. Oh! how it went to my heart; but on I + went. + + "If you please, Mr. Peake, you have given me a two--" + + "A what?" + + "A two, Sir!" + + "A two!--God bless my soul!--tut-tut-tut-tut--dear, dear, + dear!--God bless my soul! There, dear," and without another word, + he, in exchange, laid a one pound note on the desk; a new one, + quite clean,--a bright, honest looking note,--mine, the one I had + a right to,--my own,--within the limit of my poor deservings. + + Thus, my dear sir, I give (as you say you wish to have the _facts_ + as accurately stated as possible) the simple, absolute truth. + +As a matter of fact Miss Kelly did afterwards play in Morton's +"Children in the Wood," to Lamb's great satisfaction. The incident of +the roast fowl is in that play. + +In Vol. I. will be found more than one eulogy of Miss Kelly's acting. + +Page 231, last line. _Real hot tears_. In Crabb Robinson's diary Miss +Kelly relates that when, as Constance, in "King John," Mrs. Siddons +(not Mrs. Porter) wept over her, her collar was wet with Mrs. Siddons' +tears. Miss Kelly, of course, was playing Arthur. + +Page 232, line 7. _Impediment ... pulpit_. This is more true than +the casual reader may suppose. Had Lamb not had an impediment in his +speech, he would have become, at Christ's Hospital, a Grecian, and +have gone to one of the universities; and the ordinary fate of a +Grecian was to take orders. + +Page 232, line 13. _Mr. Liston_. Mrs. Cowden Clarke says that Liston +the comedian and his wife were among the visitors to the Lambs' rooms +at Great Russell Street. + +Page 232, line 14. _Mrs. Charles Kemble_, _née_ Maria Theresa De Camp, +mother of Fanny Kemble. + +Page 232, line 16. _Macready_. The only record of any conference +between Macready and Lamb is Macready's remark in his _Diary_ that he +met Lamb at Talfourd's, and Lamb said that he wished to draw his last +breath through a pipe, and exhale it in a pun. But this was long after +the present essay was written. + +Page 232, line 17. _Picture Gallery ... Mr. Matthews_. See note below. + +Page 232, line 26. _Not Diamond's_. Dimond was the proprietor of the +old Bath Theatre. + +Page 235, first line. _Mrs. Crawford_. Anne Crawford (1734-1801), +_née_ Street, who was born at Bath, married successively a Mr. Dancer, +Spranger Barry the actor, and a Mr. Crawford. Her great part was Lady +Randolph in Home's "Douglas." + + * * * * * + +Page 235. THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1823, where, with slight differences, +it formed the concluding portion of the "Letter of Elia to Robert +Southey, Esquire," which will be found in Vol. I. The notes in that +volume should be consulted; but a little may be said here. This, the +less personal portion of the "Letter to Southey," seems to have been +all that Lamb cared to retain. He admitted afterwards, when his +anger against Southey had cooled, that his "guardian angel" had been +"absent" at the time he wrote it. + +The Dean of Westminster at the time was Ireland, the friend of +Gifford--dean from 1815 to 1842. Lamb's protest against the +two-shilling fee was supported a year or so later than its first +appearance by Reynolds, in _Odes and Addresses_, 1825, in a sarcastic +appeal to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to reduce that sum. The +passage in Lamb's essay being reprinted in 1833, suggests that the +reform still tarried. The evidence, however, of J.T. Smith, in his +_Book for a Rainy Day_, is that it was possible in 1822 to enter +Poets' Corner for sixpence. Dean Stanley, in his _Historical Memorials +of Westminster Abbey_, writes: "Free admission was given to the larger +part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first +appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts opened, and the fees +lowered in 1841...." + +Lamb's reference to Southey and to André's monument is +characteristically mischievous. He is reminding Southey of his early +sympathy with rebels--his "Wat Tyler" and pantisocratic days. Major +John André, Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-general, was caught returning +from an interview with an American traitor--a perfectly honourable +proceeding in warfare--and was hanged by Washington as a spy in 1780. +No blame attached either to judge or victim. André's remains were +reburied in the Abbey in 1821. Lamb speaks of injury to André's figure +in the monument, but the usual thing was for the figure of Washington +to be attacked. Its head has had to be renewed more than once. Minor +thefts have also been committed. According to Mrs. Gordon's _Life of +Dean Buckland_, one piece of vandalism at any rate was the work of an +American, who returned to the dean two heads which he had appropriated +as relics. + +In _The Examiner_ for April 8, 1821, is quoted from _The Traveller_ +the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which +shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for churches +was in the air. + + ON A VISIT TO ST. PAUL'S + + What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor, + For lack of two-pence, shut the church's door; + Who, true successors of the ancient leaven, + Erect a turnpike on the road to Heaven? + "Knock, and it shall be open'd," saith our LORD; + "Knock, and pay two-pence," say the Chapter Board: + The Showman of the booth the fee receives, + And God's house is again a "den of thieves." + + * * * * * + +Page 237. AMICUS REDIVIVUS. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1823. + +A preliminary sketch of the first portion of this essay will be +found in the letter from Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt, written probably in +November, 1823. In Barry Cornwall's _Memoir_ of Lamb, Chapter VI., +there is also an account of the accident to Dyer--Procter (Barry +Cornwall) having chanced to visit the Lambs just after the event. For +an account of George Dyer see notes to the essay on "Oxford in the +Vacation". In 1823 he was sixty-eight; later he became quite blind. + +We have another glimpse of G.D. on that fatal day, in the +reminiscences of Mr. Ogilvie, an India House clerk with Lamb, +as communicated to the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell (see _Scribner's +Magazine_, March, 1876):-- + + At the time George Dyer was fished out of New River in front of + Lamb's house at Islington, after he was resuscitated, Mary brought + him a suit of Charles's clothes to put on while his own were + drying. Inasmuch as he was a giant of a man, and Lamb undersized; + inasmuch, moreover, as Lamb's wardrobe afforded only knee breeches + for the nether limbs (Dyer's were colossal), the spectacle he + presented when the clothes were on--or as much on as they could + be--was vastly ludicrous. + +Allsop, in a letter to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, remarked, of Dyer's +immersion, that Lamb had said to him: "If he had been drowned it would +have made me famous. Think of having a Crowner's quest, and all the +questions and dark suspicions of murder. People would haunt the spot +and say, 'Here died the poet of Grongar Hill.'" The poet of "Grongar +Hill" was, of course, John Dyer--another of Lamb's instances of the +ambiguities arising from proper names. + +Page 238, line 19. _The rescue_. At these words, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put this footnote:-- + + "The topography of my cottage, and its relation to the river, + will explain this; as I have been at some cost to have the whole + engraved (in time, I hope, for our next number), as well for + the satisfaction of the reader, as to commemorate so signal a + deliverance." + +The cottage at Colebrooke Row, it should be said, stands to this day +(1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no +difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front +door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel +with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather +Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the +front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have +emerged; if so it would be the simplest thing for him to walk straight +ahead, and find himself in the river. + +Page 240, line 22. _That Abyssinian traveller_. James Bruce +(1730-1794), the explorer of the sources of the Nile, was famous many +years before his _Travels_ appeared, in 1790, the year after which +Lamb left school. The New River, made in 1609-1613, has its source +in the Chadwell and Amwell springs. It was peculiarly Lamb's river: +Amwell is close to Blakesware and Widford; Lamb explored it as a boy; +at Islington he lived opposite it, and rescued George Dyer from its +depths; and he retained its company both at Enfield and Edmonton. + +In the essay on "Newspapers" is a passage very similar to this. + +Page 240, line 32. _Eternal novity_. Writing to Hood in 1824 Lamb +speaks of the New River as "rather elderly by this time." Dyer, it +should be remembered, was of Emmanuel College, and the historian of +Cambridge University. + +Page 241, last paragraph. George Dyer contributed "all that was +original" to Valpy's edition of the classics--141 volumes. He also +wrote the _History of The University and Colleges of Cambridge, +including notices relating to the Founders and Eminent Men_. Among +the eminent men of Cambridge are Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776), of +Christ's Hospital and St. Peter's, the classical commentator; and +Thomas Gray, the poet, the sweet lyrist of Peterhouse, who died +in 1771, when Dyer was sixteen. Tyrwhitt would probably be Thomas +Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), of Queen's College, Oxford, the editor of +Chaucer; but Robert Tyrwhitt (1735-1817), his brother, the Unitarian, +might be expected to take interest in Dyer also, for G.D. was, in +Lamb's phrase, a "One-Goddite" too. The mild Askew was Anthony Askew +(1722-1772), doctor and classical scholar, who, being physician to +Christ's Hospital when Dyer was there, lent the boy books, and was +very kind to him. + + * * * * * + +Page 242. SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1823, where it was entitled "Nugæ +Criticæ. By the Author of Elia. No. 1. Defence of the Sonnets of Sir +Philip Sidney." Signed "L." The second and last of the "Nugæ Criticæ" +series was the note on "The Tempest" (see Vol. I.). + +It may be interesting here to relate that Henry Francis Gary, the +translator of Dante, and Lamb's friend, had, says his son in his +memoir, lent Lamb Edward Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum_, +which was returned after Lamb's death by Edward Moxon, with the leaf +folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sidney. Mr. Gary thereupon +wrote his "Lines to the memory of Charles Lamb," which begin:-- + + So should it be, my gentle friend; + Thy leaf last closed at Sidney's end. + Thou, too, like Sidney, wouldst have given + The water, thirsting and near heaven. + +Lamb has some interesting references to Sidney in the note to Beaumont +and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy" in the _Dramatic Specimens_. + +Page 243, line 5. _Tibullus, or the ... Author of the Schoolmistress_. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb wrote "Catullus." Tibullus was one of +the tenderest of Latin poets. William Shenstone (1714-1763) wrote "The +Schoolmistress," a favourite poem with Lamb. The "prettiest of poems" +he called it in a letter to John Clare. + +Page 243, line 9. _Ad Leonoram_. The following translation of Milton's +sonnet was made by Leigh Hunt:-- + + TO LEONORA SINGING AT ROME + + To every one (so have ye faith) is given + A winged guardian from the ranks of heaven. + A greater, Leonora, visits thee: + Thy voice proclaims the present deity. + Either the present deity we hear, + Or he of the third heaven hath left his sphere, + And through the bosom's pure and warbling wells, + Breathes tenderly his smoothed oracles; + Breathes tenderly, and so with easy rounds + Teaches our mortal hearts to bear immortal sounds. + If God is all, and in all nature dwells, + In thee alone he speaks, mute ruler in all else. + +The Latin in Masson's edition of Milton differs here and there from +Lamb's version. + +Page 243. _Sonnet I_. Lamb cites the sonnets from _Astrophel and +Stella_, in his own order. That which he calls I. is XXXI.; II., +XXXIX.; III., XXIII.; IV., XXVII.; V., XLI.; VI., LIII.; VII., LXIV.; +VIII., LXXIII.; IX., LXXIV.; X., LXXV.; XI., CIII.; XII., LXXXIV. +I have left the sonnets as Lamb copied them, but there are certain +differences noted in my large edition. + +Page 247, middle. _Which I have ... heard objected_. A criticism of +Hazlitt's, in his sixth lecture on Elizabethan literature, delivered +in 1820 at the Surrey Institution, is here criticised. Hazlitt's +remarks on Sidney were uniformly slighting. "His sonnets inlaid in the +Arcadia are jejune, far-fetch'd and frigid.... [The _Arcadia_] is to +me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power +upon record.... [Sidney is] a complete intellectual coxcomb, or nearly +so;" and so forth. The lectures were published in 1821. Elsewhere, +however, Hazlitt found in Sidney much to praise. + +Page 248, line 3. _Thin diet of dainty words_. To this sentence, in +the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the following footnote:-- + + "A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of + matter and circumstance, is I think one reason of the coldness + with which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now + living; which, upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is + entitled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy + one of his Sonnets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and + unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our language. + + "TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN IN THE WINTER + + "_By Lord Thurlow_ + + "O melancholy Bird, a winter's day, + Thou standest by the margin of the pool, + And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school + To Patience, which all evil can allay. + God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey; + And given thyself a lesson to the Fool + Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, + And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. + There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair, + Though these be good, true wisdom to impart. + He who has not enough, for these, to spare + Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart, + And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair: + Nature is always wise in every part." + +This sonnet, by Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow +(1781-1829), an intense devotee of Sir Philip Sidney's muse, was a +special favourite with Lamb. He copied it into his Commonplace Book, +and De Quincey has described, in his "London Reminiscences," how Lamb +used to read it aloud. + +Page 248, line 27. _Epitaph made on him_. After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, +wrote Sidney's _Life_, published in 1652. After Sidney's death +appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end +of Spenser's _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_, in 1595. That which Lamb +quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem +beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly +on Lamb's authority, in Ward's _English Poets_. This is one stanza:-- + + He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind + A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined, + Declaring in his thoughts, his life and that he writ, + Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. + +Sidney was only thirty-two at his death. + + * * * * * + +Page 249. NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, October, 1831, being the second paper under +the heading "Peter's Net," of which "Recollections of a Late Royal +Academician" was the first (see note, Vol. I.). + +The title ran thus:-- + + PETER'S NET + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIA" + + _No. II.--On the Total Defect of the faculty of Imagination + observable in the works of modern British Artists._ + +For explanation of this title see note to the essay that follows. When +reprinting the essay in the _Last Essays of Elia_, 1833, Lamb altered +the title to the one it now bears: the period referred to thus seeming +to be about 1798, but really 1801-1803. + +Page 249, first line of essay. _Dan Stuart_. See below. + +Page 249, line 2 of essay. _The Exhibition at Somerset House._ Between +the years 1780 and 1838 the Royal Academy held its exhibitions at +Somerset House. It then moved, first to Trafalgar Square, in a portion +of the National Gallery, and then to Burlington House, its present +quarters, in 1869. The _Morning Post_ office is still almost opposite +Somerset House, at the corner of Wellington Street. + +Page 250, line 5. _A word or two of D.S._ Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), +one of the Perthshire Stuarts, whose father was out in the '45, and +his grandfather in the '15, began, with his brother, to print the +_Morning Post_ in 1788. In 1795 they bought it for £600, Daniel +assumed the editorship, and in two years' time the circulation had +risen from 350 to 1,000. Mackintosh (afterwards Sir James), Stuart's +brother-in-law, was on the staff; and in 1797 Coleridge began to +contribute. Coleridge's "Devil's Walk" was the most popular thing +printed in Stuart's time; his political articles also helped +enormously to give the paper prestige. Stuart sold the _Morning Post_ +in 1803 for £25,000, and then turned his attention to the development +of _The Courier_, an evening paper, in which he also had occasional +assistance from Coleridge and more regular help from Mackintosh. + +Lamb's memory served him badly in the essay. So far as I can discover, +his connection with the _Morning Post_, instead of ending when Stuart +sold the paper, can hardly be said to have existed until after that +event. The paper changed hands in September, 1803 (two years after the +failure of The _Albion_), and Lamb's hand almost immediately begins to +be apparent. He had, we know, made earlier efforts to get a footing +there, but had been only moderately successful. The first specimens +prepared for Stuart, in 1800, were not accepted. In the late summer of +1801 he was writing for the _Morning Chronicle_--a few comic letters, +as I imagine--under James Perry; but that lasted only a short time. At +the end of 1801 Lamb tried the _Post_ again. In January and February, +1802, Stuart printed some epigrams by him on public characters, two +criticisms of G.F. Cooke, in Richard III. and Lear, and the essay "The +Londoner" (see Vol. I.). Probably there were also some paragraphs. In +a letter to Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says that he is leaving +the _Post_, partly on account of his difficulty in writing dramatic +criticisms on the same night as the performance. + +We know nothing of Lamb's journalistic adventures between February, +1802, and October, 1803, when the fashion of pink stockings came in, +and when he was certainly back on the _Post_ (Stuart having sold it to +establish _The Courier_), and had become more of a journalist than he +had ever been. I quote a number of the paragraphs which I take to be +his on this rich topic; but the specimen given in the essay is not +discoverable:-- + + "_Oct_. 8.--The fugitive and mercurial matter, of which a _Lady's + blush_ is made, after coursing from its natural position, the + _cheek_, to the _tip_ of the _elbow_, and thence diverging for a + time to the _knee_, has finally settled in the _legs_, where, in + the form of a pair of _red hose_, it combines with the posture and + situation of _the times_, to put on a most _warlike_ and _martial + appearance_." + + "_Nov_. 2.--Bartram, who, as a _traveller_, was possessed of a + very _lively fancy_, describes vast plains in the interior of + America, where his _horse's fetlocks_ for miles were dyed a + perfect _blood colour_, in the juice of the _wild strawberries_. + A less ardent fancy than BARTRAM'S may apply this beautiful + phenomenon of summer, to solve the present _strawberry appearance_ + of the _female leg_ this autumn in England." + + "_Nov_. 3.--The _roseate tint_, so agreeably diffused through the + silk stockings of our females, induces the belief that the _dye is + cast_ for their lovers." + + "_Nov_. 8.--A popular superstition in the North of Germany is said + to be the true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. + Who knows but that _late posterity_, when, what is regarded by + us now as _fashion_, shall have long been classed among the + superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their + signs with the antiquated personification of a Mother RED LEGS?" + + "_Nov_. 9.--Curiosity is on tip-toe for the arrival of ELPHY + BEY'S fair _Circassian_ Ladies. The attraction of their + _naturally-placed, fine, proverbial bloom_, is only wanting to + reduce the wandering colour in the 'elbows' and 'ancles' of our + _belles_, back to its native _metropolis_ and _palace_, the + 'cheek.'" + + "_Nov_. 22.--_Pink stockings_ beneath _dark pelices_ are emblems + of _Sincerity_ and _Discretion_; signifying a _warm heart_ beneath + a _cool exterior_." + + "_Nov_. 29.--The decline of red stockings is as fatal to the wits, + as the going out of a fashion to an overstocked jeweller: some + of these gentry have literally for some months past _fed_ on + _roses_." + + "_Dec_. 21.--The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, + dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be + consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions,' where sleep + in peace the _ruffs_ and _hoops_, and _fardingales_ of past + centuries; and + + "All its beauty, all its pomp, decays + Like _Courts removing_, or like _ending plays_." + +On February 7, 1804, was printed Lamb's "Epitaph on a young Lady who +Lived Neglected and Died Obscure" (see Vol. IV.), and now and then we +find a paragraph likely to be his; but, as we know from a letter from +Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart, he had left the _Post_ in the early +spring, 1804. I think this was the end of his journalism, until he +began to write a little for _The Examiner_ in 1812. + +In 1838 Stuart was drawn into a correspondence with Henry Coleridge +in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (May, June, July and August) concerning +some statements about Coleridge's connection with the _Morning Post_ +and _The Courier_ which were made in Gillman's _Life_, Stuart, in the +course of straightening out his relations with Coleridge, referred +thus to Lamb:-- + + But as for good Charles Lamb, I never could make anything out of + his writings. Coleridge often and repeatedly pressed me to settle + him on a salary, and often and repeatedly did I try; but it would + not do. Of politics he knew nothing; they were out of his line of + reading and thought; and his drollery was vapid, when given in + short paragraphs fit for a newspaper; yet he has produced some + agreeable books, possessing a tone of humour and kind feeling, + in a quaint style, which it is amusing to read, and cheering to + remember. + +For further remarks concerning Lamb's journalism see below when we +come to _The Albion_ and his connection with it. + +Page 250, line 6. _Perry, of the Morning Chronicle._ James Perry +(1756-1821) the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_--the leading Whig +paper, for many years--from about 1789. Perry was a noted talker and +the friend of many brilliant men, among them Porson. Southey's letters +inform us that Lamb was contributing to the _Chronicle_ in the summer +of 1801, and I fancy I see his hand now and then; but his identifiable +contributions to the paper came much later than the period under +notice. Coleridge contributed to it a series of sonnets to eminent +persons in 1794, in one of which, addressed to Mrs. Siddons, he +collaborated with Lamb (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 250, line 14. _The Abyssinian Pilgrim_. For notes to this passage +about the New River see the essay "Amicus Redivivus." + +Page 250, foot. _In those days ..._ This paragraph began, in the +_Englishman's Magazine_, with the following sentence:-- + + "We ourself--PETER--in whose inevitable NET already Managers and + R.A.s lie caught and floundering--and more peradventure shall + flounder--were, in the humble times to which we have been + recurring, small Fishermen indeed, essaying upon minnows; angling + for quirks, not _men_." + +The phrase "Managers and R.A.s" refers to the papers on Elliston and +George Dawe which had preceded this essay, although the Elliston essay +had not been ranged under the heading "Peter's Net." The George Dawe +paper is in Vol. I. of this edition. + +Page 252, line 25. _Basilian water-sponges._ The Basilian order of +monks were pledged to austerity; but probably Lamb intended merely a +joke upon his friend Basil Montagu's teetotalism (see note in Vol. +I. to "Confessions of a Drunkard," a paper quoted in Montagu's _Some +Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors_). In John Forster's +copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, in the South Kensington Museum, +a legacy from Elia, there is written "Basil Montagu!" against +this passage. Moreover the context runs, "we were right toping +Capulets"--as opposed to the (Basil) Montagus. + +Page 253, line 23. _Bob Allen._ See the essay on "Christ's Hospital" +and note. + +Page 253, line 24. _The "Oracle."_ This daily paper was started in the +1780's by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, as a rival to _The +World_ (see below). + +Page 253, line 31. _Mr. Deputy Humphreys._ I am disappointed to have +been able to find nothing more about this Common Council butt. + +Page 254, lines 11 and 12. _The "True Briton_," _the "Star_," _the +"Traveller_." _The True Briton_, a government organ in the 1790's, +which afterwards assimilated Cobbett's Porcupine. _The Star_ was +founded by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, in 1788. It was +the first London evening paper to appear regularly. _The Traveller_, +founded about 1803, still flourishes under the better-known title of +_The Globe_. + +Page 254, lines 24-26. _Este ... Topham ... Boaden_. Edward Topham +(1751-1820), author of the _Life of John Elwes_, the miser, founded +_The World_, a daily paper, in 1787. Parson Este, the Rev. Charles +Este, was one of his helpers. James Boaden (1762-1839), dramatist, +biographer and journalist, and editor of _The Oracle_ for some years, +wrote the _Life of Mrs. Siddons_, 1827. + +Page 254, foot. _The Albion_. Lamb's memory of his connection with +_The Albion_ was at fault. His statement is that he joined it on the +sale of the _Morning Post_ by Stuart, which occurred in 1803; but as a +matter of fact his association with it was in 1801. This we know from +his letters to Manning in August of that year, quoting the epigram on +Mackintosh (see below) and announcing the paper's death. Mackintosh, +says Lamb, was on the eve of departing to India to reap the fruits of +his apostasy--referring to his acceptance of the post of Recordership +of Bombay offered to him by Addington. But this was a slip of memory. +Mackintosh's name had been mentioned in connection with at least +two posts before this--a judgeship in Trinidad and the office of +Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lamb's epigram may have had reference +to one or the other. In the absence of a file of _The Albion_, which I +have been unable to find, it is impossible to give exact dates or to +reproduce any of Lamb's other contributions. + +Page 255, line 6. _John Fenwick_. See the essay "The Two Races of +Men," and note. Writing to Manning on September 24, 1802, Lamb +describes Fenwick as a ruined man hiding from his creditors. In +January, 1806, he tells Stoddart that Fenwick is "coming to town on +Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison." +And we meet him again as late as 1817, in a letter to Barron Field, on +August 31, where his editorship of The Statesman is mentioned. In +Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart there are indications that Mrs. +Fenwick and family were mindful of the Lambs' charitable impulses. + +After "Fenwick," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, Lamb wrote: "Of him, +under favour of the public, something may be told hereafter." It is +sad that the sudden discontinuance of the magazine with this number +for ever deprived us of further news of this man. + +Page 255, line 11. _Lovell_. Daniel Lovell, subsequently owner and +editor of _The Statesman_, which was founded by John Hunt, Leigh +Hunt's brother, in 1806. He had a stormy career, much chequered by +imprisonment and other punishment for freedom of speech. He died in +1818. + +Page 255, line 20. _Daily demands of the Stamp Office._ The newspaper +stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to +fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in 1855 abolished. + +Page 255, line 28. _Accounted very good men now._ A hit, I imagine, +particularly at Southey (see note to "The Tombs in the Abbey"). Also +at Wordsworth and Mackintosh himself. + +Page 256, line 3. _Sir J----s M----h_. Sir James Mackintosh +(1765-1832), the philosopher, whose apostasy consisted in his public +recantation of the opinions in favour of the French Revolution +expressed in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, published in 1791. In 1803 he +accepted the offer of the Recordership of Bombay. Lamb's epigram, +which, as has been stated above, cannot have had reference to this +particular appointment, runs thus in the version quoted in the letter +to Manning of August, 1801:-- + + Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, + In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: + When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, + He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: + This thou may'st do at last; yet much I doubt, + If thou hash any bowels to gush out. + +Page 256, line 6. _Lord ... Stanhope_. This was Charles, third earl +(1753-1816), whose sympathies were with the French Revolution. His +motion in the House of Lords against interfering with France's +internal affairs was supported by himself alone, which led to a medal +being struck in his honour with the motto, "The Minority of One, +1795;" and he was thenceforward named "Minority," or "Citizen," +Stanhope. George Dyer, who had acted as tutor to his children, was one +of Stanhope's residuary legatees. + +Page 256, line 10. _It was about this time ..._ With this sentence +Lamb brought back his essay to its original title, and paved the way +for the second part--now printed under that heading. + +At the end of this paper, in the _Englishman's Magazine_, were the +words, "To be continued." For the further history of the essay see the +notes that follow. + + * * * * * + +Page 256. BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF +MODERN ART. + +_Athenæum_, January 12, 19, 26, and February 2, 1833, where it was +thus entitled: "On the Total Defects of the Quality of Imagination, +observable in the Works of Modern British Artists." By the Author of +the Essays signed "Elia." + +The following editorial note was prefixed to the first +instalment:--"This Series of Papers was intended for a new periodical, +which has been suddenly discontinued. The distinguished writer having +kindly offered them to the ATHENÆUM, we think it advisable to perfect +the Series by this reprint; and, from the limited sale of the work in +which it originally appeared, it is not likely to have been read by +one in a thousand of our subscribers." + +The explanation of this passage has been made simple by the researches +of the late Mr. Dykes Campbell. Lamb intended the essay originally for +the _Englishman's Magazine_, November number, to follow the excursus +on newspapers. But that magazine came to an end with the October +number. In the letter from Lamb to Moxon dated October 24, 1831, Lamb +says, referring to Moxon's announcement that the periodical would +cease:--"Will it please, or plague, you, to say that when your Parcel +came I damned it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous +description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending +you to morrow, the last day you gave me." + +That was the present essay. Subsequently--at the end of 1832--Moxon +started a weekly paper entitled _The Reflector_, edited by John +Forster, in which the printing of Lamb's essay was begun. It lasted +only a short time, and on its cessation Lamb sent the ill-fated +manuscript to _The Athenæum_, where it at last saw publication +completed. Of _The Reflector_ all trace seems to have vanished, and +with it possibly other writings of Lamb's. + +In _The Athenæum_ of December 22, 1832, the current _Reflector_ (No. +2) is advertised as containing "An Essay on Painters and Painting by +Elia." + +Page 256, line 1 of essay. _Hogarth_. Compare Lamb's criticism of +Hogarth, Vol. I. + +Page 256, foot. _Titian's "Ariadne."_ This picture is now No. 35 +in the National Gallery. Writing to Wordsworth in May, 1833, it is +amusing to note, Lamb says: "Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling +with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition +it served me as illustrative." The legend of Ariadne tells that after +being abandoned by Theseus, whom she loved with intense passion, she +was wooed by Bacchus. + +Page 258, line 2. _Somerset House._ See note above to the essay on +"Newspapers." + +Page 258, line 14. _Neoteric ... Mr. ----_. Probably J.M.W. Turner and +his "Garden of the Hesperides," now in the National Gallery. It is +true it was painted in 1806, but Lamb does not describe it as a +picture of the year and Turner was certainly the most notable +neoteric, or innovator, of that time. + +Page 259, line 1. _Of a modern artist._ In _The Athenæum_ this +had been printed "of M----," meaning John Martin (1789-1854). His +"Belshazzar's Feast," which Lamb analyses below, was painted in 1821, +and made him famous. It was awarded a £200 premium, and was copied on +glass and exhibited with great success as an illuminated transparency +in the Strand. Lord Lytton said of Martin that "he was more original, +more self-dependent, than Raphael or Michael Angelo." Lamb had +previously expressed his opinion of Martin, in a letter to Bernard +Barton, dated June 11, 1827, in a passage which contains the germ +of this essay:--"Martin's Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen. +Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, +the squalling, contorted little antics that are playing at being +frightened, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a +mask, are detestable. Then the _letters_ are nothing more than a +transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a +sudden at a Christmas Gambol, to scare the ladies. The _type_ is +as plain as Baskervil--they should have been dim, full of mystery, +letters to the mind rather than the eye." + +Page 259, line 13. _The late King_. George IV., who built, when Prince +of Wales, the Brighton Pavilion. As I cannot find this incident in any +memoirs of the Regency, I assume Lamb to have invented it, after his +wont, when in need of a good parallel. "Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name" +stands of course for Mrs. Fitzherbert. + +Page 259, line 33. _The ingenious Mr. Farley_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), who controlled the pantomimes at Covent Garden from 1806 +to 1834, and invented a number of mechanical devices for them. He also +acted, and had been the instructor of the great Grimaldi. Lamb alludes +to him in the essay on "The Acting of Munden." + +Page 262, line 10. "_Sun, stand thou still ..._" See Joshua x. 12. +Martin's picture of "Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still" was +painted in 1816. Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, +Lamb says: "Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, fritter'd into +1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there--you should +see only the _Sun_ and _Joshua_ ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes +finding him out." + +Page 262, line 29. _The great picture at Angerstein's_. This picture +is "The Resurrection of Lazarus," by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, with +the assistance, it is conjectured, of Michael Angelo. The picture is +now No. 1 in the National Gallery, the nucleus of which collection was +once the property of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823). Angerstein's +art treasures were to be seen until his death in his house in Pall +Mall, where the Reform Club now stands. + +Page 263, line 35. _The Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend_. See +the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847 ed., Vol. II., pp. 126-127. + +Page 265, line 5. "_Truly, fairest Lady ..._" The passage quoted by +Lamb is from Skeltoa's translation of _Don Quixote_, Part II., Chapter +LVIII. The first sentence runs: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actæon was not +more astonished or in suspense when on the sodaine he saw Diana," and +so forth. + +Page 266, line 9. "_Guzman de Alfarache_." The Picaresque romance by +Mateo Aleman--_Vida y Lechos del picaro Guzman de Alfarache_, Part I., +1599; Part II., 1605. It was translated into English by James Mabbe in +1622 as _The Rogue; or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache_. Lamb had a +copy, which is now in my possession, with Mary Lamb's name in it. + + * * * * * + +Page 266. REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823. + +This paper, being printed in the same number as that which announced +Elia's death, was signed "Elia's Ghost." + +Lamb returned to this vein of fancy two years or so later when (in +1825) he contributed to his friend William Hone's _Every-Day Book_ +the petition of the Twenty-Ninth of February, a day of which Hone had +taken no account, and of the Twelfth of August, which from being kept +as the birthday of King George IV. during the time that he was Prince +of Wales, was, on his accession to the throne, disregarded in favour +of April 23, St. George's Day. For these letters see Vol. I. of this +edition. + +Page 271, line 15. "_On the bat's back ..._" From Ariel's song in +"The Tempest." Lamb confesses, in at least two of his letters, to a +precisely similar plight. + + * * * * * + +Page 271. THE WEDDING. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1825. + +The wedding was that of Sarah Burney, daughter of Lamb's old friends, +Rear-Admiral James Burney and his wife Sarah Burney, to her cousin, +John Payne, of Pall Mall, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, in April, +1821. The clergyman was the Rev. C.P. Burney, who was not, however, +vicar of St. Mildred's in the Poultry, but of St. Paul's, Deptford, in +Kent. Admiral Burney lived only six months longer, dying in November. + +Canon Ainger pointed out that when Lamb was revising this essay for +its appearance in the _Last Essays of Elia_, he was, like the admiral, +about to lose by marriage Emma Isola, who was to him and his sister +what Miss Burney had been to her parents. She married Edward Moxon in +July, 1833. + +Page 274, line 8. _An unseasonable disposition to levity_. Writing to +P.G. Patmore in 1827 Lamb says: "I have been to a funeral, where I +made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners." Again, +writing to Southey: "I am going to stand godfather; I don't like the +business; I cannot muster up decorum for these occasions; I shall +certainly disgrace the font; I was at Hazlitt's marriage and was like +to have been turned out several times during the ceremony. Anything +awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral." + +Page 274, line 24. _Miss T----s_. In the _London Magazine_ "Miss +Turner's." + +Page 274, line 27. _Black ... the costume of an author_. See note +below. + +Page 274, line 29. _Lighter colour_. Here the _London Magazine_ had: +"a pea-green coat, for instance, like the bridegroom." + +Page 274, line 34. _A lucky apologue_. I do not find this fable; but +Lamb's father, in his volume of poems, described in a note on page +381, has something in the same manner in his ballad "The Sparrow's +Wedding":-- + + The chatt'ring Magpye undertook + Their wedding breakfast for to cook, + He being properly bedight + In a cook's cloathing, black and white. + +Page 275, foot. _The Admiral's favourite game_. Admiral Burney wrote a +treatise on whist (see notes to "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist"). + + * * * * * + +Page 276. THE CHILD ANGEL. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1823. + +Thomas Moore's _Loves of the Angels_ was published in 1823. Lamb used +it twice for his own literary purposes: on the present occasion, with +tenderness, and again, eight years later, with some ridicule, for +his comic ballad, "Satan in Search of a Wife," 1831, was ironically +dedicated to the admirers of Moore's poem (see Vol. IV.). + + * * * * * + +Page 279. A DEATH-BED. + +Hone's _Table Book_, Vol. I., cols. 425-426, 1827. Signed "L.," and +dated London, February 10, 1827. The essay is very slightly altered +from a letter written by Lamb to Crabb Robinson, January 20, 1827, +describing the death of Randal Morris. It was printed in the first +edition only of the _Last Essays of Elia_; its place being taken +afterwards by the "Confessions of a Drunkard," an odd exchange. The +essay was omitted, in deference, it is believed, to the objection of +Mrs. Norris to her reduced circumstances being made public. As the +present edition adheres to the text of the first edition, "The +Death-Bed" is included in its original place as decided by the author. +The "Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +Randal Norris was for many years sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple +(see postscript to the essay on the "Old Benchers"). Writing to +Wordsworth in 1830 Lamb spoke of him as "sixty years ours and our +father's friend." An attempt has been made to identify him with the +Mr. Norris of Christ's Hospital who was so kind to the Lambs after the +tragedy of September, 1796. I cannot find any trace of Randal Norris +having been connected with anything but the law and the Inner Temple; +but possibly the Mr. Norris of the school was a relative. + +Mrs. Randal Norris was connected with Widford, the village adjoining +Blakesware, where she had known Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother. It was +thither that she and her son retired after Randal Norris's death, to +join her daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss Jane, who had a school for +girls known as Goddard House School. Lamb kept up his friendship with +them to the end, and they corresponded with Mary Lamb after his death. +Mrs. Norris died in 1843, aged seventy-eight, and was buried at +Widford. The grave of Richard Norris, the son, is also there. He died +in 1836. One of the daughters, Elizabeth, married Charles Tween, of +Widford, and lived until 1894. The other daughter, Jane, married +Arthur Tween, his brother, and lived until 1891. + +Mary Lamb was a bridesmaid at the Norris's wedding and after the +ceremony accompanied the bride and bridegroom to Richmond for the day. +So one of their daughters told Canon Ainger. + +Crabb Robinson seems to have exerted himself for the family, as Lamb +wished. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that an annuity of £80 was settled upon +Mrs. Norris. + +Page 279, last line. _To the last he called me Jemmy_. In the letter +to Crabb Robinson--"To the last he called me Charley. I have none to +call me Charley now." + +Page 280, line 2. _That bound me to B----_. In the letter to Crabb +Robinson--"that bound me to the Temple." + +Page 280, line 14. _Your Corporation Library_. In the letter--"The +Temple Library." + +Page 280, line 19. _He had one Song_. Garrick's "Hearts of Oak." + + * * * * * + +Page 281. OLD CHINA. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1823. + +This essay forms a pendant, or complement, to "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," completing the portrait of Mary Lamb begun there. +It was, with "The Wedding," Wordsworth's favourite among the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 282, line 23. _The brown suit_. P.G. Patmore, in his +recollections of Lamb in the _Court Journal_, 1835, afterwards +reprinted, with some alterations, in his _My Friends and +Acquaintances_, stated that Lamb laid aside his snuff-coloured suit +in favour of black, after twenty years of the India House; and he +suggests that Wordsworth's stanzas in "A Poet's Epitaph" was the +cause:-- + + But who is he, with modest looks, + And clad in homely russet brown? + He murmurs near the running brooks + A music sweeter than their own. + + He is retired as noontide dew, + Or fountain in a noon-day grove; + And you must love him, ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +Whatever Patmore's theory may be worth, it is certain that Lamb +adhered to black after the change. + +Page 282, line 25. _Beaumont and Fletcher_. See note to "Books and +Reading." + +Page 282, line 27. _Barker's_. Barker's old book-shop was at No. 20 +Great Russell Street, over which the Lambs went to live in 1817. It +had then, however, become Mr. Owen's, a brazier's (Wheatley's _London +Past and Present_ gives Barker's as 19, but a contemporary directory +says 20). Great Russell Street is now Russell Street. + +Page 282, line 30. _From Islington_. This would be when Lamb and his +sister lived at 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, a stone's throw from +the Islington boundary, in 1799-1800, after the death of their father. + +Page 283, line 11. _The "Lady Blanch._" See Mary Lamb's poem on this +picture, Vol. IV. and note. + +Page 283, line 15. _Colnaghi's_. Colnaghi, the printseller, then in +Cockspur Street, now Pall Mall East. After this word came in the +_London Magazine_ "(as W---- calls it)." The reference, Mr. Rogers +Rees tells me, is to Wainewright's article "C. van Vinkbooms, his +Dogmas for Dilletanti," in the same magazine for December, 1821, where +he wrote: "I advise Colnaghi and Molteno to import a few impressions +immediately of those beautiful plates from Da Vinci. The ... and Miss +Lamb's favourite, 'Lady Blanche and the Abbess,' commonly called +'Vanitas et Modestia' (Campanella, los. ed.), for I foresee that this +Dogma will occasion a considerable call for them--let them, therefore, +be ready." + +Page 283, line 5 from foot. _To see a play_. "The Battle of Hexham" +and "The Surrender of Calais" were by George Colman the Younger; "The +Children in the Wood," a favourite play of Lamb's, especially with +Miss Kelly in it, was by Thomas Morton. Mrs. Bland was Maria Theresa +Bland, _née_ Romanzini, 1769-1838, who married Mrs. Jordan's brother. +Jack Bannister we have met, in "The Old Actors." + +Page 286, line 12. _The Great yew R----_. This would be Nathan Meyer +Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the +family and the greatest financier of modern times. + + * * * * * + +Page 286. POPULAR FALLACIES. + +This series of little essays was printed in the _New Monthly Magazine_ +in 1826, beginning in January. The order of publication there was not +the same as that in the _Last Essays of Elia_; one of the papers, +"That a Deformed Person is a Lord," was not reprinted by Lamb at all +(it will be found in Vol. I. of this edition); and two others were +converted into separate essays (see "The Sanity of True Genius" and +"The Genteel Style in Writing"). + +After Lamb's death a new series of Popular Fallacies was contributed +to the _New Monthly Magazine_ by L.B. (Laman Blanchard) in 1835, +preceded by an invocation to the spirit of Charles Lamb. + +Page 286. I.--THAT A BULLY is ALWAYS A COWARD. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287, line 1. _Hickman_. This would be Tom Hickman, the pugilist. +In Hazlitt's fine account of "The Fight," Hickman or the Gas-Man, +"vapoured and swaggered too much, as if he wanted to grin and bully +his adversary out of the fight." And again, "'This is the _grave +digger_' (would Tom Hickman exclaim in the moments of intoxication +from gin and success, showing his tremendous right hand); 'this will +send many of them to their long homes; I haven't done with them yet.'" +But he went under to Neale, of Bristol, on the great day that Hazlitt +describes. + +Page 287, line 2. _Him of Clarissa_. Mr. Hickman, in Richardson's +novel _Clarissa_, the lover of Miss Bayes. + +Page 287. II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287. III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288, line 12. _In Mandeville_. In Bernard Mandeville's Fable of +the Bees, a favourite book of Lamb's. See Vol. I., note to "The Good +Clerk." + +Page 288. IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288. V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 290. VI.--THAT ENOUGH is AS GOOD AS A FEAST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291. VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE +WRONG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291, line 4 from foot. _Little Titubus_. I do not know who this +was, if any more than an abstraction; but it should be remembered that +Lamb himself stammered. + +Page 292. VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 292. IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Compare the reflections on puns in the essay on "Distant +Correspondents." Compare also the review of Hood's _Odes and +Addresses_ (Vol. I.). Cary's account of a punning contest after Lamb's +own heart makes the company vie with each in puns on the names +of herbs. After anise, mint and other words had been ingeniously +perverted Lamb's own turn, the last, was reached, and it seemed +impossible that anything was left for him. He hesitated. "Now then, +let us have it," cried the others, all expectant. "Patience," he +replied; "it's c-c-cumin." + +Page 293, line 18. _One of Swift's Miscellanies_. This joke, often +attributed to Lamb himself, will be found in _Ars Punica, sine flos +Linguarum, The Art of Punning; or, The Flower of Languages_, by Dr. +Sheridan and Swift, which will be found in Vol. XIII. of Scott's +edition of Swift. Among the directions to the punster is this:-- + +Rule 3. The Brazen Rule. He must have better assurance, like Brigadier +C----, who said, "That, as he was passing through a street, he made to +a country fellow who had a hare swinging on a stick over his shoulder, +and, giving it a shake, asked him whether it was his own _hair_ or a +periwig!" Whereas it is a notorious Oxford jest. + +Page 294, line 8. _Virgil ... broken Cremona_. Swift (as Lamb +explained in the original essay in the _New Monthly Magazine_), seeing +a lady's mantua overturning a violin (possibly a Cremona), quoted +Virgil's line: "Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ!" (_Eclogues_, +IX., 28), "Mantua, alas! too near unhappy Cremona." + +Page 294. X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. + +Whether a Mrs. Conrady existed, or was invented or adapted by Lamb to +prove his point, I have not been able to discover. But the evidence of +Lamb's "reverence for the sex," to use Procter's phrase, is against +her existence. _The Athenæum_ reviewer on February 16, 1833, says, +however, quoting the fallacy: "Here is a portrait of Mrs. Conrady. We +agree with the writer that 'no one that has looked on her can pretend +to forget the lady.'" The point ought to be cleared up. + +Page 296. XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, April, 1826. + +Page 297, line 13. _Our friend Mitis_. I do not identify Mitis among +Lamb's many friends. + +Page 297, line 11 from foot. _Presentation copies_. The late Mr. +Thomas Westwood, the son of the Westwoods with whom the Lambs lived +at Edmonton, writing to Notes and Queries some thirty-five years ago, +gave an amusing account of Lamb pitching presentation copies out of +the window into the garden--a Barry Cornwall, a Bernard Barton, a +Leigh Hunt, and so forth. Page 298, line 6. _Odd presents of game_. +Compare the little essay on "Presents of Game," Vol. I. + +Page 298. XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. In that place the first sentence +began with the word "Two;" the second ended with "of our assertions;" +and (fourteenth line of essay) it was said of the very poor man +that he "can ask" no visitors. Lamb, in a letter, wished Wordsworth +particularly to like this fallacy and that on rising with the lark. + +Page 300, line 9. _It has been prettily said_. By Lamb himself, or +more probably by his sister, in _Poetry for Children_, 1809. See "The +First Tooth," Vol. III., which ends upon the line + + A child is fed with milk and praise. + +Page 301, line 3. _There is yet another home_. Writing to Mrs. +Wordsworth on February 18, 1818, Lamb gives a painful account, very +similar in part to this essay, of the homeless home to which he was +reduced by visitors. But by the time he wrote the essay, when all his +day was his own, the trouble was not acute. He tells Bernard Barton +on March 20, 1826, "My tirade against visitors was not meant +_particularly_ at you or A.K. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not +just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_." Compare +the first of the "Lepus" papers in Vol. I. + +Page 301, line 20. _It is the refreshing sleep of the day_. After this +sentence, in the magazine, came this passage:-- + + "O the comfort of sitting down heartily to an old folio, and + thinking surely that the next hour or two will be your own--and + the misery of being defeated by the useless call of somebody, who + is come to tell you, that he is just come from hearing Mr. Irving! + What is that to you? Let him go home, and digest what the good man + said to him. You are at your chapel, in your oratory." + +Mr. Irving was the Rev. Edward Irving (1792-1834), whom Lamb knew +slightly and came greatly to admire. + +Page 302. XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "A Bachelor's Complaint." I cannot identify the particular +friend whom Lamb has hidden under asterisks; although his cousin would +seem to have some likeness to one of the Bethams mentioned in the +essay "Many Friends" (Vol. I.), and in the letter to Landor of +October, 1832 (usually dated April), after his visit to the Lambs. + +Page 304, line 15. _Honorius dismiss his vapid wife_. Writing to +Bernard Barton on March 20, 1826, Lamb says:--"In another thing I +talkd of somebody's _insipid wife_, without a correspondent object in +my head: and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way) has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are numerous. I send out a character +every now and then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my +friends." + +Page 304, line 11 from foot. _Merry, of Delia Cruscan memory_. Robert +Merry (1755-1798), an affected versifier who settled in Florence as a +young man, and contributed to the _Florence Miscellany_. He became +a member of the Delia Cruscan Academy, and on returning to England +signed his verses, in _The World_, "Delia Crusca." A reply to his +first effusion, "Adieu and Recall to Love," was written by Mrs. Hannah +Cowley, author of _The Belle's Stratagem_, and signed "Anna Matilda;" +this correspondence continued; a fashion of sentiment was thus +started; and for a while Delia Cruscan poetry was the rage. The +principal Delia Cruscan poems were published in the _British Album_ +in 1789, and the collection was popular until Gifford's _Baviad_ +(followed by his _Mæviad_) appeared in 1791, and satirised its +conceits so mercilessly that the school collapsed. A meeting with Anna +Matilda in the flesh and the discovery that she was twelve years his +senior had, however, put an end to Merry's enthusiasm long before +Gifford's attack. Merry afterwards threw in his lot with the French +Revolution, and died in America. He married, as Lamb says, Elizabeth +Brunton, an excellent tragic actress, in 1791. But that was in +England. The journey to America came later. + +The story of Merry's avoidance of the lady of his first choice is +probably true. Carlo Antonio Delpini was a famous pantomimist in his +day at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket. He also was +stage manager at the Opera for a while, and occasionally arranged +entertainments for George IV. at Brighton. He died in 1828. + +Page 305. XIV.--THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "The Superannuated Man," to which this little essay, which, +with that following, is one of Lamb's most characteristic and perfect +works, serves as a kind of postscript. + +Page 308. XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Page 309. XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, September, 1826. + +This was the last of the series and Lamb's last contribution to the +_New Monthly Magazine_. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 315. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, ETC. + +See notes to the essays "On Some of the Old Actors," "The Artificial +Comedy" and "The Acting of Munden." Two portions of these essays, not +reprinted by Lamb, call for comment: the story of the first night of +"Antonio," and the account of Charles Mathews' collection of pictures. + +Page 328, line 14 from foot. _My friend G.'s "Antonio."_ William +Godwin's tragedy, produced on December 13, 1800, at Drury Lane. Lamb +had written the epilogue (see Vol. IV.). Compare the letter to Manning +of December 16, 1800. + +Page 329, line 28. _M. wiped his cheek_. Writing to Godwin after the +failure Lamb says: "The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, +looked not to be more lovely than Marshal's forehead when it spit +forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines +by Marvel ... + + "'Where every Mower's wholesome heat + Smells like an Alexander's sweat.'" + +And again, to Manning: "His [Marshal's] face was lengthened, and all +over perspiration; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; I could +have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. 'From every pore of him a +perfume fell.'" + +Page 329, foot. _R----s the dramatist_. I imagine this to be Frederic +Reynolds (1764-1841), author of "The Dramatist" and many other plays. +We know Lamb to have known him later, from a mention in a letter to +J.B. Dibdin. + +Page 330, foot, _Brutus ... Appius_. Brutus in "Julius Cæsar," or +possibly in the play called "Brutus," by John Howard Payne, Lamb's +friend (produced December 3, 1818), in which Brutus kills his son--a +closer parallel. Appius was probably a slip of the pen for Virginius, +who in Sheridan Knowles' drama that bears his name kills his daughter +to protect her from Appius. + +Page 331, line 7. _G. thenceforward_. Godwin did, however, write +another play, "Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote the prologue. It was +moderately successful. + +Page 331, 1st line of essay. _I do not know, etc_. The paragraph +beginning with these words is often printed by editors of Lamb as +a separate article entitled "The Old Actors." Charles Mathews' +collection of theatrical portraits is now in the Garrick Club. In +his lifetime it occupied the gallery at Ivy Lodge, Highgate (or more +properly Kentish Town). A year or so before Mathews' death in 1835, +his pictures were exhibited at the Queen's Bazaar in Oxford Street, +Lamb's remarks being printed in the catalogue _raisonné_. + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Accountants, Lamb on, 3. +Actors and acting, Lamb's essays on, 150, 161, 168, 185, 188, 190, 230, + 315, 322, 331. +Actors among Lamb's friends, 232. +Adams, Parson, 49. +Agar's wish, 348. +Aguecheek, Lamb on, 155. +Ainger, Canon, his notes on Lamb, 345, 353, 361, 403, 436, 438. +_Albion, The_, and Lamb, 254, 429, 432. +Alice W----n, 32, 44, 116, 117, 339, 363, 389. +ALL FOOLS' DAY, 48, 367. +Allen, Bob, 25, 253, 355, 431. +Allsop, Thomas, quoting Lamb, 357. +---- and "Roast Pig," 396. +---- quotes Lamb on G.H., 425. +Almsgiving, Lamb on, 137. +Alsatia, the debtors' sanctuary, 162. +America, Lamb relics in, 344, 357, 358, 362, 412. +AMICUS REDIVIVUS, 237, 424. +Anatomy and love, 64. +_Anatomy of Melancholy_ quoted, 46. +André, Major, 237, 424. +Anna Matilda, 443. +Antiquity, Lamb on, 11. +"Antonio," by Godwin, 328, 444. +_Arcadia, The_, by Sidney, 242. +Arrowsmith, Aaron, 369. +"Artaxerxes," 113, 387. +Artificial comedy, Lamb's essay on, 161, 399. +Artists, their want of imagination, 256. +Arundel Castle and the chimney-sweep legend, 127. +_As when a child on some long winter's night_, 388. +_Athenæum, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 433. +_Athenian Oracle, The_, 303. +Australia, Lamb on, 122. +Ayrton, William, 361, 363. + +B + +BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE, 144, 397. +Badams, Mrs., 362. +Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 340. +Bannister, Jack, 159, 185, 399, 408. +BARBARA S----, 230, 421. +Barker's book-shop, 282, 439. +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART, + 256, 433. +Barrington, Daines, 101, 383. +Bartholomew Fair, 128, 391. +Barton, Bernard, Lamb's letters to, 341, 406, 417, 420, 435, 442. +-- Thomas, 102, 383. +Baskett prayer-book, 9. +Battle, Mrs., 37, 175, 406. +---- on whist, 37. +---- her identity, 361. +Beaumont and Fletcher, Lamb's copy, 357. +Beauty, Lamb on, 295. +"Beggar's Petition," 394. +Begging, Lamb's essay on, 130, 392. +Belisarius, 131. +"Belshazzars Feast," Martin's picture of, 259, 434. +Benchers, The Old, Lamb's essay on, 94. +Bensley, Robert, 152, 318, 398. +Betty, Master, 414. +Bigod, Ralph, Lamb's name for Fenwick, 27, 356. +Billet, John, 184. +Binding, Lamb on, 412. +_Blackwood's Magazine_ and Scott, 340. +Blake, William, and Lamb, 391. +BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE, 174, 405. +Blakesware near Widford, 115, 174, 388, 405. +Bland, Mrs., 283, 439. +Blandy, Miss, the poisoner, 98, 380. +Bodkin, W.H., 392. +_Book of Sports, The_, 418. +Books, Lamb on, 34, 360. +-- that are not books, 195, 411. +Booth's _Tables of Interest_ and Lamb, 419. +Borrowing, Lamb on, 26. +Bourne, Vincent, 133, 393. +Bowles, William Lisle, 38, 362. +Boyer, James, 23, 353. +Braham, John, 71, 371. +Breeding, Lamb on, 288. +Bridget, Elia. _See_ Elia. +Brighton and the Lambs, 415. +-- Lamb's imaginery scene there, 259. +British Museum, a careful vandal, 357. +Browne, Moses, 404. +-- Sir Thomas, 58, 66, 80. +Bruce, James, 240, 425. +Bruton, Miss Sarah, 376. +Brutons, Lamb's relations, 88, 89. +Buckland, Dean, and the American vandal, 424. +Bullies, Lamb on, 286, 440. +_Buncle, The Life of_, 30, 357. +Burney, Edward, 65, 370. +-- James, 361. +Burney, Martin, 200, 414. +-- Mrs., and Mrs. Battle, 361. +-- Sarah, her wedding, 271, 436. +Burns, Robert, and Lamb, 70, 370. +Burton, Robert, quoted, 46, 77. +_Business! the frivolous pretence_, 419. +Button Snap, Lamb's cottage, 385, 386, 387. +_But who is he, with modest looks_, 438. + + +C + +Cambridge, Lamb at, 345. +Camelford, Lord, 121, 390. +Candle-light, Lamb on, 308. +CAPTAIN JACKSON, 215, 416. +Card playing, essay on, in _Every-Day Book_, 362. +Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 193, 372, 410. +Cary, H.F., his verses on Lamb, 426. +-- on Lamb's puns, 441. +Cave, Edward, 344. +Chambers, John, 224, 419. +Chapman's _Homer_ kissed by Lamb, 412. +CHAPTER ON EARS, A, 43, 363. +CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA, A, 171, 402. +Chess and Mrs. Battle, 42. +CHILD ANGEL, THE, 276, 437. +Children and the dark, 77. +Chimney-sweepers, Lamb's essay on, 124, 390. +CHINA, OLD, 281, 438. +-- its first roast pork, 138. +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO, 14, 350. +---- prayer-book, 9. +---- food in Lamb's day, 14, 350. +---- holidays in Lamb's day, 15, 351. +---- the dungeon, 19. +---- flogging, 23. +---- Grecians, 26, 355. +---- its graces, 110, 384. +---- the Coleridge memorial, 354. +---- the Lamb medal, 355. +Clapdishes, 131. +"Cobbler of Preston," by Johnson, 170, 401. +Cockletop, in "Modern Antiques," 168, 400. +Colebrooke cottage, 425. +Coleridge, Hartley, on Lamb, 400. +-- S.T., at Christ's Hospital, 15, 350, 351. +-- his wit combats, 25. +-- his treatment of books, 29, 356. +-- his "Ode on the Departing Year," 31, 359. +-- on apple-dumplings, 108, 384. +-- his "Epitaph on an Infant," 141, 397. +-- on Boyer, 353. +-- and the Christ's Hospital memorial, 354. +-- his military name, 356. +-- Lamb's letters to, 356, 368, 396. +-- his marginalia, 358. +-- his notes in Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +------ in Donne, 358. +-- on Lamb, 359. +-- Lamb's letter to, concerning Quakers, 368. +-- and Christopher North, 371. +-- his sonnets with Lamb, 388. +-- and the _Morning Post_, 429, 430. +Colet, Dean, his _Accidence_, 59. +Colnaghi's print shop, 283, 439. +Comberback, Coleridge's military name, 29, 356. +_Come, all degrees now passing by_, 391. +Comedy and its licence, 161. +COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS, 130, 392. +CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD, 437. +Congreve, Lamb on, 160, 162. +Conrady, Mrs., 294, 441. +CONVALESCENT, THE, 208, 416. +Corbet, Peter, 404. +Coventry, Thomas, 97, 380. +Cowards and bullies, 286. +Cowley, on business, 419. +Crawford, Anne, 423. +Cresseid, 131. +Curry, Sir Christopher, in "Inkle and Yarico," 169, 401. + + +D + +Da Vinci, Leonardo, and Lamb's beauty, 69, 370. +Dawson, Bully, 287. +Days, Lamb's fantasy upon, 266. +DEATH-BED, A, 279, 437. +Delia Cruscan poetry, 443. +Delpini, 305, 443. +Dennis, John, 292. +De Quincey on Lamb, 377. +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING, 195, 411. +Dickens anticipated by Lamb, 356, 417. +Disputes, Lamb on, 291. +DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG, 137, 395. +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS, 118, 389. +Dobell, Mr. Bertram, his notes on Lamb, 342, 395, 408. +Doctor, the, at Islington, 238. +Dodd, James William, 155. +Dodwell, Henry, 224, 419. +Dornton in "The Road to Ruin," 169, 401. +Dorrell, William, the Lambs' enemy, 32, 360. +DREAM-CHILDREN, 115, 388. +Dreams, Lamb on, 79. +Drowning in dreams, 241. +Drury Lane Theatre, 111, 385. +Dyer, George, 11, 237, 241, 347, 348, 349, 424, 425, 433. +---- and the New River, 237, 424. + +E + +Early rising, Lamb on, 305. +East India House, Lamb at, 219. +------ Lamb's superannuation, 219, 417. +------ Lamb's fellow clerks, 223, 224, 403, 404. +Edwards, Thomas, 92, 379. +Eel-soup, 374. +Elgin marbles, 225, 419. +ELIA, 1823, suggested dedication, 337. +-- its poor reception, 338. +-- second series. American edition, 339. +Elia, F.A., 337. +-- Lamb on, 8. +-- his death, 171. +-- Lamb's character of, 171, 402. +-- origin of name, 337. +-- his birthplace, 365. +-- Bridget (Mary Lamb), 43, 362. +---- her taste in reading, 86. +---- her regrets for poverty, 282. +ELLISTON, TO THE SHADE OF, 188, 409. +ELLISTONIANA, 190, 410. +Elliston, R.W., Lamb's essays on, 188, 190, 409, 410. +---- at Leamington, 190. +---- his grave, 411. +---- Lamb and Munden on an excursion, 410. +Elton, Sir C.A., his poem to Lamb, 358. +Emery, John, 186, 409. +Endor, the Witch of, 75, 372. +_Englishman's Magazine_, 342. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 188, 190, 249. +Evans, William, 3, 343. +Evelyn, John, quoted, 72. +_Every-Day Book_, essay on card-playing, 362. +_Examiner, The_, and Lamb's "Chimney-Sweepers," 392. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 63, 168. +---- "On a visit to St. Paul's," 424. +Example, Lamb on, 288. +Excursions, the Lambs', 283. + + +F + +_Faerie Queene_, Lamb's copy, 413. +FALLACIES, POPULAR. _See_ POPULAR FALLACIES. +_Family Pictures_, by Anne Manning, 378. +Farley, Charles, 169, 259, 401, 435. +"Father, A," his remonstrance with Lamb, 360. +Favell, Joseph, 25, 181, 355, 408. +Feasting, Lamb on, 290. +Fenwick, John, 27, 129, 255, 356, 432. +Field, Barron, 90, 118, 363, 377, 389. +-- Mary, 361, 405. +-- Matthew, 20, 352. +Fielde, Francis, Lamb's godfather, 111, 385. +Flecknoe, quoted, 51. +Flogging, Lamb on, 23. +Fools, Lamb's essay on, 48, 367. +Fountains, Lamb on, 96. +Fox, George, 53, 368. +French translation of Lamb, 415. +Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 71. +Funerals and Lamb, 274, 436. + + +G + +Gallantry, Lamb on, 90, 377. +"Garden, The," by Marvell, 96. +Gattie, Henry, 186, 408. +Gebir and the Tower of Babel, 49. +_Gebir_, by Landor, 206, 415. +GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING, THE, 226, 420. +Gentility, Lamb on, 176. +George IV., 259, 268, 435, 436. +Gladmans, Lamb's relations, 88, 89, 90. +_Gli Elogi del Porco_, 396. +Gluttony and grace, Lamb on, 105. +Godwin, William, his play "Antonio," 328, 444. +-- Lamb's friend, 376. +-- Lamb's letter to, 444. +Gold's _London Magazine_, 395. +GRACE BEFORE MEAT, 104, 384. +Graces at Christ's Hospital, 110, 384. +Gray's Inn Gardens, 155, 399. +Grecians at Christ's Hospital, 26, 355. +Greg, Mr. Thomas, and Lamb's property, 385. +Guildhall giants, 29. +_Gulliver's Travels_, 382. + + +H + +Hare Court, Lamb's rooms in, 390. +"Harlequin's Invasion," 113, 387. +Hastings and the Lambs, 206, 416. +Hawes, Dr., 241. +Hazlitt, William, on Sidney, 247, 427. +---- on Lamb in the country, 345. +---- knocked down by John Lamb, 347. +---- his interest in John Buncle, 357. +---- as Duns Scotus, 367. +---- Lamb's letter to, 397. +---- on Lamb, 403. +---- his wedding, 436. +-- W.C., his notes on Lamb, 357, 438. +Helicon and Hippocrene confused, 37. +Hertfordshire hair, 178. +-- and Lamb, 220, 418. +-- Lamb's praise of, 375. +_He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind_, 428. +Heywood, Thomas, quoted, 67. +Hickman, Tom, the prize fighter, 287, 440. +_High-born Helen, round your dwelling_, 407. +Hodges (or Huggins), 352. +Hogarth, his chimney-sweeper, 126. +Hogsflesh and Bacon, 415. +Hogs Norton and the pigs, 109. +Holcroft, Thomas, 376. +Hone's _Table Book_, Lamb's contribution to, 279. +Hood, Thomas, his friendship with Lamb, 393. +---- on beggars, 393. +Hooker, Richard, 104, 384. +Hoole, John, 404. +Horsey, Samuel, 135, 393. +Huggins (or Hodges), 352. +Hugh of Lincoln, 70, 371. +Hume, David, 70, 371. +-- Joseph, Lamb's friend, 394. +Humphreys, Mr. Deputy, 253. +Hunt, Leigh, and Lamb, 360. +---- chaffed by Lamb, 364. +Hunt, Leigh, replies to Lamb, 365. +---- and Lamb's "Chimney Sweepers," 392. +---- on Lamb's books, 412. +---- his translation of Milton, 426. +-- Thornton, 77, 372. +Hutchinson, Sarah, Lamb's letter to, 417. + + +I + +_I can remember when a child the maids_, 372. +_I have not forgot how thou didst love thy Charles_, 350. +Illusion on the stage, 185. +Imagination, its lack in the artists of Lamb's day, 256. +Imitators of Lamb, 339. +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES, 66, 370. +Ino Leucothea, 79. +Ireland, Dean, 423. +Irving, Edward, and Lamb, 442. +Isola, Emma, 436. + + +J + +JACKSON, CAPTAIN, 215, 416. +-- "Omniscient," 102, 383. +"Janus Weathercock." _See_ Wainewright. +Jekyll, Joseph, 97, 379. +_John Woodvil_ quoted, 368, 372. +Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 250, 344, 383. +Jokes to order, Lamb on, 252. +Jonson, Ben, quoted, 89. +Jordan, Mrs., 151, 398. +Joshua, Martin's picture of, 262, 435. +Journalism and Lamb, 251. + + +K + +Kelly, Fanny, and BARBARA S----, 421. +---- and Mrs. Siddons, 422. +Kemble, John Philip, 153, 168, 327, 398. +Kenney, James, 30, 357. +Kent, Charles, his edition of Lamb, 421. +King, Thomas, 166, 400. + + +L + +"Lady of the Manor," 113, 387. +Lamb, Charles, on the South-Sea House, 1. +---- on accountants, 3. +---- on Elia, 8. +---- on Oxford, 10. +---- on antiquity, 11. +---- on old libraries, 11. +---- on George Dyer, 11. +---- on his school-days, 14. +---- on Coleridge's school-days, 14. +---- on Matthew Fielde, 21. +---- on James Boyer, 22. +---- on borrowers and borrowing, 26. +---- on John Fenwick, 27. +---- on Coleridge as a book borrower, 29. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle, 30. +---- on the New Year, 31. +---- on bells, 31. +---- on his childhood, 32, 75. +---- on the joy of life, 33. +---- on death, 34. +---- on Mrs. Battle and whist, 37, +---- his want of ear, 43. +---- his piano playing, 44. +---- on oratorios, 45. +---- on Novello's evenings, 47. +---- on fools, 48. +---- on Quakers, 51, 55, 72. +---- on silence, 51. +---- on Sewel's _History_, 53. +---- on John Woolman, 54. +---- and the Quaker "wit," 55. +---- his reading, 56. +---- on schoolmasters, 59. +---- on Valentine's Day, 63. +---- on anatomy and love, 64. +---- on door knocks, 64. +---- on Edward Burney's valentine, 65. +---- on imperfect sympathies, 66. +---- on Scotchmen, 67. +---- on Jews, 70. +---- on Braham, 71. +---- on negroes, 71. +---- on Quakers, 72. +---- on witches, 74. +---- on his childhood, 75. +---- on children and the dark, 77. +---- on Thornton Hunt's bringing up, 77. +---- on dreams, 79. +---- on his relations, 80. +---- on Sarah Lamb, 80. +---- on John Lamb, jr., 81, 117. +---- on his sister Mary, 86. +---- his dislike of stories, 86. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle again, 87. +---- on Mackery End, 88. +---- his Hertfordshire relations, 88. +---- on the comely Brutons, 89. +---- on gallantry, 90. +---- on Joseph Paice, 92. +---- on the Temple, 94. +---- on sun-dials, 95. +---- on fountains, 96. +---- on the old Benchers, 97. +---- on Joseph Jekyll, 97. +---- on Samuel Salt, 98, 103. +---- on Thomas Coventry, 99. +---- on his father, 99. +---- on Daines Barrington, 101. +---- on James Mingay, 102. +---- on Baron Maseres, 103. +---- on saying grace, 104. +---- on Milton, 107. +---- his godfather Field, 111. +---- as a landed proprietor, 112. +---- his first play, 112. +---- and his imaginary children, 115. +---- his grandmother, 115. +---- on Blakesware, 116. +---- on distant correspondents, 118. +---- on Lord Camelford's whim, 121. +---- on puns, 122. +---- on Australia, 122. +---- on chimney-sweepers, 124. +---- on Saloop, 125. +---- and fine teeth, 127. +---- and James White, 128. +---- on beggars, 130. +---- his translation from Bourne, 133. +Lamb, Charles, on Samuel Horsey, 135. +---- on almsgiving, 137. +---- on the origin of roast pig, 137. +---- on roast pig, 140. +---- and his plum cake, 142. +---- on married people, 144. +---- on "Twelfth Night," 150. +---- on Mrs. Jordan, 151. +---- on Mrs. Powel, 151. +---- on Bensley's Malvolio, 152. +---- on Dodd's Aguecheek, 155. +---- on Dicky Suett, 157. +---- on Jack Bannister, 159. +---- on Jack Palmer, 159, 165. +---- on the artificial comedy, 161. +---- on Wycherley and Congreve, 162. +---- on the "School for Scandal," 164. +---- on J.P. Kemble, 168. +---- on Munden's faces, 169. +---- on Elia's death, 172. +---- on family mansions, 174. +---- on Blakesware, 175. +---- on the feeling of gentility, 176. +---- on poor relations, 178. +---- on Favell's sensitiveness, 181. +---- on John Billet, 183. +---- on stage illusion, 185. +---- on Gattie's old men, 186. +---- on Emery as Tyke, 186. +---- on Elliston, 188, 190. +---- entertains Elliston, 194. +---- on reading, 195. +---- on books that are not books, 195. +---- on binding, 196. +---- on editions of the great authors, 197. +---- on the names of poets, 198. +---- on Shakespeare, 198. +---- his adventure on Primrose Hill, 199. +---- on watering-places, 201. +---- on the voyage to Margate, 21. +---- on a good liar, 202. +---- on the ocean, 205. +---- on Hastings, 206. +---- on smuggling, 207. +---- on convalescence, 208. +---- on the sanity of genius, 212. +---- on Captain Jackson, 215. +---- on his clerk-state, 219. +---- his superannuation, 221. +---- on leisure, 222. +---- on the genteel style in writing, 226. +---- on Sir William Temple, 226. +---- on Miss Kelly's reminiscence. 230. +---- on his friends among actors, 232. +---- on Westminster Abbey fees, 235. +---- on Andrews monument, 237. +---- on George Dyer's immersion, 237. +---- on the Islington doctor, 238, +---- on the New River, 240. +---- on drowning in dreams, 241. +---- on Sidney's sonnets, 242. +---- on Milton's Latin sonnet, 243. +---- on Hazlitt s opinion of Sidney, 248. +---- on James Bruce, 250. +---- on Dan Stuart, 250. +---- on the _Morning Post_ days, 250. +---- on joking to order, 252. +---- on Bob Allen, 253. +---- on _The Albion_, 254. +---- and Sir James Mackintosh, 256. +---- on modern painters, 256. +---- on Titian's "Ariadne," 256. +---- on Raphael, 257. +---- on J.M.W. Turner, 258. +---- his imaginary scene at Brighton, 259. +---- on John Martin, 260. +---- on Don Quixote, 264. +---- his fantasy on the Days, 266. +---- on Miss Burney's wedding, 271. +---- on mothers and daughters, 273. +---- on his behaviour on solemn occasions, 274. +Lamb, Charles, on Admiral Burney, 275. +---- his fantasy on the child angel, 276. +---- on Randal Norris's death, 279. +---- on old china, 281. +---- his sister's regrets for poverty, 282. +---- and the folio Beaumont and Fletcher, 282. +---- and his sister's excursions, 283. +---- and his sister's playgoing, 283. +---- on bullies and cowards, 286. +---- on ill-gotten gains, 287. +---- on jokes and laughter, 287. +---- on breeding, 288. +---- on the poor and the rich, 288. +---- on sayings concerning money, 290. +---- on disputants, 291. +---- on puns, 292. +---- on Mrs. Conrady, 294. +---- on beauty, 295. +---- on presents, 296. +---- on home, 298. +---- on friendship, 302. +---- on Merry's wedding day, 304. +---- on early rising, 305. +---- on superannuation, 307. +---- on going to bed late, 308. +---- on candle-light, 308. +---- on sulky tempers, 309. +---- on Kemble in Godwin's "Antonio," 329. +---- on Mathews' collection of portraits, 331. +---- on the name Elia, 337. +---- his dedication to _Elia_, 337, +---- his imitators, 339. +---- his Key to _Elia_, 339. +---- and the _London Magazine_, 340. +---- on Taylor's editing, 341. +---- his _post London Magazine_ days, 342. +---- at the South-Sea House, 342. +---- in the country, 345. +---- at Oxford, 346. +---- his sonnet on Cambridge, 346. +---- on Milton's MSS., 346. +---- his jokes with George Dyer, 347. +---- on George Dyer's career, 348, 349. +---- his lines to his aunt, 350. +---- his popularity at school, 355. +---- on Grecians and Deputy-Grecians, 355. +---- on reading and borrowing, 356. +---- and Luther's _Table Talk_, 357. +---- Coleridge as a reader, 357. +---- his copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +---- his copy of Donne, 358. +---- his books in America, 358. +---- his reply to "Olen," 358. +---- his sonnet "Leisure," 359. +---- Coleridge's description of him, 359. +---- on Coleridge's "Ode," 359. +---- his sonnet on Innocence, 360. +---- rebuked by "A Father," 360. +---- and the Burneys, 361. +---- elementary rules of whist, 362. +---- his ear for music, 363. +---- weathering a Mozartian storm, 364. +---- his chaff of Hunt, 364. +---- on Elia's ancestors, 364. +---- chaffed by Hunt, 365. +---- Maginn thinks him a Jew, 365. +---- on birthplaces, 365. +---- on turning Quaker, 368. +---- kisses a copy of Burns, 371. +---- his threat concerning Burns, 371. +---- rebuked by Christopher North, 371. +---- his admiration of Braham, 371. +---- on Sir Anthony Carlisle, 372. +---- his sisters, 373. +---- on John Lamb's pamphlet, 374. +Lamb, Charles, his cousins, 376. +---- his blank verse fragment, 377. +---- on Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," 377. +---- De Quincey's description of him, 377. +---- his chivalry, 377. +---- Barry Cornwall's anecdote of him, 377. +---- his birthplace, 379. +---- his patron, 380. +---- his father, 381. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +---- and Southey's criticism of _Elia_, 384. +---- as a landowner, 385. +---- his letter to his tenant, 386. +---- and his mother, 387. +---- his sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, 388. +---- and Alice W----, 389. +---- his love period, 389. +---- and chimney-sweepers, 390. +---- at Bartholomew Fair, 391. +---- his acquaintance with Hood, 393. +---- his joke to a beggar, 394. +---- on the "Beggar's Petition," 394. +---- his joke on Wainewright, 395. +---- the origin of his "Roast Pig," 395. +---- his recantation, 397. +---- his aunts, 397. +---- on Mrs. John Rickman, 397. +---- criticised by Macaulay, 399. +---- praised by Hartley Coleridge, 400. +---- on Elia's character, 402. +---- on the East India House clerks, 404. +---- letter to Southey about Blakesware, 406. +---- letter to Barton on same subject, 406. +---- his excursion with Elliston and Munden, 410. +---- his books described by Leigh Hunt, 412. +---- his affectation of affectation, 414. +---- and watering-places, 415. +---- at Hastings, 416. +---- leaves the India House, 417. +---- letter to Barton on his liberty, 417. +---- on the Puritans, 418. +---- his love of walking, 419. +---- his sonnet on "Work," 419. +---- his remark to Macready, 423. +---- his remark to Allsop about Dyer, 425. +---- the last book he read, 426. +---- on Lord's Thurlow's poems, 427. +---- his paragraphs for the _Morning Post_, 429. +---- as he appeared to Dan Stuart, 430. +---- his epigrams on Mackintosh, 433. +---- his real opinion of Titian's "Ariadne," 434. +---- letter to Barton on John Martin, 435. +---- at Hazlitt's wedding, 436. +---- his clothes, 438. +---- his pun at Cary's, 441. +---- his treatment of presentation copies, 441. +-- Elizabeth, Lamb's mother, 387. +-- John (Lovel), 100, 381. +---- his boyhood, 183, 408. +---- quoted, 437. +---- jr., his character, 81. +---- his childhood, 117. +---- at the South-Sea House, 344. +---- and Hazlitt, 347. +---- his _Letter ... on Cruelty to Animals_, 374. +---- his death, 388. +-- Mary (Bridget Elia), Lamb's sister, 43, 86, 362, 376. +---- her account of a schoolmaster, 62. +---- a quaint poetess, 200, 414. +---- her first play, 387. +---- her poem "Helen," 407. +-- Sarah (Lamb's aunt), 15, 142, 350, 397. +---- her character, 80. +Lamb, Sarah, her sarcasm, 184. +-- family, 81, 373. +"LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA," 339. +Laughter, Lamb on, 287. +"Lazarus, The Raising of," by Piombo, 262, 435. +Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 25, 110, 354, 384. +---- Samuel, 25, 355. +Leisure, Lamb on, 420. +Letter-writing, Lamb on, 118. +Liar, a good, 202. +Libraries, Lamb on, 11. +_Life of John Buncle_, by Amory, 30, 357. +Lincoln, John Lamb's boyhood, 183, 408. +Liston, John, 169, 401, 423. +Lloyd, Charles, 360. +Lombardy and the pawnbrokers, 254. +London, Lamb's homes in, 379. +_London Magazine_, history of, 340. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 1-56, 66-185, 195-208, 215, 219, 230, + 235, 237, 242, 271, 276, 281, 315, 322, 331. +---- Lamb's last contribution to, 408. +Love and anatomy, 64. +"Love for Love," by Congreve, 160. +Lovel. _See_ John Lamb. +Lovell, Daniel, 255, 432. +Lully, Raymond, 49, 196. +"Lun's Ghost," 113, 387. +Luther's _Table Talk_ and Coleridge, 357. +"Lycidas" in its original form, 346. + + +M + +Macaulay, Lord, 399. +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 86, 375. +Mackintosh, Sir James, 433. +Macready, W.C., and Lamb, 423. +Maginn, William, 365. +Make-believe, an artist in, 215. +Malone, Edmund, 198, 413. +Malvolio, the character of, 316. +Man, Henry, 6, 344. +Manning, Miss Anne, quoted, 378. +-- Thomas, 56, 369. +---- and "Roast Pig," 137, 396. +---- Lamb's letter to, 376, 444. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +Margate, Lamb at, 415. + Hoy, Lamb's essay on, 201, 415. +Marriage, Lamb on, 144. +Married people, Lamb's essay on, 144, 397. +Marshal, Godwin's friend, 329, 444. +Martin, John, 259, 434. +Marvell, Andrew, quoted, 96, 176. +Maseres, Baron, 103, 383. +Mathews, Charles, his pictures, 331, 445. +Mendicity, Society for Suppression of, 130, 392. +Merry, Robert, 304, 443. +Micawber, Wilkins, anticipated, 356, 417. +Middleton, Thomas Fanshaw, 23, 24, 354. +Milton, John, on education, 60, 369. +---- Lamb on, 107. +---- adapted by Lamb, 188. +---- on the _Arcadia_, 242. +---- and the civil war, 242. +---- his Latin sonnet, "Ad Leonoram," 243, 426. +---- Lamb's copy of, 412. +Mingay, James, 102, 383. +MODERN GALLANTRY, 90, 377. +Money, sayings concerning, 290. +Montagu, Basil, 12, 252, 348, 431. + Lady Mary Wortley, 381. +Montgomery, James, and Lamb, 390. +Moore, Thomas, his _Loves of the Angels_, 276, 437. +Moore's _Diary_ quoted, 411. +_Morning Chronicle_ and Lamb, 429, 431. +-- _Herald_, 413. +-- _Post_ and Lamb, 249, 429. +Mothers and daughters, Lamb on, 273. +"Mourning Bride," Mary Lamb's first play, 387. +Moxon, Lamb's letter to, 434. +Mozart, Lamb copes with, successfully, 364. +"Mr. H." and Elliston, 409. +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST, 37, 361. +Munden, Joseph Shepherd, 168, 400. +Music, Lamb's difficulty with, 44, 363. +MY FIRST PLAY, 110, 385. +_My good friend, for favours to my son and wife_, 382. +MY RELATIONS, 80, 373. + + +N + +Names of poets, Lamb on, 198. +Negroes, Lamb on, 71. +_New Monthly Magazine_, 342. +------ Lamb's contributions to, 212, 226, 286-309. +New River, the, and G.D., 237, 424. +NEW YEAR'S EVE, 31, 358. +Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 30, 87, 131, 197, 357, 393, 412. +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, 249, 428. +Newspaper stamps, 433. +Night-fears, Lamb on, 77. +_Nobleman, The Unfortunate Young_, 81. +Norris, Randal, 279, 416, 437. +North, Christopher (John Wilson), 371. +Novello, Vincent, 47, 363. +Nyren, John, 363. + + +O + +_Odes and Addresses_ quoted, 392. +OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG, 291, 440. +Ogilvie, his memories of G.D., 424. +OLD ACTORS, THE, 322, 444. +-- BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE, THE, 94, 379. +-- CHINA, 281, 438. +-- MARGATE HOY, THE, 201, 415. +OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER, THE, 56, 369. +"Olen," Sir C.A. Elton's pseudonym, 358. +_O melancholy Bird, a winter's day_, 427. +_One parent vet is left,--a wretched thing_, 382. +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, 150, 397. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN, 168, 400. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY, 161, 399. _See_ also + APPENDIX. +Orrery lectures, 60, 370. +OXFORD IN THE VACATION, 8, 345. +Oxford, Lamb at, 8, 345. + + +P + +Paice, Joseph, 92, 343, 378. +Palmer, John, 159, 399. +Paltock's _Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +Paracelsus, Lamb on, 196. +_Paradise Regained_, 107. +Patmore, P.G., on Lamb, 403. +---- Lamb's letter to, 436. +---- on Lamb's dress, 438. +Peirson, Peter, 101, 382. + Susannah, 99, 381. +Penn, William, and the judges, 73. +Perry, James, 250, 431. +_Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +"Peter's Net," 428, 431. +Pianoforte, Lamb's solo, 44. +Pig, Lamb's essay upon, 137, 395. +Piombo, his "Raising of Lazarus," 262, 435. +Piquet and Mrs. Battle, 41. +_Pity the sorrows of a poor old man_, 394. +Playgoing, the Lambs, 283. +Plumer, Richard, 7, 344. +-- Walter, 7, 40, 345, 362. +-- William, 344, 389, 405. +_Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions_ by John Lamb, 381. +Polar expeditions, 58, 369. +Poor, Lamb on the, 288, 298. +POOR RELATIONS, 178, 408. +Pope, Alexander, _The Rape of the Lock_, 38. +-- Miss, 167, 400. +POPULAR FALLACIES, 212, 226, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 292, 294, 296, 298, + 302, 305, 308, 309, 439 _et seq_. +Pork, Lamb's essay on, 137. +Porphyry on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, 396. +Poverty and pleasure, 282. +Powell, Mrs., 151. +PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS, THE, 124, 390. +Presentation copies, Lamb on, 297, 441. +Presents, Lamb on, 296. +Procter, B.W. (Barry Cornwall), his dream, 79, 373. +---- quoted, 371, 377. +---- on Munden, 400. +Puckeridge and Lamb's property, 112. +Pulham, Brook, 363. +Punning, Lamb on, 122, 292, 441. +Puritans and Sunday, 418. + + +Q + +Quadrille and Mrs. Battle, 38. +Quakerism and Lamb, 368. +QUAKER'S MEETING, A, 51, 367. +Quarrels, Lamb on, 309. +Quick, John, 332. +Quixote, Don, 154, 265, 398, 435. + + +R + +Ramsay, London Librarian, 49, 367. +Raphael, his "Bible," 257. +Raymond, George, his _Memoirs of Elliston_, 410. +Reade, John, 102, 383. +Reading, Lamb's essay upon, 195, 411. +Red stockings, and Lamb's jokes, 251, 429. +_Reflector, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 144. +---- Moxon's paper, 434. +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE, 266, 436. +Relations, poor, Lamb s essay on, 178, 408. +Restoration comedy, Lamb on, 160, 161. +Rickman, Mrs. John, Lamb's opinion of, 397. +Robinson, Crabb, quoted, 370. +---- Lamb's letters to, 374, 437. +---- on Lamb's books, 411. +Romano, Julio, 263. +Rover, in "Wild Oats," 188. +Roydon, Matthew, his elegy upon Sidney, 248, 428. +Rutter, Mr. J.A., his notes on Lamb, 343. + + +S + +St. Dunstan's giants, 192, 410. +Saloop, Lamb on, 125. +Salt, Samuel, 98, 352, 380. +Samuel and the Witch of Endor, 75, 372. +Sandwich, Lord, epigram on, 344. +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS, 212, 416. +Sargus, Mr. Lamb's tenant, 386. +"School for Scandal," Lamb on, 164. +School-days, Lamb on his, 14. +Schoolmasters, Lamb's essay on, 56, 369. +Scotchmen, Lamb on, 67, 371. +Scott, John, editor of the _London_, 340. +Sea, the, Lamb on, 204. +Sedition, Lamb's exercises in, 255. +Selden, John, 104, 384. +Sensitiveness, Lamb on, 181. +Sewel, William, historian of Quakers, 369. +Shaftesbury, Lord, 226, 420. +Shakespeare, Lamb on, 197, 412. +-- his bust at Stratford-on-Avon, 198, 413. +Sharp, Granville, 50, 367. +Shenstone, William, 243, 426. +Sheridan, R.B., 26, 111, 167, 356, 385, 400. +Siddons, Mrs., in "Isabella," 114, 388. +Sidney, Sir Philip, his sonnets, 242, 426. +Sitting up late, Lamb on, 308. +Smith, the Scotchman, 69, 370. + John Thomas, 394. +Smollett, Tobias George, 70, 371. +Smuggling, Lamb on, 207. +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 242, 426. +_So should it be, my gentle friend_, 426. +South Downs, Lamb on, 415. +SOUTH-SEA HOUSE, THE, 1, 342. +Southey at Westminster School, 235. +-- Robert, his criticism of _Elia_, 359. +-- Lamb's letters to, 384, 406, 419, 423, 436. +Spencer, Lord, epigram on, 344. +Spenser, Lamb's copy of the _Faerie Queene_, 413. +Stackhouse's _History of the Bible_, 75, 372. +STAGE ILLUSION, 185, 408. +Stanhope, Lord, 433. +Stocks, Lamb in the, 363. +_Stranger, to whom this monument is shown_, 413. +Stuart, Daniel, 250, 429. 430. +Suett, Dicky, 157, 399. +Sulkiness, its pleasures, 309. +Sun-dials in the Temple, 95. +SUPERANNUATED MAN, THE, 219, 417. +Superannuation, Lamb on, 219, 307. +Surface, Joseph and Charles, 166. +Swift's _Ars Punica_, 293, 441. + + +T + +Taylor, Bishop, on the sunrise, 309. +-- John, 337, 341, 358. +Teeth, Lamb's admiration of, 127. +Temple, The, and Lamb, 94, 113, 379, 387. +-- the winged horse, 97. +-- Sir William, 226, 420, +THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD, 286, 440. +-- A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST, 287, 440. +-- A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE, 309, 443. +-- ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST, 290, 440. +-- HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES, 294, 441. +-- HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY, 298, 442. +-- ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS, 287, 440. +-- SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC., 288, 440. +-- THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH, 288, 440. +-- THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST, 292, 440. +-- VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC., 292, 440. +-- WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. 296, 441. +-- WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAME, 308, 443. +-- WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK, 305, 443. +-- YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG, 302, 442. +_The chatt'ring Magpye undertook_, 437. +Thelwall, John, 376. +_They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke_, 359. +Thomson, James, 70. +_Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black_, 433. +Thurlow, Lord, his sonnet, 427. +Tipp, John, 5, 343. +Titian, his "Ariadne," 256, 434. +_To every one (so have ye faith) is given_, 426. +TO THE SHADE OK ELLISTON, 188, 409. +Tobin, James Webbe, 16, 352. +-- John, 199, 413. +TOMBS IN THE ABBEY, THE, 235, 423. +_Tristram Shandy_, a parallel to Lamb, 403. +Trollope, A.W., quoted, 351. +_Turkish Spy_ and Lamb's roast-pig essay, 395. +Turner, J.M.W., 258, 434. +"Twelfth Night," Lamb's remarks on, 150, 153, 284, 316. +Twelve Cæsars, 405, 406. +_Two Lords whose names if I should quote_, 344. +TWO RACES OF MEN, THE, 26, 355. +Twopenny, Richard, 102, 383. +-- post in 1825, 370. + + +U + +Ugliness, Lamb on, 295. +Unitarianism, 81, 373. + + +V + +VALENTINE'S DAY, 63, 370. +Vallans, his "Tale of Two Swans," 375. +Virgil, his Latin pun, 294, 441. +Visitors, Lamb on, 301, 442. + + +W + +Wainewright, T.G., 395, 439. +Ward, Robert, afterwards Plumer-Ward, 405. +Watering-places, Lamb on, 201, 415. +Weathercock, Janus. _See_ Wainewright. +WEDDING, THE, 271, 436. +-- an interrupted, 305. +Westminster Abbey, the price for admission, 235, 423. +Westwood, Thomas, on Lamb, 441. +_We were two pretty babes, the youngest she_, 360. +Wharry, John, 102, 383. +_What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor_, 424. +_What seem'd his tail the likeness of a kingly kick had on_, 409. +Whist, 37, 275, 361, 362, 437. +White, James, 123, 157, 390, 391. +---- and the chimney-sweepers, 128. +---- and Dodd, 157. +"Wild Oats," 188. +_Who first invented work--and bound the free_, 419. +Wilson, John. _See_ Christopher North. +Winstanley, Susan, and Joseph Paice, 92. +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS, 74, 372. +Woolman, John, 54, 369. +Wordsworth, Mrs., Lamb's letter to, 442. +-- William, his "Yarrow Visited," 89, 377. +---- Lamb's letters to, 356, 388, 412, 417, 418, 434. +---- his theory of language, 394. +---- his "Anecdote for Fathers," 395. +---- his "Poet's Epitaph," 438. +"Work," Lamb's sonnet on, 419. +Worthing and the Lambs, 415. +Wrench, Benjamin, 191, 410. +Wycherley, Lamb on, 162. + + +Y + +_Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers_, 346. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10343 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5034a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10343 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10343) diff --git a/old/10343-8.txt b/old/10343-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2eb5f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10343-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21290 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2, +by Charles Lamb, et al, Edited by E. V. Lucas + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 + +Author: Charles Lamb + +Release Date: November 30, 2003 [eBook #10343] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY +LAMB, VOLUME 2*** + + +E-text prepared by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB, VOLUME 2 + +ELIA; and THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +BY + +CHARLES LAMB + +EDITED BY + +E.V. LUCAS + + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This volume contains the work by which Charles Lamb is best known and +upon which his fame will rest--_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_. +Although one essay is as early as 1811, and one is perhaps as late as +1832, the book represents the period between 1820 and 1826, when Lamb +was between forty-five and fifty-one. This was the richest period of +his literary life. + +The text of the present volume is that of the first edition of each +book--_Elia_, 1823, and _The Last Essays of Elia_, 1833. The principal +differences between the essays as they were printed in the _London +Magazine_ and elsewhere, and as they were revised for book form by +their author, are shown in the Notes, which, it should be pointed out, +are much fuller in my large edition. The three-part essay on "The Old +Actors" (_London Magazine_, February, April, and October, 1822), from +which Lamb prepared the three essays; "On Some of the Old Actors," +"The Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "The Acting of +Munden," is printed in the Appendix as it first appeared. The absence +of the "Confessions of a Drunkard" from this volume is due to the fact +that Lamb did not include it in the first edition of _The Last Essays +of Elia_. It was inserted later, in place of "A Death-Bed," on account +of objections that were raised to that essay by the family of +Randal Norris. The story is told in the notes to "A Death-Bed." The +"Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +In Mr. Bedford's design for the cover of this edition certain Elian +symbolism will be found. The upper coat of arms is that of Christ's +Hospital, where Lamb was at school; the lower is that of the Inner +Temple, where he was born and spent many years. The figures at the +bells are those which once stood out from the façade of St. Dunstan's +Church in Fleet Street, and are now in Lord Londesborough's garden in +Regent's Park. Lamb shed tears when they were removed. The tricksy +sprite and the candles (brought by Betty) need no explanatory words of +mine. + +E.V.L. + + + + +CONTENTS + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +The South-Sea House 1 342 +Oxford in the Vacation 8 345 +Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago 14 350 +The Two Races of Men 26 355 +New Year's Eve 31 358 +Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist 37 361 +A Chapter on Ears 43 363 +All Fools' Day 48 367 +A Quaker's Meeting 51 367 +The Old and the New Schoolmaster 56 369 +Valentine's Day 63 370 +Imperfect Sympathies 66 370 +Witches, and other Night-Fears 74 372 +My Relations 80 373 +Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 86 375 +Modern Gallantry 90 377 +The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 94 379 +Grace Before Meat 104 384 +My First Play 110 385 +Dream-Children; A Reverie 115 388 +Distant Correspondents 118 389 +The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 124 390 +A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis 130 392 +A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 137 395 +A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married + People 144 397 +On Some Old Actors 150 397 +On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century 161 399 +On the Acting of Munden 168 400 + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +Preface, by a Friend of the late Elia 171 402 +Blakesmoor in H----shire 174 405 +Poor Relations 178 408 +Stage Illusion 185 408 +To the Shade of Elliston 188 409 +Ellistoniana 190 410 +Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading 195 411 +The Old Margate Hoy 201 415 +The Convalescent 208 416 +Sanity of True Genius 212 416 +Captain Jackson 215 416 +The Superannuated Man 219 417 +The Genteel Style in Writing 226 420 +Barbara S---- 230 421 +The Tombs in the Abbey 235 423 +Amicus Redivivus 237 424 +Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney 242 426 +Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago 249 428 +Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the + Productions of Modern Art 256 433 +Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age 266 436 +The Wedding 271 436 +The Child Angel: a Dream 276 437 +A Death-Bed 279 437 +Old China 281 438 +Popular Fallacies-- + I. That a Bully is always a Coward 286 440 + II. That Ill-gotten Gain never Prospers 287 440 + III. That a Man must not Laugh at his own Jest 287 440 + IV. That such a One shows his Breeding.--That + it is Easy to Perceive he is no Gentleman 288 440 + V. That the Poor Copy the Vices of the Rich 288 440 + VI. That Enough is as Good as a Feast 290 440 + VII. Of Two Disputants, the Warmest is Generally + in the Wrong 291 440 + VIII. That Verbal Allusions are not Wit, because + they will not Bear a Translation 292 440 + IX. That the Worst Puns are the Best 292 440 + X. That Handsome is that Handsome does 294 441 + XI. That We must not look a Gift-horse in the + Mouth 296 441 + XII. That Home is Home though it is never so + Homely 298 442 + XIII. That You must Love Me, and Love my Dog 302 442 + XIV. That We should Rise with the Lark 305 443 + XV. That We should Lie Down with the Lamb 308 443 + XVI. That a Sulky Temper is a Misfortune 309 443 + + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +On Some of the Old Actors (_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) 315 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, April, 1822) 322 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, October, 1822) 331 444 + + NOTES 337 + INDEX 447 + + +FRONTISPIECE + +ELIA + +From a Drawing by Daniel Maclise, now preserved in the Victoria and +Albert Museum. + + + + +ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition, 1823_) + +THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE + + +Reader, in thy passage from the Bank--where thou hast been receiving +thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant +like myself)--to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or +Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,--didst thou +never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, +to the left--where Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare +say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, +and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with +few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out--a desolation something +like Balclutha's.[1] + +This was once a house of trade,--a centre of busy interests. The +throng of merchants was here--the quick pulse of gain--and here some +forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since +fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos; imposing staircases; +offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces--deserted, or thinly +peopled with a few straggling clerks; the still more sacred interiors +of court and committee rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, +door-keepers--directors seated in form on solemn days (to proclaim a +dead dividend,) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, +with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting massy silver +inkstands long since dry;--the oaken wainscots hung with pictures +of deceased governors and sub-governors, of queen Anne, and the +two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty;--huge charts, which +subsequent discoveries have antiquated;--dusty maps of Mexico, dim as +dreams,--and soundings of the Bay of Panama!--The long passages hung +with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might +defy any, short of the last, conflagration;--with vast ranges of +cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, +an "unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart +withal,--long since dissipated, or scattered into air at the blast of +the breaking of that famous BUBBLE.-- + +Such is the SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. At least, such it was forty years ago, +when I knew it,--a magnificent relic! What alterations may have been +made in it since, I have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I +take for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the +face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stagnates +upon it. The moths, that were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers +and day-books, have rested from their depredations, but other light +generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their single +and double entries. Layers of dust have accumulated (a superfoetation +of dirt!) upon the old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save +by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the +mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed +curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous +HOAX, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with +the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition +of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy +contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. + +Peace to the manes of the BUBBLE! Silence and destitution are upon thy +walls, proud house, for a memorial! + +Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living +commerce,--amid the fret and fever of speculation--with the Bank, +and the 'Change, and the India-house about thee, in the hey-day of +present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting +thee, their _poor neighbour out of business_--to the idle and merely +contemplative,--to such as me, old house! there is a charm in thy +quiet:--a cessation--a coolness from business--an indolence almost +cloistral--which is delightful! With what reverence have I paced thy +great bare rooms and courts at eventide! They spoke of the past:--the +shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit +by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle +me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which +scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from +their enshrining shelves--with their old fantastic flourishes, and +decorative rubric interlacings--their sums in triple columniations, +set down with formal superfluity of cyphers--with pious sentences at +the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to +open a book of business, or bill of lading--the costly vellum covers +of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some _better +library_,--are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look +upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped +ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had every thing on a larger +scale than we have hearts for) are as good as any thing from +Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of our days have gone retrograde. + +The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House--I speak of +forty years back--had an air very different from those in the public +offices that I have had to do with since. They partook of the genius +of the place! + +They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit of superfluous +salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had not much to do) persons +of a curious and speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason +mentioned before. Humorists, for they were of all descriptions; and, +not having been brought together in early life (which has a tendency +to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other), but, +for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, they +necessarily carried into it their separate habits and oddities, +unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. Hence they +formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic +retainers in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet pleasant +fellows, full of chat--and not a few among them had arrived at +considerable proficiency on the German flute. + +The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-Briton. He had +something of the choleric complexion of his countrymen stamped on his +visage, but was a worthy sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to +the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember +to have seen in caricatures of what were termed, in my young days, +_Maccaronies_. He was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy +as a gib-cat over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him, +making up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if +he feared every one about him was a defaulter; in his hypochondry +ready to imagine himself one; haunted, at least, with the idea of +the possibility of his becoming one: his tristful visage clearing +up a little over his roast neck of veal at Anderton's at two (where +his picture still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire +of the master of the coffee-house, which he had frequented for the +last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the meridian of its +animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The +simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke +of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in the +families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. +Then was his _forte_, his glorified hour! How would he chirp, and +expand, over a muffin! How would he dilate into secret history! His +countryman, Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent +than he in relation to old and new London--the site of old theatres, +churches, streets gone to decay--where Rosamond's pond stood--the +Mulberry-gardens--and the Conduit in Cheap--with many a pleasant +anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures +which Hogarth has immortalized in his picture of _Noon_,--the worthy +descendants of those heroic confessors, who, flying to this country, +from the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and his dragoons, kept alive +the flame of pure religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog-lane, +and the vicinity of the Seven Dials! + +Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a +nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of +the passages leading to Westminster-hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle +bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed +to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the +applications of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you +felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, +you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance of +the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the +shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was +in its original state of white paper. A sucking babe might have posed +him. What was it then? Was he rich? Alas, no! Thomas Tame was very +poor. Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear +all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, +which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in +its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth +of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood,--much less can +explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day,--to the +illustrious, but unfortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the +secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought--the sentiment--the +bright solitary star of your lives,--ye mild and happy pair,--which +cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your +station! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead +of glittering attainments: and it was worth them altogether. You +insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a piece of defensive +armour only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. _Decus et +solamen._ + +Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither +pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the +matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, +and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without +his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, +with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream +and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in +Threadneedle-street, which, without any thing very substantial +appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself +that lived in them, (I know not who is the occupier of them now) +resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet breasts," +as our ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms and +orchestras--chorus singers--first and second violoncellos--double +basses--and clarionets--who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, +and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the +desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that +were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any +thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was +thought too refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in +writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in +the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the balance of last +year in the sum of 25_l._ 1_s._ 6_d._) occupied his days and nights +for a month previous. Not that Tipp was blind to the deadness of +_things_ (as they call them in the city) in his beloved house, or did +not sigh for a return of the old stirring days when South Sea hopes +were young--(he was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most +intricate accounts of the most flourishing company in these or those +days):--but to a genuine accountant the difference of proceeds is +as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his heart as the +thousands which stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether +his part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like intensity. +With Tipp form was every thing. His life was formal. His actions +seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. +He made the best executor in the world: he was plagued with incessant +executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his +vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at the little +orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp of +the dying hand, that commended their interests to his protection. With +all this there was about him a sort of timidity--(his few enemies used +to give it a worse name)--a something which, in reverence to the dead, +we will place, if you please, a little on this side of the heroic. +Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with a sufficient +measure of the principle of self-preservation. There is a cowardice +which we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in +its elements; it betrays itself, not you: it is mere temperament; the +absence of the romantic and the enterprising; it sees a lion in the +way, and will not, with Fortinbras, "greatly find quarrel in a straw," +when some supposed honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a +stage-coach in his life; or leaned against the rails of a balcony; or +walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or looked down a precipice; or let +off a gun; or went upon a water-party; or would willingly let you go +if he could have helped it: neither was it recorded of him, that for +lucre, or for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. + +Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in whom common +qualities become uncommon? Can I forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, +the polished man of letters, the _author_, of the South-Sea House? +who never enteredst thy office in a morning, or quittedst it in +mid-day--(what didst _thou_ in an office?)--without some quirk that +left a sting! Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive +but in two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue +from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee terse, +fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone by in these +fastidious days--thy topics are staled by the "new-born gauds" of the +time:--but great thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, +upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, +and Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great Britain +her rebellious colonies,--and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, +and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond,--and such small +politics.-- + +A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, was fine +rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended,--not in a right line, +reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favoured a +little of the sinister bend) from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So +tradition gave him out; and certain family features not a little +sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed +author) had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and +had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig +still living, who has represented the county in so many successive +parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter flourished +in George the Second's days, and was the same who was summoned before +the House of Commons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess +of Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave +came off cleverly in that business. It is certain our Plumer did +nothing to discountenance the rumour. He rather seemed pleased +whenever it was, with all gentleness, insinuated. But, besides +his family pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang +gloriously.-- + +Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-like, pastoral +M----; a flute's breathing less divinely whispering than thy Arcadian +melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song +sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind +more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly +M----, the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not +what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle offspring of +blustering winter:--only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have +been mild, conciliatory, swan-like.-- + +Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must +be mine in private:--already I have fooled the reader to the top of +his bent;--else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who +existed in trying the question, and _bought litigations_?--and still +stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might +have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a +pen--with what deliberation would he wet a wafer!-- + +But it is time to close--night's wheels are rattling fast over me--it +is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. + +Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this +while--peradventure the very _names_, which I have summoned up before +thee, are fantastic--insubstantial--like Henry Pimpernel, and old John +Naps of Greece:-- + +Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their +importance is from the past. + +[Footnote 1: I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were +desolate.--Ossian.] + + + + +OXFORD IN THE VACATION + + +Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article--as the +wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, +seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the _quis +sculpsit_ in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a +Vivares, or a Woollet--methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, _Who is +Elia?_ + +Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-forgotten +humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long +since gone to decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your +mind as one of the self-same college--a votary of the desk--a notched +and cropt scrivener--one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick +people are said to do, through a quill. + +Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is my +humour, my fancy--in the forepart of the day, when the mind of your +man of letters requires some relaxation--(and none better than such +as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies)--to +while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, +cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first +place ******* and then it sends you home with such increased appetite +to your books ***** not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste +wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally, +the impression of sonnets, epigrams, _essays_--so that the very +parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, the settings up of an +author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the morning among +the cart-rucks of figures and cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its +ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation.--It +feels its promotion. ***** So that you see, upon the whole, the +literary dignity of _Elia_ is very little, if at all, compromised in +the condescension. + +Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities incidental +to the life of a public office, I would be thought blind to certain +flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to pick in this Joseph's +vest. And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret +the abolition, and doing-away-with altogether, of those consolatory +interstices, and sprinklings of freedom, through the four +seasons,--the _red-letter days_, now become, to all intents and +purposes, _dead-letter days_. There was Paul, and Stephen, and +Barnabas-- + + Andrew and John, men famous in old times + +--we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as I was at +school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the same token, +in the old _Baskett_ Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy +posture--holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act of flaying, after the +famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti.--I honoured them all, and could almost +have wept the defalcation of Iscariot--so much did we love to keep +holy memories sacred:--only methought I a little grudged at the +coalition of the _better Jude_ with Simon-clubbing (as it were) their +sanctities together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them--as an +economy unworthy of the dispensation. + +These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life--"far +off their coming shone."--I was as good as an almanac in those days. +I could have told you such a saint's-day falls out next week, or the +week after. Peradventure the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, +would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better +than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom +of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of +these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. + +Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses +the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded--but I am wading out +of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and +ecclesiastical authority--I am plain Elia--no Selden, nor Archbishop +Usher--though at present in the thick of their books, here in the +heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. + +I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as +myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of +academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle +weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at +this time of the year, falls in so pat with _ours_. Here I can take +my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I +please. I seem admitted _ad eundem_. I fetch up past opportunities. +I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for _me_. In +moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock +vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I +proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike +that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and +bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely +mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which +favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can +be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. + +The walks at these times are so much one's own,--the tall trees of +Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open +doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some +Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) +whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and +to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at +the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the +immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; +ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which +have cooked for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but +is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a +Manciple. + +Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, +art every thing! When thou _wert_, thou wert not antiquity--then thou +wert nothing, but hadst a remoter _antiquity_, as thou called'st it, +to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself +flat, _jejune, modern_! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or +what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same +idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as +nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing! + +What were thy _dark ages_? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as +now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can +never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though +a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our +ancestors wandered to and fro groping! + +Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace +me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves-- + +What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the +souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these +Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. +I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. +I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking +amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings +is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew +amid the happy orchard. + +Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. +Those _variæ lectiones_, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do +but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The +credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I +leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G.D.--whom, by the way, I +found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some +seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is +grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of +the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him +his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. + +D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No +inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is +consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's-inn--where, like a +dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, +amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, +apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm +and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not--the winds of +litigation blow over his humble chambers--the hard sheriffs officer +moves his hat as he passes--legal nor illegal discourtesy touches +him--none thinks of offering violence or injustice to him--you would +as soon "strike an abstract idea." + +D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, +in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two +Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, +relative to C----, by which he hopes to settle some disputed +points--particularly that long controversy between them as to +priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in +these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the +encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C----. Your caputs, +and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these +questions.--Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma +Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they +rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent--unreverend. They have +their good glebe lands _in manu_, and care not much to rake into the +title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is +not a man to complain. + +D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. _A priori_ +it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. +would have done the same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own +walks in Clifford's-inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking +short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the +midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other +morning at our friend _M.'s_ in Bedford-square; and, finding nobody at +home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with +great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book--which +ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of +the untimely or unfortunate visitor--and takes his leave with many +ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, +his walking destinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, +and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at _M.'s_--Mrs. +_M._ presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty _A.S._ at her +side--striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call +(forgetting that they were "certainly not to return from the country +before that day week") and disappointed a second time, inquires +for pen and paper as before: again the book is brought, and in the +line just above that in which he is about to print his second name +(his re-script)--his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him +like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his +own duplicate!--The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good +resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep +them too rigorously. + +For with G.D.--to be absent from the body, is sometimes (not to speak +it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, +personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition--or, +being stopped, starts like a thing surprised--at that moment, reader, +he is on Mount Tabor--or Parnassus--or co-sphered with Plato--or, with +Harrington, framing "immortal commonwealths"--devising some plan of +amelioration to thy country, or thy species--peradventure meditating +some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to _thee thyself_, +the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at +thy obtruded personal presence. + +D. is delightful any where, but he is at the best in such places as +these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, +at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better +than all the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and +good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he +goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you +have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. + +[Footnote 1: Januses of one face.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.] + + + + +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO + + +In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a +magnificent eulogy on my old school,[1] such as it was, or now appears +to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, +very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding +with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the +cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be +said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument +most ingeniously. + +I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some +peculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows had not. +His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the +privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through +some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy +sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He +had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon +our quarter of a penny loaf--our _crug_--moistened with attenuated +small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack +it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, +and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched +for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the +hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less +repugnant--(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week)--was +endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of +ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. +In lieu of our _half-pickled_ Sundays, or _quite fresh_ boiled beef +on Thursdays (strong as _caro equina_), with detestable marigolds +floating in the pail to poison the broth--our scanty mutton crags on +Fridays--and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same +flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which +excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal +proportion)--he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting +griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal +kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt! I +remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatting +down upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the +viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered +to the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. +There was love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the +manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to share +in 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 for +me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could +reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced +notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival +in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them +to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one after +another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred +playmates. + +O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The +yearnings 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, and +in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire! + +To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the +recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days of +summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting +memory of those _whole-day-leaves_, when, by some strange arrangement, +we were turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own hands, whether +we had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing-excursions +to 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 +for such water-pastimes:--How merrily we would sally forth into the +fields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton like +young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which +those of us that were pennyless (our scanty morning crust long since +exhausted) had not the means of allaying--while the cattle, and the +birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing to +satisfy our cravings--the very beauty of the day, and the exercise +of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon +them!--How faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards +nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that +the hours of our uneasy liberty had expired! + +It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets +objectless--shivering at cold windows of printshops, to extract a +little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little +novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual +faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own +charges) to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levée, by courtesy +immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. + +L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the +foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint +which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was +understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the +severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions +of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I +have been called out of my bed, and _waked for the purpose_, in the +coldest winter nights--and this not once, but night after night--in +my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven +other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has +been any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six +last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, +answerable for an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had the +power to hinder.--The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of +us from the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and, under +the cruelest penalties, forbad the indulgence of a drink of water, +when we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, and +the day's sports. + +There was one H----, who, I learned, in after days, was seen expiating +some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying +that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered--at Nevis, +I think, or St. Kits,--some few years since? My friend Tobin was the +benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero +actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red hot iron; and +nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, to the one +half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may +seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of +his) he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the +_ward_, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better +than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must +cry roast meat--happier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept +his own counsel--but, foolisher, alas! than any of his species in the +fables--waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky +minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; +and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as +(toppling down the walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any +longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, +to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent any +censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired +Perry. + +Under the same _facile_ administration, can L. have forgotten the cool +impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open +platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, +which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for +our dinners? These things were daily practised in that magnificent +apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so +highly for the grand paintings "by Verrio, and others," with which it +is "hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat +boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to +him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions +carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (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 +of fresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition. But +these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children +are universally fat-haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, +_unsalted_, are detestable. A _gag-eater_ in our time was equivalent +to a _goul_, and held in equal detestation.--suffered under the +imputation. + + --'Twas said + He ate strange flesh. + +He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants +left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may credit +me)--and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which +he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at +his bed-side. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he +privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces +of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported, that, on +leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue +check handkerchief, full of something. This then must be the accursed +thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose +of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally +prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play +with him. He was excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. +He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every +mode of that negative punishment, which is more grievous than many +stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his +school-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had +traced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out +building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery-lane, which are +let out to various scales of pauperism with open door, and a common +staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth +up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by +an 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 was +looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little +after my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all his +conduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to +sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers +or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents +of ----, an honest couple come to decay,--whom this seasonable supply +had, in all probability, saved from mendicancy; and that this young +stork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while been +only feeding the old birds!--The governors on this occasion, much +to their honour, voted a present relief to the family of ----, and +presented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read +upon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medal +to ----, I believe, would not be lost upon his auditory.--I had left +school then, but I well remember ----. He was a tall, shambling youth, +with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostile +prejudices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think +I heard he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by the +old folks. + +I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon the +day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted +to assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was of tender years, +barely turned of seven; and had only read of such things in books, or +seen them but in dreams. I was told he had _run away_. This was the +punishment for the first offence.--As a novice I was soon after taken +to see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where a +boy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket--a mattress, +I think, was afterwards substituted--with a peep of light, let in +askance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by. Here +the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of any +but the porter who brought him his bread and water--who _might not +speak to him_;--or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call him +out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, +because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude:--and here +he was shut up by himself of _nights_, out of the reach of any sound, +to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incident +to his time of life, might subject him to.[2] This was the penalty for +the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of +him in the next degree? + +The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose +expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as +at some solemn _auto da fe_, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling +attire--all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he +was exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters +formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of +this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could +have anticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was +as if some of those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon +him. In this disguisement he was brought into the hall (_L.'s +favourite state-room_), where awaited him the whole number of his +school-fellows, whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforth to +share no more; the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the +last time; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the +occasion; and of two faces more, of direr import, because never but +in these extremities visible. These were governors; two of whom, by +choice, or charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these +_Ultima Supplicia_; not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), +but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter +Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle +turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for +the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long +and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. +We were generally too faint with attending to the previous disgusting +circumstances, to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree +of corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out the +back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his +_San Benito_, to his friends, if he had any (but commonly such poor +runagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance +the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the +outside of the hall gate. + +These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil +the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and +recreation _after_ school hours; and, for myself, I must confess, +that I was never happier, than _in_ them. The Upper and the Lower +Grammar Schools were held in the same room; and an imaginary line only +divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the +inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrennees. The Rev. James Boyer +was the Upper Master; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that +portion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be a +member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just +what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or +a grammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take +two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in +forgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then +the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a +brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole +remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the +cane with no great good will--holding it "like a dancer." It looked +in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; +and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that +did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great +consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now +and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came, +it made no difference to us--he had his private room to retire to, the +short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth +and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden +to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among +us--Peter Wilkins--the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle--the +Fortunate Blue Coat Boy--and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for +mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; +or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called _cat-cradles_; or +making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the +art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a +hundred other such devices to pass away the time--mixing the useful +with the agreeable--as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John +Locke chuckle to have seen us. + +Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect +to mix in equal proportion the _gentleman_, the _scholar_, and the +_Christian_; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally +found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged +in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levée, when +he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the +classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first +years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded +further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phædrus. How +things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the +proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps +felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. +I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether +displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. +We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, +with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and +then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat +and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering +their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that +enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our +little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and +the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders +rolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us; +contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our +fleece was dry.[3] His boys turned out the better scholars; we, I +suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him +without something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembrance +of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and +summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and +Elysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday." + +Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were +near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. +We occasionally heard sounds of the _Ululantes_, and caught glances +of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to +barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those +periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[4]--He would +laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble +about _Rex_--or at the _tristis severitas in vultu_, or _inspicere in +patinas_, of Terence--thin jests, which at their first broaching could +hardly have had _vis_ enough to move a Roman muscle.--He had two wigs, +both pedantic, but of differing 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 to +the school, when he made his morning appearance in his _passy_, or +_passionate wig_. No comet expounded surer.--J.B. had a heavy hand. I +have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the +maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume +to set your wits at me?"--Nothing was more common than to see him make +a head-long entry into the school-room, from his inner recess, or +library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od's +my life, Sirrah," (his favourite adjuration) "I have a great mind to +whip you,"--then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into +his lair--and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which +all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong +out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some +Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell--"_and I WILL, too._"--In +his gentler moods, when the _rabidus furor_ was assuaged, he had +resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to +himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same +time; a paragraph, and a lash between; which in those times, when +parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these +realms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration +for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. + +Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual +from his hand--when droll squinting W---- having been caught putting +the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had +clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity +averred, that _he did not know that the thing had been forewarned_. +This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the _oral_ or +_declaratory_, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who +heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was +unavoidable. + +L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, +in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ample +encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to +compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot +dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.--when he +heard that his old master was on his death-bed--"Poor J.B.!--may all +his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub +boys, all head and wings, with no _bottoms_ to reproach his sublunary +infirmities." + +Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.--First Grecian of +my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, since +Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T----e. What +an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who +remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!--You never met +the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly +dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. +Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each +other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced +age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long 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 in yours +at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the _Cicero De +Amicitia_, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart +even then was burning to anticipate!--Co-Grecian with S. was Th----, +who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at +the Northern courts. Th---- was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing +of speech, with raven locks.--Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him +(now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. 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 the _regni +novitas_ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility +quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly +fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a +reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers +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 Oxford Prize Poems; a +pale, studious Grecian.--Then followed poor S----, ill-fated M----! of +these the Muse is silent. + + Finding some of Edward's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy +fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar +not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician, +Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand +still, intranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion +between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear +thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of +Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not +pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, +or Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the +accents of the _inspired charity-boy_!--Many were the "wit-combats," +(to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller,) between him and C.V. +Le G----, "which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion, and an +English man of war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far +higher 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 all winds, by +the quickness of his wit and invention." + +Nor shall thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the +cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont +to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant +jest 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 _Nircus +formosus_ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou +didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by +provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by +thy angel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "_bl----_," for a +gentler greeting--"_bless thy handsome face_!" + +Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of +Elia--the junior Le G---- and F----; who impelled, the former by +a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect--ill +capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to +in our seats 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 Roman +height about him. + +Fine, frank-hearted Fr----, the present master of Hertford, with +Marmaduke T----, mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends +still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. + +[Footnote 1: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.] + +[Footnote 2: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, +accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of +this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits +was dispensed with.--This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout +of Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) +methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue.] + +[Footnote 3: Cowley.] + +[Footnote 4: In this and every thing B. was the antipodes of his +co-adjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, +worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the +more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, +under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the +chroniclers 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, in +a way of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was _too classical for +representation_.] + + + + +THE TWO RACES OF MEN + + +The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is +composed of two distinct races, _the men who borrow_, and _the men +who lend_. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those +impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, +black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and +Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with +one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superiority +of the former, which I choose to designate as the _great race_, +is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive +sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his +brethren." There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and +suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of +the other. + +Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all +ages--Alcibiades--Falstaff--Sir Richard Steele--our late incomparable +Brinsley--what a family likeness in all four! + +What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! what rosy gills! +what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest,--taking +no more thought than lilies! What contempt for money,--accounting +it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal +confounding of those pedantic distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_! +or rather what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke), +resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible +pronoun adjective!--What near approaches doth he make to the primitive +_community_,--to the extent of one half of the principle at least!-- + +He is the true taxer who "calleth all the world up to be taxed:" and +the distance is as vast between him and _one of us_, as subsisted +betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid +it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem!--His exactions, too, have such a +cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or +state-gatherers,--those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of +welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth +you with no receipt; confining himself to no set season. Every day is +his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the _lene +tormentum_ of a pleasant look to your purse,--which to that gentle +warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the +traveller, for which sun and wind contended! He is the true Propontic +which never ebbeth! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's +hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with +destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained +to lend--that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the +reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the +penalties of Lazarus and of Dives!--but, when thou seest the proper +authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, +a handsome sacrifice! See how light _he_ makes of it! Strain not +courtesies with a noble enemy. + +Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death +of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed this life on +Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, without much trouble. He +boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who +heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and +sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in +life he found himself invested with ample revenues; which, with that +noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the +_great race_, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate +and bring to nothing: for there is something revolting in the idea of +a king holding a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all +regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of disfurnishment; getting rid +of the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) + + To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, + Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, + +he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, +"borrowing and to borrow!" + +In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it +has been calculated that he laid a tythe part of the inhabitants under +contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated:--but +having had the honour of accompanying my friend, divers times, in his +perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at +first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort +of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to +explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders +of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to +express himself), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a +loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took +a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be +"stocked with so fair a herd." + +With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his +treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had +often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." +So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away +(for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he +threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him--as +boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious,--into ponds, or +ditches, or deep holes,--inscrutable cavities of the earth;--or he +would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's +side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no +interest--but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's +offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed +it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies +became necessary, the first stranger, was sure to contribute to the +deficiency. For Bigod had an _undeniable_ way with him. He had a +cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just +touched with grey (_cana fides_). He anticipated no excuse, and found +none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the _great race_, I +would put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times have +disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the +kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than +to say _no_ to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, +by his mumping visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better; +and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in +reality so much less shock in the refusal. + +When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his swell of +feeling; how magnificent, how _ideal_ he was; how great at the +midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I +have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and +think that I am fallen into the society of _lenders_, and _little +men_. + +To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers +than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more +formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your _borrowers +of books_--those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry +of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, +matchless in his depredations! + +That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth +knocked out--(you are now with me in my little back study in +Bloomsbury, reader!)--with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side +(like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of +nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, _Opera Bonaventuræ_, +choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school +divinity also, but of a lesser calibre,--Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), +showed but as dwarfs,--itself an Ascapart!--_that_ Comberbatch +abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I +confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that "the title +to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for instance), is in exact +ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the +same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves +is safe? + +The slight vacuum in the left-hand case--two shelves from the +ceiling--scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser--was +whilom the commodious resting-place of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will +hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who +introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to +discover its beauties--but so have I known a foolish lover to praise +his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her +off than himself.--Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth +volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as +distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates _borrowed_ Hector. +Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state.--There loitered +the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side.--In yonder +nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," I mourns his +ravished mate. + +One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, +sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as +rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of +this nature (my friend's gathering's in his various calls), picked +up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little +memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These +proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they +stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as +little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am.--I charge +no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the +ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. + +To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are +sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give +no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, +spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of +tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely +woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?--knowing at the time, +and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn +over one leaf of the illustrious folio:--what but the mere spirit +of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy +friend?--Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the +Gallican land-- + + Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, + A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, + Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder! + +--hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, +about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies +with thy quips and mirthful tales?--Child of the Green-room, it was +unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part +Englishwoman!--that _she_ could fix upon no other treatise to bear +away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke +Greville, Lord Brook--of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, +Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a +tittle! _Was there not Zimmerman on Solitude?_ + +Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, be shy +of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy +books; but let it be to such a one as S.T.C.--he will return them +(generally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with +annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are +these precious MSS. of his--(in _matter_ oftentimes, and almost in +_quantity_ not unfrequently, vying with the originals)--in no very +clerkly hand--legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas +Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! +wandering in Pagan lands.--I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy +library, against S.T.C. + + + + +NEW YEAR'S EVE + + +Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, +which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his +mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he +termeth _his_. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this +custom of solemnizing our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or +is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor +understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of +a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or +cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. +It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is +left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. + +Of all sounds of all bells--(bells, the music nighest bordering upon +heaven)--most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the +Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of my mind to a +concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past +twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected--in +that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person +dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a +contemporary, when he exclaimed + + I saw the skirts of the departing Year. + +It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be +conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, and all +felt it with me, last night; though some of my companions affected +rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, +than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I +am none of those who-- + + Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. + +I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, +new years,--from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to +face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine +only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into +foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past +disappointments. I am armour-proof against old discouragements. I +forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again _for +love_, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so +dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and +events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the +incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I +should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall +to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W----n, than that so +passionate a love-adventure should be lost. It was better that our +family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us +of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds _in +banco_, and be without the idea of that specious old rogue. + +In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look back upon +those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping +over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love +_himself_, without the imputation of self-love? + +If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is introspective--and +mine is painfully so--can have a less respect for his present +identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know him to be light, and +vain, and humorsome; a notorious ***; addicted to ****: averse +from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it;--*** besides; +a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it on, and spare not; I +subscribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst be willing to lay +at his door--but for the child Elia--that "other me," there, in the +back-ground--I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that +young master--with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid +changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of some other +house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient small-pox at +five, and rougher medicaments I can lay its poor fevered head upon the +sick pillow at Christ's and wake with it in surprise at the gentle +posture of maternal tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had +watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least colour +of falsehood.--God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed! Thou art +sophisticated.--I know how honest, how courageous (for a weakling) it +was--how religious, how imaginative, how hopeful! From what have I +not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself--and not some +dissembling guardian presenting a false identity, to give the rule to +my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being! + +That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in such +retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or +is it owing to another cause; simply, that being without wife or +family, I have not learned to project myself enough out of myself; +and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon +memory and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favourite? If +these speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader--(a busy man, +perchance), if I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am +singularly-conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under +the phantom cloud of Elia. + +The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely +to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the +ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of +peculiar ceremony.--In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, +though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to +bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce +conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that +concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, +never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, +if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but +he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can +appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now, +shall I confess a truth?--I feel these audits but too powerfully. I +begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the +expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. +In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count +upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon +the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away "like a +weaver's shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the +unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the +tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the +inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the +face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the +sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am +content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my +friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to +be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the +grave.--Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, +puzzles and discomposes me. My household-gods plant a terrible fixed +foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek +Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun, and sky, and +breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of +fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and +the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and +innocent vanities, and jests, and _irony itself_--do these things go +out with life? + +Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant +with him? + +And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios! must I part with the intense +delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge +come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of +intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading? + +Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which +point me to them here,--the recognisable face--the "sweet assurance of +a look"--? + +In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying--to give it its +mildest name--does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial +August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. +At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. +Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant +again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips +and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to +the insubstantial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, +dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral +appearances,--that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus' sickly sister, +like that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles:--I am none of +her minions--I hold with the Persian. + +Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into +my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital +plague-sore.--I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such +hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of +the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a +pillow. Some have wooed death--but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, +ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give +thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused +or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, +proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest +thee, thou thin, melancholy _Privation_, or more frightful and +confounding _Positive!_' + +Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether +frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, +that he shall "lie down with kings and emperors in death," who in his +life-time never greatly coveted the society of such bed-fellows?--or, +forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear?"--why, to comfort +me, must Alice W----n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust +at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon +your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be +lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must +shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In +the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. +Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly +candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine--and while that turn-coat +bell, that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, +with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us attune to +its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. +Cotton.-- + +THE NEW YEAR + + Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star + Tells us, the day himself's not far; + And see where, breaking from the night, + He gilds the western hills with light. + With him old Janus doth appear, + Peeping into the future year, + With such a look as seems to say, + The prospect is not good that way. + Thus do we rise ill sights to see, + And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; + When the prophetic fear of things + A more tormenting mischief brings, + More full of soul-tormenting gall, + Than direst mischiefs can befall. + But stay! but stay! methinks my sight, + Better inform'd by clearer light, + Discerns sereneness in that brow, + That all contracted seem'd but now. + His revers'd face may show distaste, + And frown upon the ills are past; + But that which this way looks is clear, + And smiles upon the New-born Year. + He looks too from a place so high, + The Year lies open to his eye; + And all the moments open are + To the exact discoverer. + Yet more and more he smiles upon + The happy revolution. + Why should we then suspect or fear + The influences of a year, + So smiles upon us the first morn, + And speaks us good so soon as born? + Plague on't! the last was ill enough, + This cannot but make better proof; + Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through + The last, why so we may this too; + And then the next in reason shou'd + Be superexcellently good: + For the worst ills (we daily see) + Have no more perpetuity, + Than the best fortunes that do fall; + Which also bring us wherewithal + Longer their being to support, + Than those do of the other sort: + And who has one good year in three, + And yet repines at destiny, + Appears ungrateful in the case, + And merits not the good he has. + Then let us welcome the New Guest + With lusty brimmers of the best; + Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, + And renders e'en Disaster sweet: + And though the Princess turn her back, + Let us but line ourselves with sack, + We better shall by far hold out, + Till the next Year she face about. + +How say you, reader--do not these verses smack of the rough +magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not fortify like a +cordial; enlarging the heart, and productive of sweet blood, and +generous spirits, in the concoction? Where be those puling fears of +death, just now expressed or affected?--Passed like a cloud--absorbed +in the purging sunlight of clear poetry--clean washed away by a wave +of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries--And now +another cup of the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of them, +to you all, my masters! + + + + +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST + + +"A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game." This was +the celebrated _wish_ of old Sarah Battle (now with God) who, next +to her devotions, loved a good game at whist. She was none of your +lukewarm gamesters, your half and half players, who have no objection +to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that +they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game, +and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at +a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will +desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and +play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. +One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said, +that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. + +Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from +her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, +willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a +thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, +no concessions. She hated favours. She never made a revoke, nor +ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost +forfeiture. She fought a good fight: cut and thrust. She held not her +good sword (her cards) "like a dancer." She sate bolt upright; and +neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people +have their blind side--their superstitions; and I have heard her +declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. + +I never in my life--and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of +it--saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play; or +snuff a candle in the middle of a game; or ring for a servant, till it +was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous +conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, +cards were cards: and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine +last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a +literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; +and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that he thought there was +no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, +in recreations of that kind! She could not bear to have her noble +occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that +light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the +world to do,--and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards--over a +book. + +Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock her favourite +work. She once did me the favour to play over with me (with the cards) +his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem; and to explain to me how +far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ +from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant; and I +had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles: but +I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his ingenious notes +upon that author. + +Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love; but whist +had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy +and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty +and quick shifting of partners--a thing which the constancy of +whist abhors;--the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of +Spadille--absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of +whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his +brother-nobility of the Aces;--the giddy vanity, so taking to the +inexperienced, of playing alone:--above all, the overpowering +attractions of a _Sans Prendre Vole_,--to the triumph of which there +is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of +whist;--all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation +to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the _solider_ game: +that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast +of snatches. One or two rubbers might coextend in duration with an +evening. They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate +steady enmities. She despised the chance-started, capricious, and ever +fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she +would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the +little Italian states, depicted by Machiavel; perpetually changing +postures and connexions; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings +to-morrow; kissing and scratching in a breath;--but the wars of +whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational, +antipathies of the great French and English nations. + +A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. +There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage--nothing +superfluous. No _flushes_--that most irrational of all pleas that +a reasonable being can set up:--that any one should claim four by +virtue of holding cards of the same mark and colour, without reference +to the playing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions +of the cards themselves! She held this to be a solecism; as pitiful +an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised +superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of things.--Suits +were soldiers, she would say, and must have a uniformity of array to +distinguish them: but what should we say to a foolish squire, who +should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, +that never were to be marshalled--never to take the field?--She even +wished that whist were more simple than it is; and, in my mind, would +have stript it of some appendages, which, in the state of human +frailty, may be venially, and even commendably allowed of. She saw no +reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not +one suit always trumps?--Why two colours, when the mark of the suits +would have sufficiently distinguished them without it?-- + +"But the eye, my dear Madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. +Man is not a creature of pure reason he must have his senses +delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where +the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker +spirit of unsensualizing would have kept out.--You, yourself, have a +pretty collection of paintings--but confess to me, whether, walking +in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among the +Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with +an elegant delight, at all comparable to _that_ you have it in your +power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment +of the court cards?--the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a +procession--the gay triumph-assuring scarlets--the contrasting +deadly-killing sables--the 'hoary majesty of spades'--Pam in all his +glory!-- + +"All these might be dispensed with; and, with their naked names upon +the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very well, picture-less. +But the _beauty_ of cards would be extinguished for ever. Stripped +of all that is imaginative in them, they must degenerate into mere +gambling.--Imagine a dull deal board, or drum head, to spread them on, +instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena +for those courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys +in!--Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers--(work of Chinese +artist, unconscious of their symbol,--or as profanely slighting their +true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out +those little shrines for the goddess)--exchange them for little bits +of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate!"-- + +The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; +and to her approbation of my arguments on her favourite topic that +evening, I have always fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a +curious cribbage board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her +maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) +brought with him from Florence:--this, and a trifle of five hundred +pounds, came to me at her death. + +The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with +religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never +greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have +heard her say,--disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to +it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "_go_"--or +"_that's a go_." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging +teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar stake), +because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would +have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful +tenure of declaring "_two for his heels_." There is something +extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a +gentlewoman born. + +Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she +would ridicule the pedantry of the terms--such as pique--repique--the +capot--they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, +or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, +or square. She would argue thus:--Cards are warfare: the ends are +gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport: when +single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. +By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not +much bettered. No looker on can be interested, except for a bet, +and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck +_sympathetically_, or for your play.--Three are still worse; a mere +naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without +league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory +interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty +infractions of them, as in tradrille.--But in square games (_she +meant whist_) all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is +accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common +to every species--though the _latter_ can be but very imperfectly +enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a +participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals +too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not +wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist +abhors neutrality, or interest beyond its sphere. You glory in some +surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold--or even +an interested--by-stander witnesses it, but because your _partner_ +sympathises in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for +two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their +disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) +your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one +in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying +the channels. War becomes a civil game.--By such reasonings as these +the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime. + +No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where +chance entered into the composition, _for nothing_. Chance, she would +argue--and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion!--chance +is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious, +that cannot be _glory_. What rational cause of exultation could it +give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? +or before spectators, where no stake was depending?--Make a lottery +of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number--and what +possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it +gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a +prize?--Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, +where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and +those people idots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such +circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played +for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for +glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit,--his memory, or +combination-faculty rather--against another's; like a mock-engagement +at a review, bloodless and profitless.--She could not conceive a +_game_ wanting the spritely infusion of chance,--the handsome excuses +of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, +whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with +insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, +and Knights, the _imagery_ of the board, she would argue, (and I think +in this case justly) were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard +head-contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form +and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper +arena for such combatants. + +To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, +she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always +trying to get the better in something or other:--that this passion can +scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards +are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but _play_ +at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, +yet, during the illusion, we _are_ as mightily concerned as those +whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting; +much ado; great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for +disproportioned ends; quite as diverting, and a great deal more +innoxious, than many of those more serious _games_ of life, which men +play, without esteeming them to be such.-- + +With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these matters, I +think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at +cards _for nothing_ has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or +not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a +game at piquet _for love_ with my cousin Bridget--Bridget Elia. + +I grant there is something sneaking in it; but with a toothache, or a +sprained ancle,--when you are subdued and humble,--you are glad to put +up with an inferior spring of action. + +There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as _sick whist_.-- + +I grant it is not the highest style of man--I deprecate the manes of +Sarah Battle--she lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise.-- + +At such times, those _terms_ which my old friend objected to, come in +as something admissible.--I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though +they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows +of winning amuse me. + +That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her)--(dare I +tell thee, how foolish I am?)--I wished it might have lasted for ever, +though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade +of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The +pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive +to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over: +and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. +Bridget and I should be ever playing. + + + + +A CHAPTER ON EARS + + +I have no ear.-- + +Mistake me not, reader,--nor imagine that I am by nature destitute +of those exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and +(architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human capital. +Better my mother had never borne me.--I am, I think, rather delicately +than copiously provided with those conduits; and I feel no disposition +to envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, +in those ingenious labyrinthine inlets--those indispensable +side-intelligencers. + +Neither have I incurred, or done any thing to incur, with Defoe, +that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to draw upon +assurance--to feel "quite unabashed," and at ease upon that article. +I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them +aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I ever should be. + +When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will understand me +to mean--_for music_.--To say that this heart never melted at the +concourse of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel.--"_Water +parted from the sea_" never fails to move it strangely. So does "_In +Infancy_." But they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the +old-fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman--the +gentlest, sure, that ever merited the appellation--the sweetest--why +should I hesitate to name Mrs. S----, once the blooming Fanny +Weatheral of the Temple--who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, +small imp as he was, even in his long coats; and to make him glow, +tremble, and blush with a passion, that not faintly indicated the +day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, which was afterwards destined +to overwhelm and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W----n. + +I even think that _sentimentally_ I am disposed to harmony. But +_organically_ I am incapable of a tune. I have been practising "_God +save the King_" all my life; whistling and humming of it over to +myself in solitary corners; and am not yet arrived, they tell me, +within many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been +impeached. + +I am not without suspicion, that I have an undeveloped faculty of +music within me. For, thrumming, in my wild way, on my friend A.'s +piano, the other morning, while he was engaged in an adjoining +parlour,--on his return he was pleased to say, "_he thought it could +not be the maid_!" On his first surprise at hearing the keys touched +in somewhat an airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his +suspicions had lighted on _Jenny_. But a grace, snatched from a +superior refinement, soon convinced him that some being,--technically +perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle common to all +the fine arts,--had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all +her (less-cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. +I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any +view of disparaging Jenny. + +Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet have I taken +some pains) what a note in music is; or how one note should differ +from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a +tenor. Only sometimes the thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from +its being supereminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, +for my misapplication of the simplest terms of _that_ which I +disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to _say_ I +am ignorant of I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. _Sostenuto_ and _adagio_ +stand in the like relation of obscurity to me; and _Sol_, _Fa_, _Mi_, +_Re_, is as conjuring as _Baralipton_. + +It is hard to stand alone--in an age like this,--(constituted to the +quick and critical perception of all harmonious combinations, I verily +believe, beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the +gamut)--to remain, as it were, singly unimpressible to the magic +influences of an art, which is said to have such an especial stroke at +soothing, elevating, and refining the passions.--Yet rather than break +the candid current of my confessions, I must avow to you, that I have +received a great deal more pain than pleasure from this so cried-up +faculty. + +I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's hammer, in +a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But +those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of +music. The ear is passive to those single strokes; willingly enduring +stripes, while it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. +It will strive--mine at least will--'spite of its inaptitude, to thrid +the maze; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hieroglyphics. +I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and +inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of +the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was not +obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, +fruitless, barren attention! I take refuge in the unpretending +assemblage of honest common-life sounds;--and the purgatory of the +Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. + +I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the purposes of the +cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the auditory in the pit +(what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience!) immoveable, or +affecting some faint emotion,--till (as some have said, that our +occupations in the next world will be but a shadow of what delighted +us in this) I have imagined myself in some cold Theatre in Hades, +where some of the _forms_ of the earthly one should be kept up, with +none of the _enjoyment_; or like that-- + + --Party in a parlour, + All silent, and all DAMNED! + +Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, as +they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension.--Words are +something; but to be exposed to an endless battery of mere sounds; to +be long a dying, to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep up +languor by unintermitted effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar +upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound +with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty +frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a +book, _all stops_, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to +invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an +inexplicable rambling mime--these are faint shadows of what I have +undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this empty +_instrumental music_. + +I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experienced +something vastly lulling and agreeable:--afterwards followeth the +languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos; +or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth +music make her first insinuating approaches:--"Most pleasant it is +to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary +grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate +upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him +most, _amabilis insania_, and _mentis gratissimus error_. A most +incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to +themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, +and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done.--So delightsome +these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without +sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical +meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn +from them--winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and +still pleasing their humours, until at last the SCENE TURNS UPON A +SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary +places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but harsh and +distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, _subrusticus pudor_, +discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden, +and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner +are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on +them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to +their minds; which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions they +can avoid, they cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist." + +Something like this "SCENE-TURNING" I have experienced at the evening +parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend _Nov----_; who, by +the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players, +converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, +and these latter into minor heavens.[1] + +When my friend commences upon one of those solemn anthems, which +peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the side +aisles of the dim abbey, some five and thirty years since, waking +a new sense, and putting a soul of old religion into my young +apprehension--(whether it be _that_, in which the psalmist, weary of +the persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings--or _that +other_, which, with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth +by what means the young man shall best cleanse his mind)--a holy calm +pervadeth me.--I am for the time + + --rapt above earth, + And possess joys not promised at my birth. + +But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid a soul +prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss than lies in +her capacity to receive,--impatient to overcome her "earthly" with his +"heavenly,"--still pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and +fresh from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted _German_ ocean, +above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those +Arions _Haydn_ and _Mozart_, with their attendant tritons, _Bach_, +_Beethoven_, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up +would but plunge me again in the deeps,--I stagger under the weight +of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end;--clouds, as of +frankincense, oppress me--priests, altars, censers, dazzle before +me--the genius of _his_ religion hath me in her toils--a shadowy +triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so +ingenuous he is Pope, and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of +dreams, a she-Pope too,--tri-coroneted like himself!--I am converted, +and yet a Protestant;--at once _malleus hereticorum_, and myself grand +heresiarch: or three heresies centre in my person:--I am Marcion, +Ebion, and Cerinthus--Gog and Magog--what not?--till the coming in of +the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a draught of true +Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at +once reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith; and restores +to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced +host and hostess. + +[Footnote 1: + I have been there, and still would go; + 'Tis like a little heaven below.--_Dr. Watts_.] + + + + +ALL FOOLS' DAY + + +The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first +of 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 know +one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch +of _that same_--you understand me--a speck of the motley. Beshrew +the man who on such a day as this, the _general festival_, should +affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the +corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest +to-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 your +pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at +the 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 of +Amiens--_duc ad me_--_duc ad me_--how goes it? + + Here shall he see + Gross fools as he. + +Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who +was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in +a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much +difficulty 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 what +tune 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 a +salamander-gathering down Ætna. Worse than samphire-picking by some +odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios. + +Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the +bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the +disinterested sect of the Calenturists. + +Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring +in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at +my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if +I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or +thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you +must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the +low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by +a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on +Fish-street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat. + +What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?--cry, baby, put its finger +in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty +moppet! + +Mister Adams--'odso, I honour your coat--pray do us the favour to read +to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop--the twenty and +second in your portmanteau there--on Female Incontinence--the same--it +will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the +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. Remove +those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins +of his apprehension stumbling across them. + +Master Stephen, you are late.--Ha! Cokes, is it you?--Aguecheek, +my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.--Master Shallow, your +worship's poor servant to command.--Master Silence, I will use few +words with you.--Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in +somewhere.--You six will engross all the poor wit of the company +to-day.--I know it, I know it. + +Ha! honest R----, my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, +art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare +as thy stories:--what dost thou flitting about the world at this +rate?--Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to +read long ago.--Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, +thou canst hawk a volume or two.--Good Granville S----, thy last +patron, is flown. + + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapt in lead.-- + +Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between +Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic +smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly +ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise +sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of +Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy +singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy +with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I +forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now +to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if +Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands +of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have +given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied +and 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 +is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to +thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and +kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived +not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not +guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards +that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I +entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the +hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; +and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my +apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors--I +felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five +thoughtless virgins.--I have never made an acquaintance since, that +lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some +tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest +obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall +commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will +not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable +hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season +ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool +told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of +folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his +composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or +fish,--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh +thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such +whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the +kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, +minions of the goddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my +words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are +the _April Fool_. + +A QUAKER'S MEETING + + Still-born Silence! thou that art + Flood-gate of the deeper heart! + Offspring of a heavenly kind! + Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind! + Secrecy's confident, and he + Who makes religion mystery! + Admiration's speaking'st tongue! + Leave, thy desert shades among, + Reverend hermits' hallowed cells, + Where retired devotion dwells! + With thy enthusiasms come, + Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb![1] + +Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st +thou find a refuge from the noises and clamours of the multitude; +would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou +possess the depth of thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut +out from the consolatory faces of thy species; would'st thou be alone, +and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not +without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit in aggregate; a +simple in composite:--come with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made?" go +not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the +earth; shut not up thy casements; nor pour wax into the little cells +of thy ears, with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses.--Retire +with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it +is commendable; but for a multitude, it is great mastery. + +What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what +the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the goddess reigns and +revels.--"Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their +inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the +blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds--than their opposite (Silence +her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, +and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. +Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would +seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight. + +There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By +imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect +is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so +absolutely as in a Quaker's Meeting.--Those first hermits did +certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian +solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of +conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing +spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant +as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a friend +sitting by--say, a wife--he, or she, too, (if that be probable), +reading another, without interruption, or oral communication?--can +there be no sympathy without the gabble of words?--away with this +inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, +Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude. + +To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some cathedral, +time-stricken; + + Or under hanging mountains, + Or by the fall of fountains; + +is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those enjoy, who come +together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. This +is the loneliness "to be felt."--The Abbey Church of Westminster hath +nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches +of a Quaker's Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, + + --sands, ignoble things, + Dropt from the ruined sides of kings-- + +but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into +the fore-ground--SILENCE--eldest of things--language of old +Night--primitive Discourser--to which the insolent decays of +mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, +unnatural progression. + + How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, + Looking tranquillity! + +Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation +without intrigue! parliament without debate! what a lesson dost +thou read to council, and to consistory!--if my pen treat of you +lightly--as haply it will wander--yet my spirit hath gravely felt the +wisdom of your custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which +some out-welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have +reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed +by Fox and Dewesbury.--I have witnessed that, which brought before +my eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the rude jests and +serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, +sent to molest you--for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, +the out-cast and off-scowering of church and presbytery.--I have seen +the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle, with +the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of +the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye +as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, and +Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells +us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead men under his feet." + +Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend to you, +above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. +It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals of Fox, and the +primitive Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than any +thing you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to +stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, +no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here +read the true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps +hath been a by-word in your mouth,)--James Naylor: what dreadful +sufferings, with what patience, he endured even to the boring through +of his tongue with red-hot irons without a murmur; and with what +strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which they +stigmatised for blasphemy, had given way to clearer thoughts, he could +renounce his error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet +keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker still!--so different from +the practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they +apostatize, _apostatize all_, and think they can never get far enough +from the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of +some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not implicated. + +Get the Writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers. + +How far the followers of these good men in our days have kept to +the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have substituted +formality for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone determine. I have +seen faces in their assemblies, upon which the dove sate visibly +brooding. Others again I have watched, when my thoughts should have +been better engaged, in which I could possibly detect nothing but a +blank inanity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition to unanimity, +and the absence of the fierce controversial workings.--If the +spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they make +few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, in their preaching. +It is seldom indeed that you shall see one get up amongst them to hold +forth. Only now and then a trembling, female, generally _ancient_, +voice is heard--you cannot guess from what part of the meeting it +proceeds--with a low, buzzing, musical sound, laying out a few words +which "she thought might suit the condition of some present," with a +quaking diffidence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that any +thing of female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full of +tenderness, and a restraining modesty.--The men, for what I observed, +speak seldomer. + +Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a sample of the +old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant stature, who, as Wordsworth +phrases it, might have danced "from head to foot equipt in iron mail." +His frame was of iron too. But _he_ was malleable. I saw him shake +all over with the spirit--I dare not say, of delusion. The strivings +of the outer man were unutterable--he seemed not to speak, but to +be spoken from. I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees to +fail--his joints all seemed loosening--it was a figure to set off +against Paul Preaching--the words he uttered were few, and sound--he +was evidently resisting his will--keeping down his own word-wisdom +with more mighty effort, than the world's orators strain for theirs. +"He had been a WIT in his youth," he told us, with expressions of a +sober remorse. And it was not till long after the impression had begun +to wear away, that I was enabled, with something like a smile, to +recall the striking incongruity of the confession--understanding the +term in its worldly acceptation--with the frame and physiognomy of the +person before me. His brow would have scared away the Levities--the +Jocos Risus-que--faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at +Enna.--By _wit_, even in his youth, I will be sworn he understood +something far within the limits of an allowable liberty. + +More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a word having been +spoken. But the mind has been fed. You go away with a sermon, not made +with hands. You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; or as +in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, +the TONGUE, that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and +captive. You have bathed with stillness.--O when the spirit is sore +fretted, even tired to sickness of the janglings, and nonsense-noises +of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to go and seat yourself, +for a quiet half hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among +the gentle Quakers! + +Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uniformity, tranquil +and herd-like--as in the pasture--"forty feeding like one."-- + +The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of receiving a soil; +and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence of its +contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands +to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the +metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like +troops of the Shining Ones. + +[Footnote 1: From "Poems of all sorts," by Richard Fleckno, 1653.] + + + + +THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER + + +My reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. Odd, out of +the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most +of my notions, and ways of feeling. In every thing that relates to +_science_, I am a whole Encyclopædia behind the rest of the world. +I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country +gentlemen, in king John's days. I know less geography than a +school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as +authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into +Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divisions; +nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South +Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a +very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terræ Incognitæ. +I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or +Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of them at +sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness--and if the sun on +some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the West, I +verily believe, that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension +about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity +and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some +vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of +miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, +even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four +great monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, +floats as _first_ in my fancy. I make the widest conjectures +concerning Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My friend _M._, with great +painstaking, got me to think I understood the first proposition in +Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the second. I am entirely +unacquainted with the modern languages; and, like a better man than +myself, have "small Latin and less Greek." I am a stranger to the +shapes and texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers--not from +the circumstance of my being town-born--for I should have brought the +same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen it +in "on Devon's leafy shores,"--and am no less at a loss among purely +town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes.--Not that I affect +ignorance--but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have +been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold +without aching. I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation +with so little discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre +a stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little +knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company; every body is so +much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your +acquisitions. But in a _tête-à-tête_ there is no shuffling. The truth +will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left +alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, +that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.-- + +In one of my daily jaunts between Bishopsgate and Shacklewell, the +coach stopped to take up a staid-looking gentleman, about the wrong +side of thirty, who was giving his parting directions (while the +steps were adjusting), in a tone of mild authority, to a tall youth, +who seemed to be neither his clerk, his son, nor his servant, but +something partaking of all three. The youth was dismissed, and +we drove on. As we were the sole passengers, he naturally enough +addressed his conversation to me; and we discussed the merits of the +fare, the civility and punctuality of the driver; the circumstance of +an opposition coach having been lately set up, with the probabilities +of its success--to all which I was enabled to return pretty +satisfactory answers, having been drilled into this kind of etiquette +by some years' daily practice of riding to and fro in the stage +aforesaid--when he suddenly alarmed me by a startling question, +whether I had seen the show of prize cattle that morning in +Smithfield? Now as I had not seen it, and do not greatly care for +such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged to return a cold negative. He +seemed a little mortified, as well as astonished, at my declaration, +as (it appeared) he was just come fresh from the sight, and doubtless +had hoped to compare notes on the subject. However he assured me that +I had lost a fine treat, as it far exceeded the show of last year. We +were now approaching Norton Falgate, when the sight of some shop-goods +_ticketed_ freshened him up into a dissertation upon the cheapness of +cottons this spring. I was now a little in heart, as the nature of my +morning avocations had brought me into some sort of familiarity with +the raw material; and I was surprised to find how eloquent I was +becoming on the state of the India market--when, presently, he dashed +my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether I had +ever made any calculation as to the value of the rental of all the +retail shops in London. Had he asked of me, what song the Sirens sang, +or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, I +might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have hazarded a "wide solution."[1] My +companion saw my embarrassment, and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch +just coming in view, with great good-nature and dexterity shifted +his conversation to the subject of public charities; which led to +the comparative merits of provision for the poor in past and present +times, with observations on the old monastic institutions, and +charitable orders;--but, finding me rather dimly impressed with +some glimmering notions from old poetic associations, than strongly +fortified with any speculations reducible to calculation on the +subject, he gave the matter up; and, the country beginning to open +more and more upon us, as we approached the turnpike at Kingsland (the +destined termination of his journey), he put a home thrust upon me, in +the most unfortunate position he could have chosen, by advancing some +queries relative to the North Pole Expedition. While I was muttering +out something about the Panorama of those strange regions (which I had +actually seen), by way of parrying the question, the coach stopping +relieved me from any further apprehensions. My companion getting out, +left me in the comfortable possession of my ignorance; and I heard +him, as he went off, putting questions to an outside passenger, who +had alighted with him, regarding an epidemic disorder, that had been +rife about Dalston; and which, my friend assured him, had gone through +five or six schools in that neighbourhood. The truth now flashed upon +me, that my companion was a schoolmaster; and that the youth, whom he +had parted from at our first acquaintance, must have been one of the +bigger boys, or the usher.--He was evidently a kind-hearted man, who +did not seem so much desirous of provoking discussion by the questions +which he put, as of obtaining information at any rate. It did not +appear that he took any interest, either, in such kind of inquiries, +for their own sake; but that he was in some way bound to seek for +knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which he had on, forbade me to +surmise that he was a clergyman. The adventure gave birth to some +reflections on the difference between persons of his profession in +past and present times. + +Rest to the souls of those fine old Pedagogues; the breed, long +since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres: who believing that +all learning was contained in the languages which they taught, and +despising every other acquirement as superficial and useless, came to +their task as to a sport! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed +away all their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual +cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies; renewing +constantly the occupations which had charmed their studious childhood; +rehearsing continually the part of the past; life must have slipped +from them at last like one day. They were always in their first +garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, among their _Flori_ and +their _Spici-legia_; in Arcadia still, but kings; the ferule of their +sway not much harsher, but of like dignity with that mild sceptre +attributed to king Basileus; the Greek and Latin, their stately Pamela +and their Philoclea; with the occasional duncery of some untoward +Tyro, serving for a refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or a clown +Damætas! + +With what a savour doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it is sometimes +called) Paul's Accidence, set forth! "To exhort every man to the +learning of grammar, that intendeth to attain the understanding of +the tongues, wherein is contained a great treasury of wisdom and +knowledge, it would seem but vain and lost labour; for so much as it +is known, that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is either +feeble or faulty; and no building be perfect, whereas the foundation +and ground-work is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden of +the frame." How well doth this stately preamble (comparable to those +which Milton commendeth as "having been the usage to prefix to some +solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon, or Lycurgus") correspond +with and illustrate that pious zeal for conformity, expressed in a +succeeding clause, which would fence about grammar-rules with the +severity of faith-articles!--"as for the diversity of grammars, it +is well profitably taken away by the king majesties wisdom, who +foreseeing the inconvenience, and favourably providing the remedie, +caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be diligently +drawn, and so to be set out, only everywhere to be taught for the use +of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." What a +_gusto_ in that which follows: "wherein it is profitable that he can +orderly decline his noun, and his verb." _His_ noun! + +The fine dream is fading away fast; and the least concern of a teacher +in the present day is to inculcate grammar-rules. + +The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of every thing, +because his pupil is required not to be entirely ignorant of any +thing. He must be superficially, if I may so say, omniscient. He is to +know something of pneumatics; of chemistry; of whatever is curious, +or proper to excite the attention of the youthful mind; an insight +into mechanics is desirable, with a touch of statistics; the quality +of soils, &c. botany, the constitution of his country, _cum multis +aliis_. You may get a notion of some part of his expected duties by +consulting the famous Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib. + +All these things--these, or the desire of them--he is expected to +instil, not by set lessons from professors, which he may charge in the +bill, but at school-intervals, as he walks the streets, or saunters +through green fields (those natural instructors), with his pupils. +The least part of what is expected from him, is to be done in +school-hours. He must insinuate knowledge at the _mollia tempera +fandi_. He must seize every occasion--the season of the year--the time +of the day--a passing cloud--a rainbow--a wagon of hay--a regiment of +soldiers going by--to inculcate something useful. He can receive no +pleasure from a casual glimpse of Nature, but must catch at it as an +object of instruction. He must interpret beauty into the picturesque. +He cannot relish a beggar-man, or a gipsy, for thinking of the +suitable improvement. Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by the +sophisticating medium of moral uses. The Universe--that Great Book, as +it has been called--is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a +book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting +schoolboys.--Vacations themselves are none to him, he is only rather +worse off than before; for commonly he has some intrusive upper-boy +fastened upon him at such times; some cadet of a great family; some +neglected lump of nobility, or gentry; that he must drag after him to +the play, to the Panorama, to Mr. Bartley's Orrery, to the Panopticon, +or into the country, to a friend's house, or to his favourite +watering-place. Wherever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A +boy is at his board, and in his path, and in all his movements. He is +boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy. + +Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but +they are unwholesome companions for grown people. The restraint is +felt no less on the one side, than on the other.--Even a child, that +"plaything for an hour," tires _always_. The noises of children, +playing their own fancies--as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting +on the green before my window, while I am engaged in these grave +speculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shacklewell--by distance +made more sweet--inexpressibly take from the labour of my task. It is +like writing to music. They seem to modulate my periods. They ought at +least to do so--for in the voice of that tender age there is a kind of +poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of man's conversation.--I +should but spoil their sport, and diminish my own sympathy for them, +by mingling in their pastime. + +I would not be domesticated all my days with a person of very +superior capacity to my own--not, if I know myself at all, from any +considerations of jealousy or self-comparison, for the occasional +communion with such minds has constituted the fortune and felicity of +my life--but the habit of too constant intercourse with spirits above +you, instead of raising you, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of +original thinking from others, restrain what lesser portion of that +faculty you may possess of your own. You get entangled in another +man's mind, even as you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You +are walking with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to +lassitude. The constant operation of such potent agency would reduce +me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts from +others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are +cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, but not each man's +intellectual frame.-- + +As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged upwards, as +little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be stunted downwards +by your associates. The trumpet does not more stun you by its +loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility. + +Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a +schoolmaster?--because we are conscious that he is not quite at his +ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place, in the society of his +equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he +cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours. He cannot meet +you on the square. He wants a point given him, like an indifferent +whist-player. He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching +_you_. One of these professors, upon my complaining that these little +sketches of mine were any thing but methodical, and that I was unable +to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in the method by +which young gentlemen in _his_ seminary were taught to compose English +themes.--The jests of a schoolmaster are coarse, or thin. They do +not _tell_ out of school. He is under the restraint of a formal and +didactive hypocrisy in company, as a clergyman is under a moral one. +He can no more let his intellect loose in society, than the other +can his inclinations.--He is forlorn among his co-evals; his juniors +cannot be his friends. + +"I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this profession, +writing to a friend respecting a youth who had quitted his school +abruptly, "that your nephew was not more attached to me. But persons +in my situation are more to be pitied, than can well be imagined. We +are surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate +hearts, but _we_ can never hope to share an atom of their affections. +The relation of master and scholar forbids this. _How pleasing this +must be to you, how I envy your feelings_, my friends will sometimes +say to me, when they see young men, whom I have educated, return after +some years absence from school, their eyes shining with pleasure, +while they shake hands with their old master, bringing a present of +game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms +for my care of their education. A holiday is begged for the boys; +the house is a scene of happiness; I, only, am sad at heart--This +fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master +with gratitude for the care of his boyish years--this young man--in +the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never +could repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when +I praised; he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never +_love_ me--and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, +is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting +the scene of their boyish hopes and fears; and the seeing on equal +terms the man they were accustomed to look up to with reverence. +My wife too," this interesting correspondent goes on to say, "my +once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster.--When I married +her--knowing that the wife of a schoolmaster ought to be a busy +notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna would ill supply the +loss of my dear bustling mother, just then dead, who never sat still, +was in every part of the house in a moment, and whom I was obliged +sometimes to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save her from +fatiguing herself to death--I expressed my fears, that I was bringing +her into a way of life unsuitable to her; and she, who loved me +tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties +of her new situation. She promised, and she has kept her word. What +wonders will not woman's love perform?--My house is managed with a +propriety and decorum, unknown in other schools; my boys are well +fed, look healthy, and have every proper accommodation; and all this +performed with a careful economy, that never descends to meanness. But +I have lost my gentle, _helpless_ Anna!--When we sit down to enjoy an +hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listen +to what have been her useful (and they are really useful) employments +through the day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's task. Her +heart and her features are changed by the duties of her situation. To +the boys, she never appears other than the _master's wife_, and she +looks up to me as the _boys' master_; to whom all show of love and +affection would be highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her +situation and mine. Yet _this_ my gratitude forbids me to hint to +her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered creature, and can +I reproach her for it?"--For the communication of this letter, I am +indebted to my cousin Bridget. + +[Footnote 1: Urn Burial.] + + + + +VALENTINE'S DAY + + +Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy +name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen! Immortal +Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a +_name_, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to +seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with +thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? +Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other +mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril; +nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom +all mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop +Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with +thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is + + Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. + +Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and instead of +the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. + +In other words, this is the day on which those charming little +missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every +street and turning. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks +beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely +credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in +this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment +of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, +no emblem is so common as the _heart_,--that little three-cornered +exponent of all our hopes and fears,--the bestuck and bleeding heart; +it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations +than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology +for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this +anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we +have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might +easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed +for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover +addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam, +my _liver_ and fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting +a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a _midriff_ to bestow?" But +custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to +the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at +animal and anatomical distance. + +Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, +exceed in interest a _knock at the door_. It "gives a very echo to +the throne where Hope is seated." But its issues seldom answer to +this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to +see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations the welcomest in +expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a +Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal +entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, +airy, confident, and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is +less mechanical than on other days; you will say, "That is not the +post, I am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens!--delightful +eternal common-places, which "having been will always be;" which no +school-boy nor school-man can write away; having your irreversible +throne in the fancy and affections--what are your transports, when the +happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the +emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, +some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses-- + + Lovers all, + A madrigal, + +or some such device, not over abundant in sense--young Love disclaims +it,--and not quite silly--something between wind and water, a chorus +where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I +apprehend they did, in Arcadia. + +All Valentines are not foolish; and I shall not easily forget thine, +my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B.--E.B. lived +opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his +parlour window in C--e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, +and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a +temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humour. +E.B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of +designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom +of many a well executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no +further; for E.B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. E.B. +meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which +she had done him unknown; for when a kindly face greets us, though but +passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as +an obligation; and E.B. did. This good artist set himself at work to +please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years +since. He wrought, unseen and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need +not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders--full, not of +common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories +of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E.B. is a scholar.) +There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor +Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottos +and fanciful devices, such as beseemed,--a work in short of magic. +Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the +all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice--(O ignoble trust!)--of the +common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful +stand, the next morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by +and by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl +unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one +the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with +light love, or foolish expectations, for she had no lover; or, if she +had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which +delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as +our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the +benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good +for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a +specimen of E.B. and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness. + +Good-morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, +but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not +too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves +humble diocesans of old Bishop Valentine, and his true church. + + + + +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES + + + I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathized + with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any + thing. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with + prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch.--_Religio Medici_. + + +That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts +of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences; +in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of +the actual; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities +of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. +It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he +should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For +myself--earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities,-- + + Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, + +I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or +individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent +eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste +or distaste; or when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be +disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices--made up +of likings and dislikings--the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, +antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am +a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot +feel towards all equally. The more purely-English word that expresses +sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy +man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or _fellow_. I cannot +_like_ all people alike.[1] + +I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to +desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me--and in +truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There +is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. +We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect +intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its +constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the +sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than +comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision +in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their +intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. +They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She +presents no full front to them--a feature or side-face at the most. +Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost +they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure--and leave +it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. +The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and +shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. +They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content +to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as +if they were upon their oath--but must be understood, speaking +or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a +proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They +delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without +waiting for their full developement. They are no systematizers, and +would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, +are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not +mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is +born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their +growth--if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon +principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He +never hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his stock of ideas +in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into +company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He +never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence, to +share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or +not. You cannot cry _halves_ to any thing that he finds. He does not +find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. +His understanding is always at its meridian--you never see the first +dawn, the early streaks.--He has no falterings of self-suspicion. +Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, +partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no +place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls +upon him. Is he orthodox--he has no doubts. Is he an infidel--he has +none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no +border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of +truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps +the path. You cannot make excursions with him--for he sets you right. +His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot +compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right +and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the +sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops +a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy +book!"--said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give +that appellation to John Buncle,--"did I catch rightly what you said? +I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I +do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above +all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. +Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest +with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print +of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing +off to Mr. ****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to +ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my +friends)--when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable +respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but +had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal +pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much +to disconcert him.--Persons of this nation are particularly fond +of affirming a truth--which nobody doubts. They do not so properly +affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of +truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth +becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that contains it be +new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of +disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, +where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly +expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father +instead of the son--when four of them started up at once to inform +me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable +wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. Swift has hit off +this part of their character, namely their love of truth, in his +biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the +passage to the margin.[2] The tediousness of these people is certainly +provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another!--In my early life +I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes +foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing +it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration +of his compatriot, even more than he would your contempt of him. The +latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the +words which he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presumption +in you to suppose that you can admire him.--Thomson they seem to have +forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his +delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction +to our metropolis.--peak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will +retort upon you Hume's History compared with _his_ Continuation of it. +What if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? + +I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of +stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. +They date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits +of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I +have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cling +about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries +of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side,--of cloaked revenge, +dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and their fathers, +must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I cannot believe +it can run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as +candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up +the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial +to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change--for the mercantile spirit +levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly +confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, +which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to +me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see +the Church and Synagogue kissing and congeeing in awkward postures of +an affected civility. If _they_ are converted, why do they not come +over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the +life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they +keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites. Jews +christianizing--Christians judaizing--puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. +A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly than a wet +Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially _separative_. B---- +would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his +forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to +be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of +his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, +when he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!" +The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides +over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him.--B---- has a +strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by +his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings +with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the +Commandments, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. +His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How +should they?--but you seldom see a silly expression among them. +Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard +of an idiot being born among them.--Some admire the Jewish female +physiognomy. I admire it--but with trembling. Jael had those full dark +inscrutable eyes. + +In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of +benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these +faces--or rather masks--that have looked out kindly upon one in casual +encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully +calls--these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like +to associate with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with +them--because they are black. + +I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker +principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any +of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any +occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a +ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. +But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with +them." I am all over sophisticated--with humours, fancies, craving +hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, +scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their +simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive +banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to +Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited + + To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a +question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar +assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than +other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and +are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar +character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their +veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom +of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all +religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into +the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth--the one +applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the +common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the +conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirmations +of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected, and conceded +upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than truth +satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to +speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness +and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary +conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, +where clergy-truth--oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, +is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple +affirmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without +any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use +upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, +with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He +knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, +for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows +that his syllables are weighed--and how far a consciousness of this +particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to +produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest +means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more +sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The +admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all +contingencies, might be traced to this imposed self-watchfulness--if +it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock +of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive +Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of +judge or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. "You will +never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till +midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been +putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers +may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people +is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances.--I was +travelling in a stagecoach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the +straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, +where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before +us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way +took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my +companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was +resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild +arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated +mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard +came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out +their money, and formally tendered it.--so much for tea--I, in humble +imitation, tendering mine--for the supper which I had taken. She +would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their +silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and +gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought +I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and +warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove +off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously +pronounced, became after a time inaudible--and now my conscience, +which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give +some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be +offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their +conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the +subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of +them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour, "Hast thee +heard how indigos go at the India House?" and the question operated as +a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. + +[Footnote 1: I would be understood as confining myself to the subject +of _imperfect sympathies_. To nations or classes of men there can be +no direct _antipathy_. There may be individuals born and constellated +so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot +hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the +story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in +their lives) and instantly fighting. + + --We by proof find there should be + Twixt man and man such an antipathy, + That though he can show no just reason why + For any former wrong or injury, + Can neither find a blemish in his fame, + Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, + Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, + Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. + +The lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," and he +subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted +to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack +could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy +which he had taken to the first sight of the King. + + --The cause which to that act compell'd him + Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.] + +[Footnote 2: There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit +themselves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no +consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as +happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the +Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the +minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if +it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as +well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly +tolerable.--_Hints towards an Essay on Conversation_.] + + + + +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS + + +We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for +fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved +in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible +world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an +historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world +was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits +assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fitness, or +proportion--of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable +absurd--could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission +of any particular testimony?--That maidens pined away, wasting +inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire--that corn was +lodged, and cattle lamed--that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry +the oaks of the forest--or that spits and kettles only danced a +fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no wind +was stirring--were all equally probable where no law of agency was +understood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the +flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to the +weak fantasy of indigent eld--has neither likelihood nor unlikelihood +_à priori_ to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, or +standard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in the +devil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolized by +a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that _he_ should come +sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor.--That the intercourse +was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps the mistake--but +that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested story +of this nature more than another on the score of absurdity. There +is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be +criticised. + +I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of +received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where +one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more +obtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in +league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their +muttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled +issuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon them--as if they +should subpoena Satan!--Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand +about him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy of his +enemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, we +think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to the +non-resistance of witches to the constituted powers.--What stops the +Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces--or who had made it a +condition of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious +bait--we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country. + +From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and +witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good +store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity +originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History +of the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. The +pictures with which it abounds--one of the ark, in particular, +and another of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity +of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the +spot--attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of +the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. We +shall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes--and +there was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, with +infinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from the situation +which they occupied upon an upper shelf. I have not met with the work +from that time to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament +stories, orderly set down, with the _objection_ appended to each +story, and the _solution_ of the objection regularly tacked to that. +The _objection_ was a summary of whatever difficulties had been +opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness of +ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimentary +excess of candour. The _solution_ was brief, modest, and satisfactory. +The bane and antidote were, both before you. To doubts so put, and so +quashed, there seemed to be an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, for +the foot of the veriest babe to trample on. But--like as was rather +feared than realised from that slain monster in Spenser--from the womb +of those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, exceeding the +prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to vanquish. The habit +of expecting objections to every passage, set me upon starting more +objections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own for them. I +became staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. The pretty +Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their +purity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so many +historic or chronologic theses to be defended against whatever +impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but--the next thing to +that--I was to be quite sure that some one or other would or had +disbelieved them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the letting +him know that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man's +weakness, but the child's strength. O, how ugly sound scriptural +doubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling!--I should have lost +myself in these mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfit +sustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of +ill-fortune, which about this time befel me. Turning over the picture +of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in its +ingenious fabric--driving my inconsiderate fingers right through the +two larger quadrupeds--the elephant, and the camel--that stare (as +well they might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in +that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was henceforth +locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, the +_objections_ and _solutions_ gradually cleared out of my head, and +have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.--But there was +one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or +bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nerves +rather more seriously.--That detestable picture! + +I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-time solitude, +and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature +would justify 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 as memory serves in things so long ago--without an assurance, +which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be +old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture +of the Witch raising up Samuel--(O that old man covered with a +mantle!) I owe--not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy--but +the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for +me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow--a sure bed-fellow, when +my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, while the book was +permitted me, I dreamed waking over his delineation, and at night +(if I may use so bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found +the vision true. I durst not, even in the day-light, once enter the +chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the window, aversely +from the bed where my witch-ridden pillow was.--Parents do not know +what they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the +dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm--the hoping for a familiar +voice--when they wake screaming--and find none to soothe them--what a +terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves! The keeping them up till +midnight, through candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are +called,--would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the +better caution.--That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the +fashion to my dreams--if dreams they were--for the scene of them was +invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never met with the picture, +the fears would 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, +or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these +terrors in children. They can at most but give them a direction. Dear +little T.H. who of all children has been brought up with the most +scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition--who was never +allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad +men, or to read or hear of any distressing story--finds all this world +of fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded _ab extra_, in his +own "thick-coming fancies;" and from his little midnight pillow, this +nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, +in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer are +tranquillity. + +Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras--dire stories of Celæno and the +Harpies--may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition--but +they were there before. They are transcripts, types--the archetypes +are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which we +know 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, considered +in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?--O, +least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond +body--or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the +cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante--tearing, mangling, +choking, stifling, scorching demons--are they one half so fearful +to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied +following 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.[1] + +That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual--that it +is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth--that it +predominates in the period of sinless infancy--are difficulties, +the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our +antemundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of +pre-existence. + +My night-fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess an +occasional night-mare; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of +them. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished taper, will come and look +at me; but I know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude their +presence, and I fight and grapple with them. For the credit of my +imagination, I am almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreams +are grown. They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of +architecture and of buildings--cities abroad, which I have never seen, +and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, for the seeming length +of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon--their churches, +palaces, squares, market-places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an +inexpressible sense of delight--a map-like distinctness of trace--and +a day-light vividness of vision, that was all but being awake.--I have +formerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells--my highest Alps,--but +they are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recognition; +and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual struggles of the +inner eye, to make out a shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. +Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. The +poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Coleridge, at his will +can conjure up icy domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and +Abyssinian maids, and songs of Abara, and caverns, + + Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, + +to solace his night solitudes--when I cannot muster a fiddle. Barry +Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling before him in +nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune--when my +stretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, +raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat a +mortifying light--it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet, +that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and the poor +plastic power, such as it is, within me set to work, to humour my +folly in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was upon the +ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the +customary train sounding their conchs before me, (I myself, you may be +sure, the _leading god_,) and jollily we went careering over the main, +till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think it was +Ino) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell from +a sea-roughness to a sea-calm, and thence to a river-motion, and that +river (as happens in the familiarization of dreams) was no other than +the gentle Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave +or two, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth +palace. + +The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish no +whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the +same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humorist, +used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of +his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first question +would be,--"Young man, what sort of dreams have you?" I have so much +faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein +returning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of +prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious +inland landing. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.] + + + + +MY RELATIONS + + +I am arrived at that point of life, at which a man may account it a +blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either of his parents +surviving. I have not that felicity--and sometimes think feelingly of +a passage in Browne's Christian Morals, where he speaks of a man that +hath lived sixty or seventy years in the world. "In such a compass of +time," he says, "a man may have a close apprehension what it is to +be forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could remember his +father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may sensibly see +with what a face in no long time OBLIVION will look upon himself." + +I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom single +blessedness had soured to the world. She often used to say, that I +was the only thing in it which she loved; and, when she thought I was +quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality +quite so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She was from +morning till night poring over good books, and devotional exercises. +Her favourite volumes were Thomas à Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; +and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the _matins_ and _complines_ +regularly set down,--terms which I was at that time too young to +understand. She persisted in reading them, although admonished daily +concerning their Papistical tendency; and went to church every +Sabbath, as a good Protestant should do. These were the only books +she studied; though, I think, at one period of her life, she told me, +she had read with great satisfaction the Adventures of an Unfortunate +Young Nobleman. Finding the door of the chapel in Essex-street open +one day--it was in the infancy of that heresy--she went in, liked the +sermon, and the manner of worship, and frequented it at intervals +for some time after. She came not for doctrinal points, and never +missed them. With some little asperities in her constitution, which +I have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly being, and a +fine _old Christian_. She was a woman of strong sense, and a shrewd +mind--extraordinary at a _repartee;_ one of the few occasions of her +breaking silence--else she did not much value wit. The only secular +employment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was, the splitting +of French beans, and dropping them into a China basin of fair water. +The odour of those tender vegetables to this day comes back upon my +sense, redolent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most +delicate of culinary operations. + +Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none--to remember. By the +uncle's side I may be said to have been born an orphan. Brother, or +sister, I never had any--to know them. A sister, I think, that should +have been Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort, +or what a care, may I not have missed in her!--But I have cousins, +sprinkled about in Hertfordshire--besides _two_, with whom I have been +all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may term +cousins _par excellence_. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are +older than myself by twelve, and ten, years; and neither of them seems +disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the +prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in +the same mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, +years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my +grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or younger brother! + +James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, which not +every critic can penetrate; or, if we feel, we cannot explain them. +The pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have drawn J.E. +entire--those fine Shandian lights and shades, which make up his +story. I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates +have given me grace and talent. J.E. then--to the eye of a common +observer at least--seemeth made up of contradictory principles.--The +genuine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence--the +phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his +temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new project +in his brain, J.E. is the systematic opponent of innovation, and crier +down of every thing that has not stood the test of age and experiment. +With a hundred fine notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, +he is startled at the least approach to the romantic in others; and, +determined by his own sense in every thing, commends _you_ to the +guidance of common sense on all occasions.--With a touch of the +eccentric in all which he does, or says, he is only anxious that _you_ +should not commit yourself by doing any thing absurd or singular. +On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a certain +popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to _say_ so--for the world +would think me mad. He disguises a passionate fondness for works of +high art (whereof he hath amassed a choice collection), under the +pretext of buying only to sell again--that his enthusiasm may give no +encouragement to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece of +tender, pastoral Dominichino hang still by his wall?--is the ball of +his sight much more dear to him?--or what picture-dealer can talk like +him? + +Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp their speculative +conclusions to the bent of their individual humours, _his_ theories +are sure to be in diametrical opposition to his constitution. He is +courageous as Charles of Sweden, upon instinct; chary of his person, +upon principle, as a travelling Quaker.--He has been preaching up to +me, all my life, the doctrine of bowing to the great--the necessity +of forms, and manner, to a man's getting on in the world. He himself +never aims at either, that I can discover,--and has a spirit, that +would stand upright in the presence of the Cham of Tartary. It is +pleasant to hear him discourse of patience--extolling it as the truest +wisdom--and to see him during the last seven minutes that his dinner +is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless +piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous cousin--and +Art never turned out a more elaborate orator than he can display +himself to be, upon his favourite topic of the advantages of quiet, +and contentedness in the state, whatever it may be, that we are +placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he has you safe in +one of those short stages that ply for the western road, in a very +obstructing manner, at the foot of John Murray's street--where you get +in when it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath +completed her just freight--a trying three quarters of an hour to some +people. He wonders at your fidgetiness,--"where could we be better +than we are, _thus silting, thus consulting_?"--"prefers, for his +part, a state of rest to locomotion,"--with an eye all the while upon +the coachman--till at length, waxing out of all patience, at _your +want of it_, he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow +for detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, and +declares peremptorily, that "the gentleman in the coach is determined +to get out, if he does not drive on that instant." + +Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a sophistry, he is +incapable of attending _you_ in any chain of arguing. Indeed he makes +wild work with logic; and seems to jump at most admirable conclusions +by some process, not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this, +he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists +such a faculty at all in man as _reason_; and wondereth how man came +first to have a conceit of it--enforcing his negation with all the +might of _reasoning_ he is master of. He has some speculative notions +against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural +to _him_--when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall crow +like Chanticleer. He says some of the best things in the world--and +declareth that wit is his aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing +the Eton boys at play in their grounds--_What a pity to think, that +these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into +frivolous Members of Parliament!_ + +His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous--and in age he discovereth +no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate +people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that +inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.--It does +me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some +fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, +with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that +indicates some purchase in his eye--a Claude--or a Hobbima--for much +of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's, and Phillips's--or +where not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these occasions +he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a +person like me possesses above himself, in having his time occupied +with business which he _must do_--assureth me that he often feels +it hang heavy on his hands--wishes he had fewer holidays--and goes +off--Westward Ho!--chanting a tune, to Pall Mall--perfectly convinced +that he has convinced me--while I proceed in my opposite direction +tuneless. + +It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indifference doing the +honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly housed it. You must +view it in every light, till _he_ has found the best--placing it at +this distance, and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight +to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the +aërial perspective--though you assure him that to you the landscape +shows much more agreeable without that artifice. Wo be to the luckless +wight, who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who should +drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of his anterior +bargains to the present!--The last is always his best hit--his +"Cynthia of the minute."--Alas! how many a mild Madonna have I +known to _come in_--a Raphael!--keep its ascendancy for a few brief +moons--then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front +drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlour,--adopted +in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions +of filiation, mildly breaking its fall--consigned to the oblivious +lumber-room, _go out_ at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo +Maratti!--which things when I beheld--musing upon the chances and +mutabilities of fate below, hath made me to reflect upon the altered +condition of great personages, or that woful Queen of Richard the +Second-- + + --set forth in pomp, + She came adorned hither like sweet May. + Sent back like Hollowmass or shortest day. + +With great love for _you_, J.E. hath but a limited sympathy with what +you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, and makes slender +guesses at what passes in your mind. He never pierces the marrow of +your habits. He will tell an old established play-goer, that Mr. +Such-a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very +lively comedian--as a piece of news! He advertised me but the other +day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, +_knowing me to be a great walker_, in my own immediate vicinity--who +have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years! He has +not much respect for that class of feelings which goes by the name +of sentimental. He applies the definition of real evil to bodily +sufferings exclusively--and rejecteth all others as imaginary. He +is affected by the sight, or the bare supposition, of a creature in +pain, to a degree which I have never witnessed out of womankind. A +constitutional acuteness to this class of sufferings may in part +account for this. The animal tribe in particular he taketh under his +especial protection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to +find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for ever. He +is the apostle to the brute kind--the never-failing friend of those +who have none to care for them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, +or eels skinned _alive_, will wring him so, that "all for pity he +could die." It will take the savour from his palate, and the rest from +his pillow, for days and nights. With the intense feeling of Thomas +Clarkson, he wanted only the steadiness of pursuit, and unity of +purpose, of that "true yolk-fellow with Time," to have effected as +much for the _Animal_, as _he_ hath done for the _Negro Creation_. But +my uncontrollable cousin is but imperfectly formed for purposes which +demand co-operation. He cannot wait. His amelioration-plans must be +ripened in a day. For this reason he has cut but an equivocal figure +in benevolent societies, and combinations for the alleviation of human +sufferings. His zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his +coadjutors. He thinks of relieving,--while they think of debating. +He was black-balled out of a society for the Relief of **********, +because the fervor of his humanity toiled beyond the formal +apprehension, and creeping processes, of his associates. I shall +always consider this distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia +family! Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at, or +upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all good manners, and +the understanding that should be between kinsfolk, forbid!--With all +the strangenesses of this _strangest of the Elias_--I would not have +him in one jot or tittle other than he is; neither would I barter or +exchange my wild kinsman for the most exact, regular, and everyway +consistent kinsman breathing. + +In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some account of my cousin +Bridget--if you are not already surfeited with cousins--and take you +by the hand, if you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which +we made a summer or two since, in search of _more cousins_-- + + Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. + + + + +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE + + +Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have +obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We +house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; +with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in +myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the +rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well +in our tastes and habits--yet so, as "with a difference." We are +generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings--as it should be +among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood, than +expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind +than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was +altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am +hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or +one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern +tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with +assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teazes me. I have little concern +in the progress of events. She must have a story--well, ill, or +indifferently told--so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of +good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction--and +almost in real life--have ceased to interest, or operate but dully +upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions--heads with some +diverting twist in them--the oddities of authorship please me most. My +cousin has a native disrelish of any thing that sounds odd or bizarre. +Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the +road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I can pardon +her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici; but +she must apologise to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which +she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals +of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one--the thrice +noble, chaste, and virtuous,--but again somewhat fantastical, and +original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle. + +It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I +could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, +free-thinkers--leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies and +systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. +That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its +authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with +her understanding. + +We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have +observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this--that +in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out, that I was +in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed +upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone; +whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out +with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way +of thinking. + +I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, +for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an +awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which +times she will answer _yes_ or _no_ to a question, without fully +understanding its purport--which is provoking, and derogatory in the +highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her +presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but +will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose +requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; +but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been +known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. + +Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily +missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name +of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into +a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection +or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome +pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in +this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be +diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst +come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. + +In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the +teazing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the +_will_ to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess +of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon +the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your +satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; +but best, when she goes a journey with you. + +We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, +to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that +fine corn country. + +The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it +is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; +a farm-house,--delightfully situated within a gentle walk from +Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a +great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I +have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could +throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might +share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at +that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married +my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a +Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still +flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost +extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; +and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the +other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery +End--kindred or strange folk--we were afraid almost to conjecture, but +determined some day to explore. + +By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in +our way from Saint Alban's, we arrived at the spot of our anxious +curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every +trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a +pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though _I_ +had forgotten it, _we_ had never forgotten being there together, and +we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my +part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the +aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to _that_, +which I had conjured up so many times instead of it! + +Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart +of June," and I could say with the poet, + + But them, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her delicate creation! + +Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered +her old acquaintance again--some altered features, of course, a little +grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; +but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections--and she +traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the +orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds +were alike flown)--with a breathless impatience of recognition, which +was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But +Bridget in some things is behind her years. + +The only thing left was to get into the house--and that was a +difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I +am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date +kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without +me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to +a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the +Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the +old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, +were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this +adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all--more comely. She +was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early +life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing +a style. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those +slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere +of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, +loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted +as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to +the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should +call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her--it was like the +meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, +an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this +farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace--or so we thought +it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally--we, and our +friend that was with us--I had almost forgotten him--but B.F. will not +so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the +far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made +ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; +and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget +with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to +Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her +mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of +us, at a time when she almost knew nothing.--With what corresponding +kindness we were received by them also--how Bridget's memory, exalted +by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections +of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own--and to +the astoundment of B.F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not +a cousin there,--old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names +and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in +lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth,--when I forget +all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more +remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender +charge--as I have been her care in foolish manhood since--in those +pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. + + + + +MODERN GALLANTRY + + +In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment +ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or +deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as +females. + +I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can +forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date +our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent +practice of whipping females in public, in common with the coarsest +male offenders. + +I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the +fact, that in England women are still occasionally--hanged. + +I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be +hissed off a stage by gentlemen. + +I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the +kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, +which some unlucky dray has just dissipated. + +I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would +be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act +upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not +observed--when I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part +with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders +of the poor woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the +same stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain--when I shall no +longer see a woman standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till +she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated +at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till one, that seems to +have more manners or conscience than the rest, significantly declares +"she should be welcome to his seat, if she were a little younger and +handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle +of their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not +seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury. + +Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle +influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and +coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women. + +Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be +any thing more than a conventional fiction; a pageant got up between +the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which +both find their account equally. + +I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of +life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid +to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse +complexions as to clear--to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she +is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. + +I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a +well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the +topic of _female old age_ without exciting, and intending to excite, +a sneer:--when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one +has "overstoocl her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise +immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken. + +Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, merchant, and one of the Directors +of the South-Sea company--the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare +commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet--was the only pattern of +consistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at +an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts +and example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not +much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit +more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was +the finest gentleman of his time. He had not _one_ system of attention +to females in the drawing-room, and _another_ in the shop, or at the +stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction. But he never lost +sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous +situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed--smile if you please--to +a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to +some street--in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to +embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He +was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women: +but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before +him, _womanhood_. I have seen him--nay, smile not--tenderly escorting +a marketwoman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his +umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no +damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the +reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to +an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show +our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, +or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend +them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in +those withered and yellow cheeks. + +He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the +beautiful Susan Winstanley--old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton--who +dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the +resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short +courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress +with a profusion of civil speeches--the common gallantries--to which +kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance--but in +this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent +acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. +He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown +herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, +finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her +coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that +she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even +endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her +situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to +her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of +insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young +women: but that--a little before he had commenced his compliments--she +had overheard him by accident, in rather rough language, rating +a young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to the +appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan +Winstanley, and a young lady--a reputed beauty, and known to be a +fortune,--I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth +of this very fine gentleman who is courting me--but if I had been poor +Mary Such-a-one (_naming the milliner_),--and had failed of bringing +home the cravats to the appointed hour--though perhaps I had sat up +half the night to forward them--what sort of compliments should I have +received then?--And my woman's pride came to my assistance; and I +thought, that if it were only to do _me_ honour, a female, like +myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined +not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the +belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and title to +them." + +I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of +thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have +sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which +through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards +all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this +seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. + +I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these +things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something +of the spirit of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the +anomaly of the same man--a pattern of true politeness to a wife--of +cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister--the idolater of his female +mistress--the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or +unfortunate--still female--maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a +woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed--her +handmaid, or dependent--she deserves to have diminished from herself +on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and +beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their +attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after +it, is first--respect for her as she is a woman;--and next to that--to +be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon +her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions, +incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and +ornaments--as many, and as fanciful, as you please--to that main +structure. Let her first lesson be--with sweet Susan Winstanley--to +_reverence her sex_. + + + + +THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE + + +I was born, and passed the first seven years of my life, in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, +I had almost said--for in those young years, what was this king of +rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are +of my oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself +more frequently, or with kindlier emotion, than those of Spenser, +where he speaks of this spot. + + There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, + The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, + Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, + There whylome wont the Templer knights to bide; + Till they decayd through pride. + +Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a +transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time--the +passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet-street, by unexpected +avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its classic green +recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it, +which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden: that goodly +pile + + Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, + +confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more +fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful +Crown-office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the +stately stream, which washes the garden-foot with her yet scarcely +trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from her Twickenham +Naiades! a man would give something to have been born in such places. +What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the +fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times! +to the astoundment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, +not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost +tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic! What an antique air had +the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, +seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take +their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding +correspondence with the fountain of light! How would the dark line +steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to +detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or +the first arrests of sleep! + + Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand + Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived! + +What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead +and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with +the simple altar-like structure, and silent heart-language of the +old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it +almost every where vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more +elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded +for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not +protracted after sun-set, of temperance, and good-hours. It was the +primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce +have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet +plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their +silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The +shepherd "carved it out quaintly in the sun;" and, turning philosopher +by the very occupation, provided it with mottos more touching than +tombstones. It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by +Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out of +herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, for +they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. +They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and +sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes: + + What wondrous life in this I lead! + Ripe apples drop about my head. + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon my mouth do crush their wine. + The nectarine, and curious peach, + Into my hands themselves do reach. + Stumbling on melons, as I pass, + Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. + Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less + Withdraws into its happiness. + The mind, that ocean, where each kind + Does straight its own resemblance find; + Yet it creates, transcending these, + Far other worlds, and other seas; + Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade. + Here at the fountain's sliding foot, + Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, + Casting the body's vest aside, + My soul into the boughs does glide: + There, like a bird, it sits and sings, + Then whets and claps its silver wings; + And, till prepared for longer flight, + Waves in its plumes the various light. + How well the skilful gardener drew, + Of flowers and herbs, this dial new! + Where, from above, the milder sun + Does through a fragrant zodiac run: + And, as it works, the industrious bee + Computes its time as well as we. + How could such sweet and wholesome hours + Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers?[1] + +The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, fast +vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or bricked over. Yet, where one +is left, as in that little green nook behind the South-Sea House, +what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile! Four little winged +marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever +fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of +Lincoln's-inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured. They are +gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by, +and these things are esteemed childish. Why not then gratify children, +by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They +are awakening images to them at least. Why must every thing smack of +man, and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is +there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the child's +heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments? The figures were +grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still flitter and +chatter about that area, less gothic in appearance? or is the splutter +of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as the +little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered? + +They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner Temple-hall, and +the library front, to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the +hall, which they do not at all resemble. What is become of the winged +horse that stood over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed +those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized the end of the +Paper-buildings?--my first hint of allegory! They must account to me +for these things, which I miss so greatly. + +The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the parade; but +the traces are passed away of the footsteps which made its pavement +awful! It is become common and profane. The old benchers had it almost +sacred to themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They might +not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. +You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on +even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J----ll, ever +ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie +a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated +Thomas Coventry?--whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and +elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and +path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the +scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and superiors, +who made a solitude of children wherever he came, for they fled his +insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear. His +growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth +or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the most +repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, aggravating the natural terrors +of his speech, broke from each majestic nostril, darkening the air. He +took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under +the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat +red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by +adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. + +By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive +gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had nothing but +that and their benchership in common. In politics Salt was a whig, +and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter +cast out--for Coventry had a rough spinous humour--at the political +confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom +of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel +Salt. + +S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent +discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I suspect his +knowledge did not amount to much. When a case of difficult disposition +of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily +handed it over with a few instructions to his man Lovel, who was +a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the +light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. +It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere +trick of gravity. He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a +minute--indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet men would +give him credit for vast application in spite of himself. He was not +to be trusted with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a +dinner party but he forgot his sword--they wore swords then--or some +other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on +all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was +anything which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it.--He +was to dine at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day +of her execution;--and L. who had a wary foresight of his probable +hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him with great anxiety not +in any possible manner to allude to her story that day. S. promised +faithfully to observe the injunction. He had not been seated in the +parlour, where the company was expecting the dinner summons, four +minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked +out of window, and pulling down his ruffles--an ordinary motion with +him--observed, "it was a gloomy day," and added, "Miss Blandy must +be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were +perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time +a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the +law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct--from +force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had the same good +fortune among the female world,--was a known toast with the ladies, +and one or two are said to have died for love of him--I suppose, +because he never trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, +indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and person, but +wanted, methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with +advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre.--Not so, thought Susan +P----; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold +evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of B----d Row, with +tears that fell in drops which might be heard, because her friend had +died that day--he, whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for +the last forty years--a passion, which years could not extinguish or +abate; nor the long resolved, yet gently enforced, puttings off of +unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild +Susan P----, thou hast now thy friend in heaven! + +Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that name. He +passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early +those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so +that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was +master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, +or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite +the pump in Serjeant's-inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is doing +self-imposed penance in it, for what reason I divine not, at this day. +C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he seldom spent above +a day or two at a time in the summer; but preferred, during the hot +months, standing at his window in this damp, close, well-like mansion, +to watch, as he said, "the maids drawing water all day long." I +suspect he had his within-door reasons for the preference. _Hic currus +et arma fuêre_. He might think his treasures more safe. His house had +the aspect of a strong box. C. was a close hunks--a hoarder rather +than a miser--or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes breed, who have +brought discredit upon a character, which cannot exist without certain +admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a +true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking +care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, +upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an +immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away 30,000_l_. at once in his +life-time to a blind charity. His house-keeping was severely looked +after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He would know who came +in and who went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never +suffered to freeze. + +Salt was his opposite in this, as in all--never knew what he was worth +in the world; and having but a competency for his rank, which his +indolent habits were little calculated to improve, might have suffered +severely if he had not had honest people about him. Lovel took care of +every thing. He was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, +his friend, his "flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. +He did nothing without consulting Lovel, or failed in any thing +without expecting and fearing his admonishing. He put himself almost +too much in his hands, had they not been the purest in the world. He +resigned his title almost to respect as a master, if L. could ever +have forgotten for a moment that he was a servant. + +I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. +A good fellow withal, and "would strike." In the cause of the +oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number +of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of +quality that had drawn upon him; and pommelled him severely with the +hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female--an occasion +upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference +of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed to the same person, +modestly to excuse his interference--for L. never forgot rank, where +something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow +breathing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly +to resemble (I have a portrait of him which confirms it), possessed a +fine turn for humorous poetry--next to Swift and Prior--moulded heads +in clay or plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural +genius merely; turned cribbage boards, and such small cabinet toys, +to perfection; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility; +made punch better than any man of his degree in England; had the +merriest quips and conceits, and was altogether as brimful of +rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the +angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. +Isaac Walton would have chosen to go a fishing with. I saw him in his +old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad +stage of human weakness--"a remnant most forlorn of what he was,"--yet +even then his eye would light up upon the mention of his favourite +Garrick. He was greatest, he would say, in Bayes--"was upon the stage +nearly throughout the whole performance, and as busy as a bee." At +intervals, too, he would speak of his former life, and how he came up +a little boy from Lincoln to go to service, and how his mother cried +at parting with him, and how he returned, after some few years' +absence, in his smart new livery to see her, and she blessed herself +at the change, and could hardly be brought to believe that it was "her +own bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he would weep, till I +have wished that sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay +its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us all in no long time +after received him gently into hers. + +With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the terrace, most +commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make up a third. They did not +walk linked arm in arm in those days--"as now our stout triumvirs +sweep the streets,"--but generally with both hands folded behind them +for state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a cane. +P. was a benevolent, but not a pre-possessing man. He had that in +his face which you could not term unhappiness; it rather implied +an incapacity of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, even to +whiteness. His look was uninviting, resembling (but without his +sourness) that of our great philanthropist. I know that he _did_ good +acts, but I could never make out what _he_ was. Contemporary with +these, but subordinate, was Daines Barrington--another oddity--he +walked burly and square--in imitation, I think, of Coventry--howbeit +he attained not to the dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he +did pretty well, upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, +and having a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's +treasurership came to be audited, the following singular charge was +unanimously disallowed by the bench: "Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the +gardener, twenty shillings, for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my +orders." Next to him was old Barton--a jolly negation, who took upon +him the ordering of the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, +where the benchers dine--answering to the combination rooms at +college--much to the easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know +nothing more of him.--Then Read, and Twopenny--Read, good-humoured +and personable--Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and felicitous in +jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and +fleeting. Many must remember him (for he was rather of later date) +and his singular gait, which was performed by three steps and a jump +regularly succeeding. The steps were little efforts, like that of a +child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vigorous, as a foot to +an inch. Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could +never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor seemed to +answer the purpose any better than common walking. The extreme tenuity +of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. +Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him as +Brother Lusty; but W. had no relish of a joke. His features were +spiteful. I have heard that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, +when any thing had offended him. Jackson--the omniscient Jackson he +was called--was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing +more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. He was the +Friar Bacon of the less literate portion of the Temple. I remember a +pleasant passage, of the cook applying to him, with much formality of +apology, for instructions how to write down _edge_ bone of beef in his +bill of commons. He was supposed to know, if any man in the world did. +He decided the orthography to be--as I have given it--fortifying his +authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the manciple (for +the time) learned and happy. Some do spell it yet perversely, _aitch_ +bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its shape, and that of the +aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron +hand--but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some +accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he wielded +with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was +old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember +the astonishment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking +person; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of +power--somewhat like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo's +Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in the +costume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect +recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple. + +Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of you exist, +why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable, half-understood +appearances, why comes in reason to tear away the preternatural mist, +bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure +in my relation, who made up to me--to my childish eyes--the mythology +of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as "old men covered with a +mantle," walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry +perish,--extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary +fabling,--in the heart of childhood, there will, for ever, spring up a +well of innocent or wholesome superstition--the seeds of exaggeration +will be busy there, and vital--from every-day forms educing the +unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light, +when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and +materiality. While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, +shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings +totally to fly the earth. + + * * * * * + +P.S. I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel Salt. See +what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the erring notices of +childhood! Yet I protest I always thought that he had been a bachelor! +This gentleman, R.N. informs me, married young, and losing his lady +in child-bed, within the first year of their union, fell into a deep +melancholy, from the effects of which, probably, he never thoroughly +recovered. In what a new light does this place his rejection (O +call it by a gentler name!) of mild Susan P----, unravelling +into beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring +character!--Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for +true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact-verisimilitudes, +not verities--or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of +history. He is no such honest chronicler as R.N., and would have done +better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, before he sent these +incondite reminiscences to press. But the worthy sub-treasurer--who +respects his old and his new masters--would but have been puzzled +at the indecorous liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, +peradventure, of the license which _Magazines_ have arrived at in this +plain-speaking age, or hardly dreams of their existence beyond the +_Gentleman's_--his furthest monthly excursions in this nature having +been long confined to the holy ground of honest _Urban's_ obituary. +May it be long before his own name shall help to swell those columns +of unenvied flattery!--Meantime, O ye New Benchers of the Inner +Temple, cherish him kindly, for he is himself the kindliest of human +creatures. Should infirmities over-take him--he is yet in green and +vigorous senility--make allowances for them, remembering that "ye +yourselves are old." So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge +and cognisance, still flourish! so may future Hookers and Seldens +illustrate your church and chambers! so may the sparrows, in default +of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your walks! so may +the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery maid, who, by leave, airs her +playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing +curtsy as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion! so may the +younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with +the same superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on +the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye! + +[Footnote 1: From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.] + + + + +GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + +The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the +early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners +were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a +common blessing; when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like +a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, +after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's +flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of +the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the +blessing of food--the act of eating--should have had a particular +expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied +and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon +the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of +existence. + +I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in +the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out +upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, +or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual +repasts--a grace before Milton--a grace before Shakspeare--a +devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy +Queen?--but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the +solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to +the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called; +commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand +philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now +compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a certain snug +congregation of Utopian Rabelæsian Christians, no matter where +assembled. + +The form then of the benediction before eating has its beauty at +a poor man's table, or at the simple and unprovocative repasts of +children. It is here that the grace becomes exceedingly graceful. +The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the +next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of the +blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose +minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some +extreme theory, have entered. The proper end of food--the animal +sustenance--is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's bread is +his daily bread, literally his bread for the day. Their courses are +perennial. + +Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the +grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind +most free for foreign considerations. A man may feel thankful, +heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and have +leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating; +when he shall confess a perturbation o f mind, inconsistent with the +purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I +have sate (a _rarus hospes_) at rich men's tables, with the savoury +soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips +of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the +introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous +orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious +sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a +mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of +devotion. The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly-god +intercepts it for his own. The very excess of the provision beyond the +needs, takes away all sense of proportion between the end and means. +The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice +of returning thanks--for what?--for having too much, while so many +starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. + +I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously perhaps, +by the good man who says the grace. I have seen it in clergymen and +others--a sort of shame--a sense of the co-presence of circumstances +which unhallow the blessing. After a devotional tone put on for a few +seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice, +helping himself or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy +sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was +not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt in +his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and the viands before +him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude. + +I hear somebody exclaim,--Would you have Christians sit down at table, +like hogs to their troughs, without remembering the Giver?--no--I +would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, +and less like hogs. Or if their appetites must run riot, and they +must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are +ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter +season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be +heard, and the reason of the grace returns--with temperate diet and +restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for +thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil +knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celasno +any thing but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the +deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a +meaner and inferior gratitude: but the proper object of the grace is +sustenance, not relishes; daily bread, not delicacies; the means of +life, and not the means of pampering the carcass. With what frame or +composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction +at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding +pious word--and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he +preaches--is but the signal for so many impatient harpies to commence +their foul orgies, with as little sense of true thankfulness (which +is temperance) as those Virgilian fowl! It is well if the good man +himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy +sensuous steams mingling with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice. + +The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the banquet which +Satan, in the Paradise Regained, provides for a temptation in the +wilderness: + + A table richly spread in regal mode, + With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort + And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, + In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, + Gris-amber-steamed; all fish from sea or shore, + Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained + Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. + +The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without +the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short +graces where the devil plays the host.--I am afraid the poet wants his +usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury, +or of a gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a temptation fitter for a +Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and the +accompaniments altogether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy +scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend conjures +up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the +guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have +been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of +God, what sort of feasts presented themselves?--He dreamed indeed, + + --As appetite is wont to dream, + Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. + +But what meats?-- + + Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, + And saw the ravens with their horny beaks + Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn; + Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought: + He saw the prophet also how he fled + Into the desert, and how there he slept + Under a juniper; then how awaked + He found his supper on the coals prepared, + And by the angel was bid rise and eat, + And ate the second time after repose, + The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: + Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, + Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of +the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think +you, would the introduction of what is called the grace have been most +fitting and pertinent? + +Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically I own that +(before meat especially) they seem to involve something awkward and +unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another kind, are excellent +spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the +great ends of preserving and continuing the species. They are fit +blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude; +but the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will apprehend me) +is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers who +go about their business, of every description, with more calmness +than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I +have always admired their silent grace, and the more because I have +observed their applications to the meat and drink following to be +less passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor +wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopt hay, +with indifference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They neither +grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and +tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. + +I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the +kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to +be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows +it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in +higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to +like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes +for food. C---- holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses +apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of +my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those +innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with +me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle +thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappointments, +as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some +savoury mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter +ill melted--that commonest of kitchen failures--puts me beside my +tenour.--The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal +noises over a favourite food. Was this the music quite proper to +be preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have done better +to postpone his devotions to a season when the blessing plight be +contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, +nor would set my thin face against those excellent things, in their +way, jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable, +have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should be sure, +before he ventures so to grace them, that while he is pretending his +devotions otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some +great fish--his Dagon--with a special consecration of no ark but the +fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the +banquets of angels and children; to the roots and severer repasts +of the Chartreuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, +refection of the poor and humble man: but at the heaped-up boards of +the pampered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less +timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those +better befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, at +Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in +the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or +engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be +common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To +be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add +hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes +the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most +tables. In houses where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, +who has not seen that never settled question arise, as to _who shall +say it_; while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or +some other guest belike of next authority from years or gravity, shall +be bandying about the office between them as a matter of compliment, +each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an +equivocal duty from his own shoulders? + +I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different +persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce to each other for the +first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of +these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, +whether he chose to _say any thing_. It seems it is the custom with +some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His +reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an +explanation, with little less importance he made answer, that it was +not a custom known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other +acquiescing for good manner's sake, or in compliance with a weak +brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With +what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of _his_ +religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing +or omitting a sacrifice,--the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his +incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and +(as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. + +A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long +one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do +not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that +equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C.V.L., when importuned +for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is +there no clergyman here?"--significantly adding, "thank G----." Nor do +I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to +preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, connecting +with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful +and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. _Non +tunc illis erat locus._ I remember we were put to it to reconcile the +phrase "good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the +fare set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low +and animal sense,--till some one recalled a legend, which told how +in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to +have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till +some pious benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the +palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave +us--_horresco referens_--trowsers instead of mutton. + + + + +MY FIRST PLAY + + +At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some +architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at +present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if +you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance +to old Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it +without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring +to the evening when I passed through it to see _my first play_. The +afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder +folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating +heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of +which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to +remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it. + +We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the +oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone-building, +in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had +pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John +Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if +John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of +his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, +Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought +his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at +Bath--the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a +quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious +charge.--From either of these connexions it may be inferred that +my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane +theatre at pleasure--and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those +cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say +was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years' +nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that +theatre--and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's +familiarity--or supposed familiarity--was better to my godfather than +money. + +F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. +His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had +two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin +from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled +me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded +_vice versâ_--but in those young years they impressed me with more awe +than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro--in his own +peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicized, +into something like _verse verse_. By an imposing manner, and the help +of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the +highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow. + +He is dead--and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for +my first orders (little wondrous talismans!--slight keys, and +insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian +paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came +into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call +my own--situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in +Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted +foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon +me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over +my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion +in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all +betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more +prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it. + +In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who +abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at +the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door +in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again!--with the cry +of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those +days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of +the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase +some numparels, chase a bill of the play;"--chase _pro_ chuse. But +when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven +to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed--the breathless +anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate +prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakspeare--the tent scene +with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a +measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full +of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the +pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance +(I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling--a homely +fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised +imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a +glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those +"fair Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once +again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in +a sort 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 was +Artaxerxes! + +I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of +it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight +of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for +I understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was +in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous +vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not +players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol +of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was +awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more +than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such +pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin's Invasion +followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates +into 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 the +legend of St. Denys. + +The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of +which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left +in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost--a +satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my +apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of +antiquity as Lud--the father, of a line of Harlequins--transmitting +his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw +the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of +white patch-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 the +World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I +remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me +like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in which +Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in +the story.--The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have +clean 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 the +grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout +meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old +Round Church (my church) of the Templars. + +I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven +years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for +at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors +of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in +my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same +occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, +than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! +At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated +nothing. 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. The +same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, +was gone!--The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two +worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present +"a royal ghost,"--but a certain quantity of green baize, which was +to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their +fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The +lights--the orchestra lights--came up a clumsy machinery. The first +ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's +bell--which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a +voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. +The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in +them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many +centuries--of six short twelve-months--had wrought in me.--Perhaps +it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an +indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable +expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions +with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance +to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon +yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became +to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations. + + + + +DREAM-CHILDREN + +A REVERIE + + +Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when _they_ +were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a +traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in +this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to +hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house +in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa +lived) which had been the scene--so at least it was generally believed +in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which they had +lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the +Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their +cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the +chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin +Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a +marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. +Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be +called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good +their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by every +body, though she was not indeed 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 it too) committed to her by the owner, who +preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had +purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it +in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the +great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, +and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and +carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and +looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they +had seen lately at the 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 by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the +gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their +respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious +woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, +and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread +her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their +great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was +esteemed the best dancer--here Alice's little right foot played an +involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted--the +best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called +a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend +her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, +because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used +to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and +how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen +at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she +slept, but she said, "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how +frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep +with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she--and +yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eye-brows and +tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her +grand-children, having us to the great-house in the holydays, where I +in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the +old busts of the Twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till +the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into +marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that +huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, +fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost +rubbed out--sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I +had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening +man would cross me--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the +walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were +forbidden fruit, unless now and then,--and because I had more pleasure +in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the +firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were +good for nothing but to look at--or in lying about upon the fresh +grass, with all the fine garden smells around me--or basking in the +orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the +oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth--or in watching the dace +that 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 water +in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings,--I +had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet +flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits +of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch +of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing +with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present +as irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, +though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, +yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John +L----, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to +the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like +some 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 half +over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any +out--and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had +too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries--and how +their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to +the admiration of every body, but of their great-grandmother Field +most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was +a lame-footed boy--for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile +when I could not walk for pain;--and how in after life he became +lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough +for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently +how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how +when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he +had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and +death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but +afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take +it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had +died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much +I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, +and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for +we quarreled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as +uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the +doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked +if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, +and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but +to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told +how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, +yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W--n; and, as much as +children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and +difficulty, and denial meant in maidens--when suddenly, turning to +Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a +reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood +there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood +gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, +and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features +were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely +impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor +of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called +Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We +are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores +of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name"--and +immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor +arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget +unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. + + + + +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS + +IN A LETTER TO B.F. ESQ. AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES + + +My dear F.--When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the +world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which +you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at +my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a +correspondence at our distance. The weary world of waters between us +oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl +of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption +to expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing +for posterity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's superscriptions, +"Alcander to Strephon, in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel is no more +than would be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at +Lombard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets +it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a +long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself +at one end, and _the man_ at the other; it would be some balk to the +spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with +that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a +higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some +parasangs nigher that primitive idea--Plato's man--than we in England +here have the honour to reckon ourselves. + +Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; news, sentiment, +and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or +subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, +non-seriously.--And first, for news. In them the most desirable +circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be true. But what security +can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not before you +get it unaccountably turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend +P. is at this present writing--_my Now_--in good health, and enjoys +a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is +natural and friendly. But at this present reading--_your Now_--he may +possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in reason ought +to abate something of your transport (_i.e._ at hearing he was well, +&c.), or at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the play +this evening, to have a laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, I +think you told me, in your land of d----d realities. You naturally +lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you +will correct the hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning with +you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of _two +presents_, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent you +word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat +this evening, though at the moment you received the intelligence my +full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two +after, as you would well know, a smack, a relish left upon my mental +palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a +portion at least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my +intention to produce. But ten months hence your envy or your sympathy +would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does +truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is +harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction for the fear that it may +ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I +put upon you, some three years since ---- of Will Weatherall having +married a servant-maid! I remember gravely consulting you how we +were to receive her--for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected; +and your no less serious replication in the matter; how tenderly you +advised an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady, +with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters +more within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, +or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks, and spits, and +mops, could with propriety be introduced as subjects; whether the +conscious avoiding of all such matters in discourse would not have a +worse look than the taking of them casually in our way; in what manner +we should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall +being by; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of +respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chiding +before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky as +to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a +humble station. There were difficulties, I remember, on both sides, +which you did me the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, +united to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your +solemn pleadings, when lo! while I was valuing myself upon this +flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous +possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, +has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the +commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your +diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to +take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news from +me must become history to you; which I neither profess to write, nor +indeed care much for reading. No person, under a diviner, can with any +prospect of veracity conduct a correspondence at such an arm's length. +Two prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; +the epoch of the writer (Habbakuk) falling in with the true present +time of the receiver (Daniel); but then we are no prophets. + +Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind +of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot; or sent off in +water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself. +If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. +I have often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems that +travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, +or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so fantastically and +invitingly over a stream--was it?--or a rock?--no matter--but the +stillness and the repose, after a weary journey 'tis likely, in a +languid moment of his lordship's hot restless life, so took his fancy, +that he could imagine no place so proper, in the event of his death, +to lay his bones in. This was all very natural and excusable as a +sentiment, and shows his character in a very pleasing light. But when +from a passing sentiment it came to be an act; and when, by a positive +testamentary disposal, his remains were actually carried all that way +from England; who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, +that did not ask the question, Why could not his lordship have found +a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, +with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or +in Devon? Conceive the sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the +Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted +into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and handled between the rude +jests of tarpaulin ruffians--a thing of its delicate texture--the +salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. +Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about +sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory +shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign +to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy +consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing--at Lyons shall +we say?--I have not the map before me--jostled upon four men's +shoulders--baiting at this town--stopping to refresh at t'other +village--waiting a passport here, a license there; the sanction of the +magistracy in this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in +that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out +and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or +tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am +afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite sea-worthy. + +Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though contemptible +in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a +right friendly epistle--your puns and small jests are, I apprehend, +extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. They are so far +from a capacity of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will +scarce endure to be transported by hand from this room to the next. +Their vigour is as the instant of their birth. Their nutriment +for their brief existence is the intellectual atmosphere of the +bystanders: or this last, is the fine slime of Nilus--the _melior +Lutis_,--whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the _sol pater_ +to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present +ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more transmit it in its pristine +flavour, than you can send a kiss.--Have you not tried in some +instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has +it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem +to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like picking up +at a village ale-house a two days old newspaper. You have not seen +it before, but you resent the stale thing as an affront. This sort +of merchandise above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its +recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The one is the brisk +lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the +link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a +mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface +were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve-months, my dear F.) +in giving back its copy? + +I cannot image to myself where about you are. When I try to fix it, +Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Sometimes you seem to be in +the _Hades_ of _Thieves_. I see Diogenes prying among you with his +perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to +give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten +how _we_ look. And tell me, what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng +all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such +a depredation! The kangaroos--your Aborigines--do they keep their +primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short +fore-puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! +Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided _a +priori_; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair +a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony.--We +hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that +the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils +their scanning?--It must look very odd; but use reconciles. For their +scansion, it is less to be regretted, for if they take it into their +heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the greater part of +them, vile plagiarists.--Is there much difference to see to between +the son of a th**f, and the grandson? or where does the taint stop? Do +you bleach in three or in four generations?--I have many questions to +put, but ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it +will take to satisfy my scruples.--Do you grow your own hemp?--What is +your staple trade, exclusive of the national profession, I mean? Your +lock-smiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists. + +I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used +to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous windows, in +pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet +corner?--Why did I?--with its complement of four poor elms, from whose +smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first +lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in +a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a +length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English +letters before they can reach you. But while I talk, I think you hear +me,--thoughts dallying with vain surmise-- + + Aye me! while thee the seas and sounding shores + Hold far away. + +Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall +hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you +left children have become sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. +The blooming Miss W----r (you remember Sally W----r) called upon us +yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die off every year. +Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,--I stood ramparted +about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J.W., two springs +back corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. +If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet +you, of me, or mine. + + + + +THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS + + +I like to meet a sweep--understand me--not a grown sweeper--old +chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive--but one of those tender +novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings +not quite effaced from the cheek--such as come forth with the dawn, or +somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like +the _peep peep_ of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should +I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the +sun-rise? + +I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks--poor +blots--innocent blacknesses-- + +I reverence these young Africans of our own growth--these almost +clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from +their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a +December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. + +When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their +operation! to see a chit no bigger than one's-self enter, one knew not +by what process, into what seemed the _fauces Averni_--to pursue him +in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling +caverns, horrid shades!--to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, +he must be lost for ever!"--to revive at hearing his feeble shout of +discovered day-light--and then (O fulness of delight) running out of +doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in +safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag +waved 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 indicate +which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much +unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of a +child crowned with a tree in his hand rises." + +Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early +rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him +two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of +his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) +be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a +tester. + +There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to +be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind +of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some +tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate +may 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 he +avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant +beverage, on the south side of Fleet-street, as thou approachest +Bridge-street--_the only Salopian house_,"--I have never yet +adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended +ingredients--a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly +whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due +courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not +uninstructed 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 surprisingly +gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper--whether the oily +particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften +the 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 bitter +wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth +her sassafras for a sweet lenitive--but so it is, that no possible +taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a +delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they +will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify +one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic +animals--cats--when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. +There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can +inculcate. + +Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the +_only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art +one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant +of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from +stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler +customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the +rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan +leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, +not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the +honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the +expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our +fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake, +who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in more grateful +coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stops +to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. + +This is _Saloop_--the precocious herb-woman's darling--the delight of +the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of +day from Hammersmith to Covent-garden's famed piazzas--the delight, +and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him +shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the +grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee +but three half-pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an +added halfpenny)--so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged +secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter +volume to the welkin--so may the descending soot never taint thy +costly well-ingredienced soups--nor the odious cry, quickreaching from +street to street, of the _fired chimney_, invite the rattling engines +from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy +peace and pocket! + +I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers +and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over +the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I +endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than +forgiveness.--In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with +my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide +brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and +shame enough--yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had +happened--when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered +me. 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 +the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked +themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a +previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with +such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has +got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, +grinning at the pye-man--there he stood, as he stands in the picture, +irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever--with such a maximum +of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth--for the grin of a +genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it--that I could have +been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have +remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. + +I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine +set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is +a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should +take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or +fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must +I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to +ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as +an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It +is, 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 +better days; a hint of nobility:--and, doubtless, under the obscuring +darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes +lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, +and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender +victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and +almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, +so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be +accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble +Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the +fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and +the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of, good +fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless _defiliations_. + +In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since--under a +ducal canopy--(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to +visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially +a connoisseur)--encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with +starry coronets inwoven--folded between a pair of sheets whiter and +softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius--was discovered by +chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast +asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow +confounded 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 the +delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, +creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the +pillow, and slept like a young Howard. + +Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.--But I cannot +help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted +at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am +mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with +whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under +such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets +of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, +when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far +above his pretensions--is this probable, I would ask, if the great +power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within +him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for +such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, +not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, +when he was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such +sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as +into his proper _incunabula_, and resting-place.--By no other theory, +than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can +I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so +indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. + +My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief of +metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to +reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted +an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure +to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in +Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. +Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the +metropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and +then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly +winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, +indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into +our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be +no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out +of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the +wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The +place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side +of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable +hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the +interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled +about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were +spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a +comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils +of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head +waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty +companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was +clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first +table--for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the +humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some +general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, +his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame +Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, +half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint upon her +chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a +shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled +the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the +sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with _his_ more unctuous +sayings--how he would fit the tit bits to the puny mouths, reserving +the lengthier links for the seniors--how he would intercept a morsel +even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to +the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's +eating"--how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or +that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them +all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best +patrimony,--how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it +were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, +he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe +the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts--"The King,"--the +"Cloth,"--which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting +and flattering;--and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, +"May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other +fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, +would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment +with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a +prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then stuffing +into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) +indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them +mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the +entertainment. + + 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 +my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, +missing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the +glory of Smithfield departed for ever. + + + + +A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS + + +The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation--your only +modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses--is uplift with +many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the +bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags--staves, +dogs, and crutches--the whole mendicant fraternity with all their +baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh +persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets +and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing +sent." + +I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent +crusado, or _bellum ad exterminationem_, proclaimed against a species. +Much good might be sucked from these Beggars. + +They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their +appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to an ingenuous mind +than to be a suppliant to the particular humours or caprice of any +fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. +Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the +assessment. + +There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; +as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go +in livery. + +The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and when +Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards +him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a picture of him, swaying +a ferula for a sceptre, which would have affected our minds with the +same heroic pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we +regard his Belisarius begging for an _obolum_? Would the moral have +been more graceful, more pathetic? + +The Blind Beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy--whose +story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or +attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit will shine +through the disguisements--this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he +was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence +of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green +of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side, +illumining his rags and his beggary--would the child and parent have +cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating +their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some +sempstering shop-board? + +In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King. +The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would +call them) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse +of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good +earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates +the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented +to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. +Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till +he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, +must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, +supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish. + +The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when +they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us +an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up +foul linen. + +How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined +his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the +imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King +Cophetua wooes the beggar maid? + +Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed +with contempt. No one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a +comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour +grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. +Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts +to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his +trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the +streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a +shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally +comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. +He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of +property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No +one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him +of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him +for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour +seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes +to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, +rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a +poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness +of my mind, to be a Beggar. + +Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and +graceful _insignia_ of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the +suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never +out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required +to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His +costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only +man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups +and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth +in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The +fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, +or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become +bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his +religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The +Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I +can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. No corner of +a street is complete without them. They are as indispensable as the +Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the +Signs of old London. They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos, +dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary +checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry-- + + --Look + Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there. + +Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of +Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled them, +casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible) +of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet,--whither are +they fled? or into what corners, blind as themselves, have they been +driven, out of the wholesome air and sun-warmth? immersed between +four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the penalty +of double darkness, where the chink of the dropt half-penny no more +consoles their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful +and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless +staves? and who will farm their dogs?--Have the overseers of St. L---- +caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into +the Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----? + +Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most classical, and +at the same time, most English, of the Latinists!--who has treated +of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship, +in the sweetest of his poems, the _Epitaphium in Canem_, or, _Dog's +Epitaph_. Reader, peruse it; and say, if customary sights, which could +call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more +harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily +thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis. + + Pauperis hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, + Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectæ, + Dux cæco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat, + Prætenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum + Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus, + Quæ dubios regerent passûs, vestigia tuta + Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile + In nudo nactus saxo, qua prætereuntium + Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras + Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam. + Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter, + Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. + Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, + Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa + Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice + Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei + Tædia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. + + Hi mores, hæc vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, + Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senectâ; + Quæ tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite cæcum + Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti + Ne tola intereat, longos deleta per annos, + Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, + Etsi inopis, non ingratæ, munuscula dextræ; + Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque + Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum. + + * * * * * + + Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, + That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, + His guide and guard: nor, while my service lasted, + Had he occasion for that staff, with which + He now goes picking out his path in fear + Over the highways and crossings; but would plant, + Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, + A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd + His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide + Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd: + To whom with loud and passionate laments + From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. + Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, + The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. + I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; + Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear + Prick'd up at his least motion; to receive + At his kind hand ray customary crums, + And common portion in his feast of scraps; + Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent + With our long day and tedious beggary. + + These were my manners, this my way of life, + Till age and slow disease me overtook, + And sever'd from my sightless master's side. + But lest the grace of so good deeds should die. + Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, + This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, + Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand, + And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, + In long and lasting union to attest, + The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. + +These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well-known +figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to glide his comely +upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling along with most +ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood; a spectacle to natives, +to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a +florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and +sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the scientific, +a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man +brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise his +own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart, +of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the +accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780, +and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antæus, +and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He +was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which +should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only +retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a +tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, +and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that +had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his +just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was +as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been +cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could +have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left +him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly +countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this +out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service, +but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to +exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house, +he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically +christened) of Correction. + +Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called +for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a +touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? Among her shows, +her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but +an accumulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for +what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not +_Naturæ_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years' +going about, the man had scraped together enough to give a portion +to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he +injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their +_sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the +heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly +trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to +retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over +a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought +against him by a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons' +Committee--was _this_, or was his truly paternal consideration, which +(if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is +inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which +he has been slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his +chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in hoary +age for a sturdy vagabond?-- + +There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed to have sate +down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction, +ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost +thy breed."-- + +Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by begging +are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in +the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable inferences +deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announcement of +a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a +stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham +(or some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had +been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half-penny +duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms +by the way-side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his +daily benefactor by the voice only; and, when he died, left all the +amassings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the +accumulating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up +people's hearts, and pennies, against giving an alms to the blind?--or +not rather a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, +and noble gratitude upon the other? + +I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. + +I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, and +looking up with his no eyes in the sun--Is it possible I could have +steeled my purse against him? + +Perhaps I had no small change. + +Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, +imposture--_give, and ask no questions_. Cast thy bread upon the +waters. Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels. + +Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a +charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) +comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small +children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable +existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save +a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he +pretendeth, _give_, and under a personate father of a family, think +(if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent bachelor. When +they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, think them +players. You pay your money to see a comedian feign these things, +which, concerning these poor people, thou canst not certainly tell +whether they are feigned or not. + + + + +A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG + + +Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging +enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages +ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just +as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely +hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his +Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the +term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on +to say, that the art of roasting, 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 his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who +being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, +let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, +spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, +till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry +antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of +much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than +nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all +over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in +the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake +of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again +with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any +time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he +should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking +remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his +nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What +could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he had smelt that +smell before--indeed this was by no means the first accident of the +kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young +fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, +or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his +nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel +the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, +and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. +Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, +and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for +before him no man had known it) he tasted--_crackling_! Again he felt +and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he +licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke +into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and +the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the +newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched +skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in +his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, +armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to +rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, +which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The +tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had +rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in +those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat +him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming +a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following +dialogue ensued. + +"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not +enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's +tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know +not what--what have you got there, I say?" + +"O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig +eats." + +The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he +cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt +pig. + +Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since moming, soon raked +out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser +half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out "Eat, +eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste--O Lord,"--with such like +barbarous ejaculations, 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 unnatural +young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had +done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn +tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for +a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion +(for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son +fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had +despatched all that remained of the litter. + +Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the +neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable +wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which +God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was +observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than +ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out +in 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, seemed +to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, +the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take +their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was +given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about +to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the +burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into +the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their +fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature +prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all +the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,--to +the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and +all present--without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation +whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. + +The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity +of the decision: and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and +bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few +days his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing +took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every +direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. +The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter +and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of +architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this +custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my +manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that +the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked +(_burnt_, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a +whole 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, +I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the +manuscript, 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 must +be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as +setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in +favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found +in ROAST PIG. + +Of all the delicacies in the whole _mundus edibilis_, I will maintain +it to be the most delicate--_princeps obsoniorum_. + +I speak not of your grown porkers--things between pig and pork--those +hobbydehoys--but a young and tender suckling--under a moon +old--guiltless as yet of the sty--with no original speck of the +_amor immunditiæ_, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet +manifest--his voice as yet not broken, but something between a +childish treble, and a grumble--the mild forerunner, or _præludium_, +of a grunt. + +_He must be roasted._ I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them +seethed, 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 well +called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure +at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance--with the +adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but an indefinable sweetness +growing up to it--the tender blossoming of fat--fat cropped in the +bud--taken in the shoot--in the first innocence--the cream and +quintessence 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 be so) so +blended and running into each other, that both together make but 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 he +twirleth round the string!--Now he is just done. To see the extreme +sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty +eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars-- + +See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!--wouldst +thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility +which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would +have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable +animal--wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation--from these +sins 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 half +rejecteth, the rank bacon--no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking +sausages--he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the +judicious epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die. + +He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost +too transcendent--a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, +that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause--too +ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips +that approach her--like lovers' kisses, she biteth--she is a pleasure +bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish--but +she stoppeth at the palate--she meddleth not with the appetite--and +the 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 the weakling refuseth not his +mild juices. + +Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, +inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he +is--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 the +least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. + +I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the +good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in +this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my +friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine +own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, +partridges, snipes, barn-door chicken (those "tame villatic fowl"), +capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as +I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue +of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like +Lear, "give every thing." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an +ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, +or send out of the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, +or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I +may say, to my individual palate--It argues an insensibility. + +I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good +old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without +stuffing a sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had +dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the +oven. In my way to school (it was over London bridge) a grey-headed +old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was +a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity +of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, +I made him a present of--the whole cake! I walked on a little, +buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of +self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, +my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how +ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift +away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a +bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt +would be taking in thinking that I--I myself, and not another--would +eat her nice cake--and what should I say to her the next time I saw +her--how naughty I was to part with her pretty present--and the odour +of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure +and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy +when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel +that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last--and I blamed +my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of +goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that +insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. + +Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender +victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, +as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is +gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light +merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and +dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh +of young, pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be +cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom +of the practice. It might impart a gusto-- + +I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I +was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on +both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained +his death by whipping (_per flagellationem extremam_) superadded a +pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible +suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using +that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision. + +His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crums, done up +with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear +Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole +hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with +plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or +make them stronger than they are--but consider, he is a weakling--a +flower. + + + + +A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE + + +As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in noting down +the infirmities of Married People, to console myself for those +superior pleasures, which they tell me I have lost by remaining as I +am. + +I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever made any +great impression upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen me in +those anti-social resolutions, which I took up long ago upon more +substantial considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses +of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different +description;--it is that they are too loving. + +Not too loving neither: that does not explain my meaning. Besides, +why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from +the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's +society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world. + +But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so +undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so +shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being +made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that _you_ are not +the object of this preference. Now there are some things which give +no offence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but expressed, +there is much offence in them. If a man were to accost the first +homely-featured or plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and +tell her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, +and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill +manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and +opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought +fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it +were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of +making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a +married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less +plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,--the lady's choice. +It is enough that I know I am not: I do not want this perpetual +reminding. + +The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently +mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is +brought out to insult me, may accidentally improve me; and in the rich +man's houses and pictures,--his parks and gardens, I have a temporary +usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of +these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified +insult. + +Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least +invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive +privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, +that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, +may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married +monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our +faces. + +Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and +satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple, +in that of the lady particularly: it tells you, that her lot is +disposed of in this world: that _you_ can have no hopes of her. +It is true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps: but this is +one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for +granted, not expressed. The excessive airs which those people give +themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be +more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them to +understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better than we +who have not had the happiness to be made free of the company: but +their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person +presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most +indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent +person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best +of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight +before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from +her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London +market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old +Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about such matters. + +But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these +creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, +to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children +are,--that every street and blind alley swarms with them,--that the +poorest people commonly have them in most abundance,--that there +are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these +bargains,--how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes +of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, +disgrace, the gallows, &c.--I cannot for my life tell what cause +for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young +phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a +pretext. But when they are so common-- + +I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their +husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. But why _we_, who +are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our +spices, myrrh, and incense,--our tribute and homage of admiration,--I +do not see. + +"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young +children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed +for the churching of women. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver +full of them:" So say I; but then don't let him discharge his +quiver upon us that are weaponless;--let them be arrows, but not to +gall and stick us. I have generally observed that these arrows are +double-headed: they have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the +other. As for instance, when you come into a house which is full of +children, if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking +of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent +caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of +children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually +engaging,--if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about +in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure +to be found for sending them out of the room: they are too noisy or +boisterous, or Mr. ---- does not like children. With one or other of +these forks the arrow is sure to hit you. + +I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their +brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be +called upon to _love_ them, where I see no occasion,--to love a whole +family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,--to love all +the pretty dears, because children are so engaging. + +I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always +so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease +you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,--any +inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or +the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long +absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing +that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and +apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a +real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable +or unamiable _per se_; I must love or hate them as I see cause for +either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to +admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and +to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own +stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is +an attractive age,--there is something in the tender years of infancy +that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice +about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, +not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the +prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it +should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another +in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.--I was +always rather squeamish in my women and children. + +But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity +at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, +and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom +you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,--if you did not +come in on the wife's side,--if you did not sneak into the house in +her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before +their courtship was so much as thought on,--look about you--your +tenure is precarious--before a twelve-month shall roll over your head, +you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards +you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have +scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I +can rely, whose friendship did not commence _after the period of his +marriage_. With some limitations they can endure that: but that the +good man should have dared to enter into a solemn league of friendship +in which they were not consulted, though it happened before they +knew him,--before they that are now man and wife ever met,--this +is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic +intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with +their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that +was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new +marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will +let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally +befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these _new mintings_. + +Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm you out +of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you say with a kind of +wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, +_but an oddity_, is one of the ways;--they have a particular kind of +stare for the purpose;--till at last the husband, who used to defer to +your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of understanding +and manner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite +vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to suspect whether you are +not altogether a humorist,--a fellow well enough to have consorted +with in his bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced +to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is that which has +oftenest been put in practice against me. + +Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony: that is, +where they find you an object of especial regard with their husband, +who is not so easily to be shaken from the lasting attachment founded +on esteem which he has conceived towards you; by never-qualified +exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, +who understands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him, +grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so much candour, +and by relaxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two +in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level of moderate +esteem,--that "decent affection and complacent kindness" towards you, +where she herself can join in sympathy with him without much stretch +and violence to her sincerity. + +Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable +a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, +continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond +of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your moral character +was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, upon any +imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she +will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, Mr. ---- as +a great wit." If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm +in your conversation that he first grew to like you, and was content +for this to overlook some trifling irregularities in your moral +deportment, upon the first notice of any of these she as readily +exclaims, "This, my dear, is your good Mr. ----." One good lady whom +I took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me quite so +much respect as I thought due to her husband's old friend, had the +candour to confess to me that she had often heard Mr. ---- speak +of me before marriage, and that she had conceived a great desire +to be acquainted with me, but that the sight of me had very much +disappointed her expectations; for from her husband's representations +of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, +officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of +which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility +not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of +personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so +much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible +approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which +I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no more than +myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character in his air or +countenance. + +These are some of the mortifications which I have encountered in the +absurd attempt to visit at their houses. To enumerate them all would +be a vain endeavour: I shall therefore just glance at the very common +impropriety of which married ladies are guilty,--of treating us as if +we were their husbands, and _vice versâ_. I mean, when they use us +with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony. _Testacea_, for +instance, kept me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual +time of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. ---- did not come +home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be +guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was +reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an invention to +take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to +be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some +other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in +little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to +deny in the greater. Had _Testacea_ kept the oysters back for me, and +withstood her husband's importunities to go to supper, she would have +acted according to the strict rules of propriety. I know no ceremony +that ladies are bound to observe to their husbands, beyond the point +of a modest behaviour and decorum: therefore I must protest against +the vicarious gluttony of _Cerasia_, who at her own table sent away a +dish of Morellas, which I was applying to with great good will, to her +husband at the other end of the table, and recommended a plate of +less extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in their stead. +Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of ----. + +But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaintance by Roman +denominations. Let them amend and change their manners, or I promise +to record the full-length English of their names, to the terror of all +such desperate offenders in future. + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + + +The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which I picked up the other +day--I know not by what chance it was preserved so long--tempts me to +call to mind a few of the Players, who make the principal figure in +it. It presents the cast of parts in the Twelfth Night, at the old +Drury-lane Theatre two-and-thirty years ago. There is something very +touching in these old remembrances. They make us think how we _once_ +used to read a Play Bill--not, as now peradventure, singling out a +favorite performer, and casting a negligent eye over the rest; but +spelling out every name, down to the very mutes and servants of +the scene;--when it was a matter of no small moment to us whether +Whitfield, or Packer, took the part of Fabian; when Benson, and +Burton, and Phillimore--names of small account--had an importance, +beyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best +actors.--"Orsino, by Mr. Barrymore."--What a full Shakspearian sound +it carries! how fresh to memory arise the image, and the manner, of +the gentle actor! + +Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten or fifteen +years, can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as +Ophelia; Helena, in All's Well that Ends Well; and Viola in this play. +Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough +with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steady +melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts--in which her memory now +chiefly lives--in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There +is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her +love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to +weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line, +to make up the music--yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather _read_, +not without its grace and beauty--but, when she had declared her +sister's history to be a "blank," and that she "never told her love," +there was a pause, as if the story had ended--and then the image of +the "worm in the bud" came up as a new suggestion--and the heightened +image of "Patience" still followed after that, as by some growing (and +not mechanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would +almost say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine +lines-- + + Write loyal cantos of contemned love-- + Hollow your name to the reverberate hills-- + +there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which +was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature's +own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without +rule or law. + +Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the pride of her beauty, made +an admirable Olivia. She was particularly excellent in her unbending +scenes in conversation with the Clown. I have seen some Olivias--and +those very sensible actresses too--who in these interlocutions have +seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him +in downright emulation. But she used him for her sport, like what +he was, to trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then to be +dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady still. She touched the +imperious fantastic humour of the character with nicety. Her fine +spacious person filled the scene. + +The part of Malvolio has in my judgment been so often misunderstood, +and the _general merits_ of the actor, who then played it, so unduly +appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon, if I am a little prolix +upon these points. + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which he +threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports of +the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city. His voice had +the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. +His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by affectation; +and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in every movement. He +seized the moment of passion with the greatest truth; like a faithful +clock, never striking before the time; never anticipating or leading +you to anticipate. He was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He +seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and he +did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios in Homer deliver the +errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment do its own +work without prop or bolstering. He would have scorned to mountebank +it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which is the bane of +serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only endurable one +which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his action could +divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to do. His +confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the mystery. +There were no by-intimations to make the audience fancy their own +discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who commonly stands +like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, and a quantity of +barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago of Bensley did +not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone about the +character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but none of +that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon any +little successful stroke of its knavery--as is common with your small +villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not clap or crow +before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a child, and +winking all the while at other children who are mightily pleased at +being let into the secret; but a consummate villain entrapping a noble +nature into toils, against which no discernment was available, where +the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed dark, and without +motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, was performed by +Bensley, with a richness and a dignity, of which (to judge from some +recent castings of that character) the very tradition must be worn out +from the stage. No manager in those days would have dreamed of giving +it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley was occasionally +absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it no derogation to +succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially ludicrous. He becomes +comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, repelling; but dignified, +consistent, and, for what appears, rather of an over-stretched +morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; and he might have +worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old round-head families, +in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. But his morality and +his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed to the proper +_levities_ of the piece, and falls in the unequal contest. Still his +pride, or his gravity, (call it which you will) is inherent, and +native to the man, not mock or affected, which latter only are the +fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at the best unlovely, +but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing is lofty, a little +above his station, but probably not much above his deserts. We see no +reason why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished. +His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he was +commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity of birth +and feeling. His dialect on all occasions is that of a gentleman, and +a man of education. We must not confound him with the eternal old, low +steward of comedy. He is master of the household to a great Princess; +a dignity probably conferred upon him for other respects than age or +length of service. Olivia, at the first indication of his supposed +madness, declares that she "would not have him miscarry for half of +her dowry." Does this look as if the character was meant to appear +little or insignificant? Once, indeed, she accuses him to his face--of +what?--of being "sick of self-love,"--but with a gentleness and +considerateness which could not have been, if she had not thought +that this particular infirmity shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the +knight, and his sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when +we take into consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, +and the strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled +mourning would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, +Malvolio might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his +keeping; as it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or +kinsmen, to look to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice +respects at the buttery hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be +represented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression of the +Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost infers. "Pursue +him, and entreat him to a peace." Even in his abused state of chains +and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert him. He +argues highly and well with the supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises +gallantly upon his straw.[1] There must have been some shadow of worth +about the man; he must have been something more than a mere vapour--a +thing of straw, or Jack in office--before Fabian and Maria could have +ventured sending him upon a courting-errand to Olivia. There was some +consonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the jest would +have been too bold even for that house of misrule. + +Bensley, accordingly, threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. +He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, +spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed +upon a sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. +It was big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. +You might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's affection, gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, who +came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few seasons +ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, as it +came out of Nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in puris +naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom, from +his grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning +full upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon +close inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[2] + +If few can remember Dodd, many yet living will not easily forget the +pleasant creature, who in those days enacted the part of the Clown +to Dodd's Sir Andrew.--Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in +his life-time he delighted to be called, and time hath ratified the +appellation--lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy +Paul, to whose service his nonage and tender years were dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable to +an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I could +never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one +of us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype of,--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt +or a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose and shambling gait, a slippery +tongue, this last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; +in words, light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest +rhymes tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, +or Sir Toby at the buttery-hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as Shakspeare says of Love, too +young to know what conscience is. He put us into Vesta's days. Evil +fled before him--not as from Jack, as from an antagonist,--but because +it could not touch him, any more than a cannon-ball a fly. He was +delivered from the burthen of that death; and, when Death came +himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is recorded of him by +Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he received the +last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, nor tune, +with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in his +epitaph--_O La! O La! Bobby!_ + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[3] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied +the handsome fellow in his topknot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personas were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson._ Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben._ Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all.--Well, father, +and how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson._ Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben._ Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gives us--but a piece of satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as +a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to it +a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personæ, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain but in the first or second gallery. + +[Footnote 1:_Clown_. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild + fowl? +_Mal_. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. +_Clown_. What thinkest thou of his opinion? +_Mal_. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 2: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 3: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years +only, to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear +them. Is it for a few wild speeches, an occasional license of +dialogue? I think not altogether. The business of their dramatic +characters will not stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to +that. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of +an evening, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications +of profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent +or guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic interests +left. We see a stage libertine playing his loose pranks of two hours' +duration, and of no after consequence, with the severe eyes which +inspect real vices with their bearings upon two worlds. We are +spectators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to the point +of strict morality) and take it all for truth. We substitute a real +for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. We try him in our +courts, from which there is no appeal to the _dramatis personæ_, his +peers. We have been spoiled with--not sentimental comedy--but a tyrant +far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the +exclusive and all devouring drama of common life; where the moral +point is every thing; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed +personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy) we recognise +ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, +enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in what is going on +so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our moral judgment, +in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise or slumber for +a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no modification is made +to affect us in any other manner than the same events or characters +would do in our relationships of life. We carry our fire-side concerns +to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, like our ancestors, +to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our +experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. +We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful +privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral +ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in +fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in +question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual +moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted +casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to the +interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer +for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of +the strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the +law-courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a +world with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired +the breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as fairy-land. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of the right and the wrong. The standard of _police_ +is the measure of _political justice_. The atmosphere will blight +it, it cannot live here. It has got into a moral world, where it has +no business, from which it must needs fall headlong; as dizzy, and +incapable of making a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or Angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?--The +Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact they do not +appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They +break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. +They have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call +it?--of cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, +and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene +of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No +good person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good +person suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in +in these plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike +essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is +especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from his +scenes,--some little generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps +excepted,--not only any thing like a faultless character, but any +pretensions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did +this designedly, or instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the +design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder at the strange power +which his Way of the World in particular possesses of interesting you +all along in the pursuits of characters, for whom you absolutely care +nothing--for you neither hate nor love his personages--and I think it +is owing to this very indifference for any, that you endure the whole. +He has spread a privation of moral light, I will call it, rather +than by the ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations; and +his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. Had +he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a +revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual duties, the +impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the discovery of +deformities, which now are none, because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children. + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But, like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite +as impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out +of which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that it +should be now _acted_, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +play-goers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did not +believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed in +Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities: the gaiety +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealise, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to say have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Church-yard memory--(an exhibition +as venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has past from the stage +in good time, that he did not live to this our age of seriousness. +The pleasant old Teazle _King_, too, is gone in good time. His +manner would scarce have past current in our day. We must love or +hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our detestable +coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph Surface, to go +down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no compromise--his +first appearance must shock and give horror--his specious +plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our fathers +welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm (dramatic +harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must inspire a +cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person of the +scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate ends, +but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in downright +self-satisfaction) must be _loved_ and Joseph _hated_. To balance one +disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must be no longer +the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, whose teasings +(while King acted it) were evidently as much played off at you, as +they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must be a real +person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person towards whom +duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con antagonist of the +villanous seducer Joseph. To realise him more, his sufferings under +his unfortunate match must have the downright pungency of life--must +(or should) make you not mirthful but uncomfortable, just as the same +predicament would move you in a neighbour or old friend. The delicious +scenes which give the play its name and zest, must affect you in +the same serious manner as if you heard the reputation of a dear +female friend attacked in your real presence. Crabtree, and Sir +Benjamin--those poor snakes that live but in the sunshine of your +mirth--must be rippened by this hot-bed process of realization +into asps or amphisbænas; and Mrs. Candour--O! frightful! become a +hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and Dodd--the wasp and +butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two characters; and +charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as distinguished +from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would forego +the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But, as far as I could +judge, the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal +incapacity than he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part +came steeped and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a +grace. His exact declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served +to convey the points of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed +to head the shafts to carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling +sentences was lost. I remember minutely how he delivered each in +succession, and cannot by any effort imagine how any of them could be +altered for the better. No man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the +dialogue of Congreve or of Wycherley--because none understood it--half +so well as John Kemble. His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my +recollection, faultless. He flagged sometimes in the intervals of +tragic passion. He would slumber over the level parts of an heroic +character. His Macbeth has been known to nod. But he always seemed +to me to be particularly alive to pointed and witty dialogue. The +relaxing levities of tragedy have not been touched by any since +him--the playful court-bred spirit in which he condescended to the +players in Hamlet--the sportive relief which he threw into the darker +shades of Richard--disappeared with him. He had his sluggish moods, +his torpors--but they were the halting-stones and resting-places of +his tragedy-politic savings, and fetches of the breath--husbandry of +the lungs, where nature pointed him to be an economist--rather, I +think, than errors of the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful +than the eternal tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless +dragon eyes," of present fashionable tragedy. + + + + +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN + + +Not many nights ago I had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when I retired to my pillow, his whimsical +image still stuck by me, in a manner as to threaten sleep. In vain +I tried to divest myself of it, by conjuring up the most opposite +associations. I resolved to be serious. I raised up the gravest topics +of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod, swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But I was not to escape so easily. No sooner did I fall into slumbers, +than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed me in the shape +of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing before me, +like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when you have been +taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this strangest of +all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance into, from the +day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the town for the loss +of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power of the pencil +to have fixed them when I awoke! A season or two since there was +exhibited a Hogarth gallery. I do not see why there should not be a +Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not fall far +short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but what a one +it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin down, +and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, +in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an +entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion. +Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied +like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, +literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the phrase is a +mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human countenance. +Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his friend +Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. I should not be +surprised to see him some day put out the head of a river horse; or +come forth a pewitt, or lapwing, some feathered metamorphosis. + +I have seen this gifted actor, in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. I have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in the grand grotesque of farce, Munden stands out as single and +unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had no followers. +The school of Munden began, and must end with himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--"SESSA"--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobbler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him. Who like him +can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over +the commonest daily-life objects? A table, or a joint stool, in his +conception, rises into a dignity equivalent to Cassiopeia's chair. It +is invested with constellatory importance. You could not speak of it +with more deference, if it were mounted into the firmament. A beggar +in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose the Patriarch of +Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and ennobles what it +touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal as the +seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. A tub of butter, +contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg +of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the common-place +materials of life, like primæval man with the sun and stars about him. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition_, 1833) + + + + +PREFACE + +BY A FRIEND OF THE LATE ELIA + + +This poor gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining +way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. + +To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humour of the thing, if +there was ever much in it, was pretty well exhausted; and a two years' +and a half existence has been a tolerable duration for a phantom. + +I am now at liberty to confess, that much which I have heard objected +to my late friend's writings was well-founded. Crude they are, I grant +you--a sort of unlicked, incondite things--villainously pranked in an +affected array of antique modes and phrases. They had not been _his_, +if they had been other than such; and better it is, that a writer +should be natural in a self-pleasing quaintness, than to affect a +naturalness (so called) that should be strange to him. Egotistical +they have been pronounced by some who did not know, that what he tells +us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) of another; as +in a former Essay (to save many instances)--where under the _first +person_ (his favourite figure) he shadows forth the forlorn estate +of a country-boy placed at a London school, far from his friends and +connections--in direct opposition to his own early history. If it +be egotism to imply and twine with his own identity the griefs and +affections of another--making himself many, or reducing many unto +himself--then is the skilful novelist, who all along brings in his +hero, or heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; +who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that narrowness. And how +shall the intenser dramatist escape being faulty, who doubtless, under +cover of passion uttered by another, oftentimes gives blameless vent +to his most inward feelings, and expresses his own story modestly? + +My late friend was in many respects a singular character. Those who +did not like him, hated him; and some, who once liked him, afterwards +became his bitterest haters. The truth is, he gave himself too little +concern what he uttered, and in whose presence. He observed neither +time nor place, and would e'en out with what came uppermost. With the +severe religionist he would pass for a free-thinker; while the other +faction set him down for a bigot, or persuaded themselves that he +belied his sentiments. Few understood him; and I am not certain that +at all times he quite understood himself. He too much affected that +dangerous figure--irony. He sowed doubtful speeches, and reaped +plain, unequivocal hatred.--He would interrupt the gravest discussion +with some light jest; and yet, perhaps, not quite irrelevant in ears +that could understand it. Your long and much talkers hated him. The +informal habit of his mind, joined to an inveterate impediment of +speech, forbade him to be an orator; and he seemed determined that, +no one else should play that part when he was present. He was _petit_ +and ordinary in his person and appearance. I have seen him sometimes +in what is called good company, but where he has been a stranger, sit +silent, and be suspected for an odd fellow; till some unlucky occasion +provoking it, he would stutter out some senseless pun (not altogether +senseless perhaps, if rightly taken), which has stamped his character +for the evening. It was hit or miss with him; but nine times out of +ten, he contrived by this device to send away a whole company his +enemies. His conceptions rose kindlier than his utterance, and his +happiest _impromptus_ had the appearance of effort. He has been +accused of trying to be witty, when in truth he was but struggling +to give his poor thoughts articulation. He chose his companions for +some individuality of character which they manifested.--Hence, not +many persons of science, and few professed _literati_, were of his +councils. They were, for the most part, persons of an uncertain +fortune; and, as to such people commonly nothing is more obnoxious +than a gentleman of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with +most of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was a mistake. +His _intimados_, to confess a truth, were in the world's eye a ragged +regiment. He found them floating on the surface of society; and the +colour, or something else, in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck +to him--but they were gbod and loving burrs for all that. He never +greatly cared for the society of what are called good people. If any +of these were scandalised (and offences were sure to arise), he could +not help it. When he has been remonstrated with for not making more +concessions to the feelings of good people, he would retort by asking, +what one point did these good people ever concede to him? He was +temperate in his meals and diversions, but always kept a little on +this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he +might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as +a solvent of speech. Marry--as the friendly vapour ascended, how +his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which +tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist! + +I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that my old friend +is departed. His jests were beginning to grow obsolete, and his +stories to be found out. He felt the approaches of age; and while he +pretended to cling to life, you saw how slender were the ties left to +bind him. Discoursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed +himself with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him. In our +walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at Shacklewell, +some children belonging to a school of industry had met us, and bowed +and curtseyed, as he thought, in an especial manner to _him_. "They +take me for a visiting governor," he muttered earnestly. He had +a horror, which he carried to a foible, of looking like anything +important and parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to that +stamp daily.. He had a general aversion from being treated like a +grave or respectable character, and kept a wary eye upon the advances +of age that should so entitle him. He herded always, while it was +possible, with people younger than himself. He did not conform to the +march of time, but was dragged along in the procession. His manners +lagged behind his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The _toga +virilis_ never sate gracefully on his shoulders. The impressions +of infancy had burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence of +manhood. These were weaknesses; but such as they were, they are a key +to explicate some of his writings. + + + + +BLAKESMOOR IN H-----SHIRE + + +I do not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will +over the deserted apartments of some fine old family mansion. The +traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy: and +contemplations on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession +to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible +with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present +aristocracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us +between entering an empty and a crowded church. In the latter it is +chance but some present human frailty--an act of inattention on the +part of some of the auditory--or a trait of affectation, or worse, +vain-glory, on that of the preacher--puts us by our best thoughts, +disharmonising the place and the occasion. But would'st thou know the +beauty of holiness?--go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys of +good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church: +think of the piety that has kneeled there--the congregations, old +and young, that have found consolation there--the meek pastor--the +docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting +comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself +become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and +weep around thee. + +Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles +out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with +which I had been impressed in this way in infancy. I was apprised that +the owner of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague notion +that it could not all have perished, that so much solidity with +magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere +dust and rubbish which I found it. + +The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand indeed, and the +demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to--an antiquity. + +I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood +the great gates? What bounded the court-yard? Whereabout did the +out-houses commence? a few bricks only lay as representatives of that +which was so stately and so spacious. + +Death does not shrink up his human victim at this rate. The burnt +ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion. + +Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process of +destruction, at the plucking of every pannel I should have felt the +varlets at my heart. I should have cried out to them to spare a plank +at least out of the cheerful store-room, in whose hot window-seat I +used to sit and read Cowley, with the grass-plat before, and the hum +and flappings of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it about +me--it is in mine ears now, as oft as summer returns; or a pannel of +the yellow room. + +Why, every plank and pannel of that house for me had magic in it. +The tapestried bed-rooms--tapestry so much better than painting--not +adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots--at which childhood ever +and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as +quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter +with those stern bright visages, staring reciprocally--all Ovid on the +walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Actæon in mid sprout, +with the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still more provoking, +and almost culinary coolness of Dan Phoebus, eel-fashion, deliberately +divesting of Marsyas. + +Then, that haunted room--in which old Mrs. Battle died--whereinto I +have crept, but always in the day-time, with a passion of fear; and +a sneaking curiosity, terror-tainted, to hold communication with the +past.--_How shall they build it up again?_ + +It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but that +traces of the splendour of past inmates were everywhere apparent. +Its furniture was still standing--even to the tarnished gilt leather +battledores, and crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, +which told that children had once played there. But I was a lonely +child, and had the range at will of every apartment, knew every nook +and corner, wondered and worshipped everywhere. + +The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as +it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration, So strange a +passion for the place possessed me in those years, that, though there +lay--I shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion--half hid +by trees, what I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which +bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to pass its strict +and proper precincts, that the idle waters lay unexplored for me; and +not till late in life, curiosity prevailing over elder devotion, I +found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawling brook had been the Lacus +Incognitus of my infancy. Variegated views, extensive prospects--and +those at no great distance from the house--I was told of such--what +were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my Eden?--So far from +a wish to roam, I would have drawn, methought, still closer the fences +of my chosen prison; and have been hemmed in by a yet securer cincture +of those excluding garden walls. I could have exclaimed with that +garden-loving poet-- + + Bind me, ye woodbines, in your 'twines, + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh so close your circles lace, + That I may never leave this place; + But, lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briars, nail me through! + +I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides--the low-built +roof--parlours ten feet by ten--frugal boards, and all the homeliness +of home--these were the condition of my birth--the wholesome soil +which I was planted in. Yet, without impeachment to their tenderest +lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of something beyond; +and to have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting +accidents of a great fortune. + +To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to have been +born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be had on cheaper terms than +to be obliged to an importunate race of ancestors; and the coatless +antiquary in his unemblazoned cell, revolving the long line of a +Mowbray's or De Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding names may warm +himself into as gay a vanity as those who do inherit them. The claims +of birth are ideal merely, and what herald shall go about to strip me +of an idea? Is it trenchant to their swords? can it be hacked off as a +spur can? or torn away like a tarnished garter? + +What, else, were the families of the great to us? what pleasure should +we take in their tedious genealogies, or their capitulatory brass +monuments? What to us the uninterrupted current of their bloods, +if our own did not answer within us to a cognate and correspondent +elevation? + +Or wherefore, else, O tattered and diminished 'Scutcheon that hung +upon the time-worn walls of thy princely stairs, BLAKESMOOR! have +I in childhood so oft stood poring upon thy mystic characters--thy +emblematic supporters, with their prophetic "Resurgam"--till, every +dreg of peasantry purging off, I received into myself Very Gentility? +Thou wert first in my morning eyes; and of nights, hast detained my +steps from bedward, till it was but a step from gazing at thee to +dreaming on thee. + +This is the only true gentry by adoption; the veritable change of +blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by transfusion. + +Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid trophy, I know not, +I inquired not; but its fading rags, and colours cobweb-stained, told +that its subject was of two centuries back. + +And what if my ancestor at that date was some Damoetas--feeding +flocks, not his own, upon the hills of Lincoln--did I in less +earnest vindicate to myself the family trappings of this once proud +Ægon?--repaying by a backward triumph the insults he might possibly +have heaped in his life-time upon my poor pastoral progenitor. + +If it were presumption so to speculate, the present owners of the +mansion had least reason to complain. They had long forsaken the +old house of their fathers for a newer trifle; and I was left to +appropriate to myself what images I could pick up, to raise my fancy, +or to soothe my vanity. + +I was the true descendant of those old W----s; and not the present +family of that name, who had fled the old waste places. + +Mine was that gallery of good old family portraits, which as I have +gone over, giving them in fancy my own family name, one--and then +another--would seem to smile, reaching forward from the canvas, to +recognise the new relationship; while the rest looked grave, as +it seemed, at the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts of fled +posterity. + +That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and a lamb--that hung +next the great bay window--with the bright yellow H----shire hair, and +eye of watchet hue--so like my Alice!--I am persuaded she was a true +Elia--Mildred Elia, I take it. + +Mine too, BLAKESMOOR, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic +pavements, and its Twelve Cæsars--stately busts in marble--ranged +round: of whose countenances, young reader of faces as I was, the +frowning beauty of Nero, I remember, had most of my wonder; but the +mild Galba had my love. There they stood in the coldness of death, yet +freshness of immortality. + +Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority, +high-backed and wickered, once the terror of luckless poacher, or +self-forgetful maiden--so common since, that bats have roosted in it. + +Mine too--whose else?--thy costly fruit-garden, with its sun-baked +southern wall; the ampler pleasure-garden, rising backwards from the +house in triple terraces, with flower-pots now of palest lead, save +that a speck here and there, saved from the elements, bespeak their +pristine state to have been gilt and glittering; the verdant quarters +backwarder still; and, stretching still beyond, in old formality, +thy firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day-long +murmuring woodpigeon, with that antique image in the centre, God or +Goddess I wist not; but child of Athens or old Rome paid never a +sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus in their native groves, than I +to that fragmental mystery. + +Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too fervently in your +idol worship, walks and windings of BLAKESMOOR! for this, or what sin +of mine, has the plough passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes +think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their +extinguished habitations there may be a hope--a germ to be revivified. + + + + +POOR RELATIONS + + +A poor relation--is the most irrelevant thing in nature,--a piece of +impertinent correspondency,--an odious approximation,--a haunting +conscience,--a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of +your prosperity,--an unwelcome remembrancer,--a perpetually recurring +mortification,--a drain on your purse,--a more intolerable dun upon +your pride,--a drawback upon success,--a rebuke to your rising,--a +stain in your blood,--a blot on your scutcheon,--a rent in your +garment,--a death's head at your banquet,--Agathocles' pot,--a +Mordecai in your gate,--a Lazarus at your door,--a lion in your +path,--a frog in your chamber,--a fly in your ointment,--a mote in +your eye,--a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,--the +one thing not needful,--the hail in harvest,--the ounce of sour in a +pound of sweet. + +He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. +----." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, +at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth +smiling, and--embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, +and--draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner +time--when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you +have company--but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your +visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never +cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, +"My dear, perhaps Mr. ---- will drop in to-day." He remembereth +birth-days--and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. +He declareth against fish, the turbot being small--yet suffereth +himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. +He sticketh by the port--yet will be prevailed upon to empty the +remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is +a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, +or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him +before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part +take 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 +familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the +familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness +he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too +humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a +client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he +bringeth up no rent--yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that +your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist +table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and--resents being left +out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach--and +lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust +in some mean, and quite unimportant anecdote of--the family. He +knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in +seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what +he calleth--favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of +congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and +insults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He +is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, +there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle--which +you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in +having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not +so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did +not know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the +family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk +a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss +his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly +rid of two nuisances. + +There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is--a female Poor +Relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off +tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is +an old humourist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His +circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are +fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But +in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No +woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without +shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L----s; or what does she at +their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine +times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something +between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently +predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously +sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed +sometimes--_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_--but there is no raising +her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped--after the +gentlemen. Mr. ---- requests the honour of taking wine with her; she +hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former--because +he does. She calls the servant _Sir_; and insists on not troubling +him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's +governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the +piano for a harpsichord. + +Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the +disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity +constituting a claim to acquaintance_, may subject the spirit of a +gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and +a lady of great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the +malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him +"her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his +indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under +which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink +him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amlet +in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W---- +was of my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of +promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality +was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and +serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off +derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried +as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he +would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have +you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had +with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us +more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not +thread 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 this +sneering 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 a +passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion from the +society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to +him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under +which Latimer must have walked erect; and in which Hooker, in his +young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. +In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor +student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which +insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. +He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond +his domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, +to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when the +waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse +malignity. The father of W---- had hitherto exercised the humble +profession of house-painter at N----, near Oxford. A supposed interest +with some of the heads of the colleges had now induced him to take +up his abode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some +public works which were talked of. From that moment I read in the +countenance of the young man, the determination which at length tore +him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with +our Universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, +as they are called--the trading part of the latter especially--is +carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The +temperament of W----'s father was diametrically the reverse of his +own. Old W---- was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his +son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to +any-thing that wore the semblance of a gown--insensible to the winks +and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or +equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously +ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W---- must change +the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the +sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high +as they can bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the +struggle. I stood with W----, the last afternoon I ever saw him, under +the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading +from the High-street to the back of ***** college, where W---- kept +his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to +rally him--finding him in a better mood--upon a representation of the +Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to +flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his +really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge of +gratitude 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 +the next morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in a +regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who +perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. + +I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating half +seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful; +but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for +tragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep +the account distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which +I received on this matter, are certainly not attended with anything +painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my father's table +(no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious +figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet +comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his +words few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I +had little inclination to have done so--for my cue was to admire in +silence. A particular elbow chair was appropriated to him, which was +in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which +appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. +I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of +him was, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at +Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place +where all the money was coined--and I thought he was the owner of +all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his +presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort +of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I +fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a +captive--a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often +have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an +habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards +him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some +argument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient +city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the +dwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked distinction +formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however +brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal +residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in +the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading +Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in +skill and hardihood, of the _Above Boys_ (his own faction) over the +_Below Boys_ (so were they called), of which party his contemporary +had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this +topic--the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought +out--and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement +(so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to +insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation +upon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the general +preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the +dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating +level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw +the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the +thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." +He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have +already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He +had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigour--when my aunt, +an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with +my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of +season--uttered the following memorable application--"Do take another +slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old +gentleman said nothing at the time--but he took occasion in the course +of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to +utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me +now as I write it--"Woman, you are superannuated." John Billet did not +survive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survived +long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I +remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the +place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint +(Anno 1781) where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable +independence; 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 never +been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was--a Poor Relation. + + + + +STAGE ILLUSION + + +A play is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the scenical +illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect, +is not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is, when +the actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators. +In tragedy--in all which is to affect the feelings--this undivided +attention to his stage business, seems indispensable. Yet it is, in +fact, dispensed with every day by our cleverest tragedians; and while +these references to an audience, in the shape of rant or sentiment, +are not too frequent or palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion +for the purposes of dramatic interest may be said to be produced in +spite of them. But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in +certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little +extravagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral +sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when, +without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit +understanding with them; and makes them, unconsciously to themselves, +a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of +doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession. + +The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, +or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward +_done to the life_ upon a stage would produce anything but mirth. +Yet we most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could any thing +be more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues. How was +this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual +sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the +shaking fit, that he was not half such a coward as we took him for? We +saw all the common symptoms of the malady upon him; the quivering lip, +the cowering knees, the teeth chattering; and could have sworn "that +man was frightened." But we forgot all the while--or kept it almost a +secret to ourselves--that he never once lost his self-possession; that +he let out by a thousand droll looks and gestures--meant at _us_, and +not at all supposed to be visible to his fellows in the scene, that +his confidence in his own resources had never once deserted him. Was +this a genuine picture of a coward? or not rather a likeness, which +the clever artist contrived to palm upon us instead of an original; +while we secretly connived at the delusion for the purpose of greater +pleasure, than a more genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, +helplessness, and utter self-desertion, which we know to be +concomitants of cowardice in real life, could have given us? + +Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, +but because the skilful actor, by a sort of sub-reference, rather than +direct appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its +odiousness, by seeming to engage _our_ compassion for the insecure +tenure by which he holds his money bags and parchments? By this subtle +vent half of the hatefulness of the character--the self-closeness +with which in real life it coils itself up from the sympathies of +men--evaporates. The miser becomes sympathetic; _i.e._ is no genuine +miser. Here again a diverting likeness is substituted for a very +disagreeable reality. + +Spleen, irritability--the pitiable infirmities of old men, which +produce only pain to behold in the realities, counterfeited upon a +stage, divert not altogether for the comic appendages to them, but in +part from an inner conviction that they are _being acted_ before us; +that a likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They +please by being done under the life, or beside it; not _to the life_. +When Gatty acts an old man, is he angry indeed? or only a pleasant +counterfeit, just enough of a likeness to recognise, without pressing +upon us the uneasy sense of reality? + +Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too natural. It was the +case with a late actor. Nothing could be more earnest or true than the +manner of Mr. Emery; this told excellently in his Tyke, and characters +of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of +attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion of +everything before the curtain into his comedy, it produced a harsh and +dissonant effect. He was out of keeping with the rest of the _Personæ +Dramatis_. There was as little link between him and them as betwixt +himself and the audience. He was a third estate, dry, repulsive, and +unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execution was masterly. +But comedy is not this unbending thing; for this reason, that the same +degree of credibility is not required of it as to serious scenes. The +degrees of credibility demanded to the two things may be illustrated +by the different sort of truth which we expect when a man tells us a +mournful or a merry story. If we suspect the former of falsehood in +any one tittle, we reject it altogether. Our tears refuse to flow at a +suspected imposition. But the teller of a mirthful tale has latitude +allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth. 'Tis the +same with dramatic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see an +audience naturalised behind the scenes, taken in into the interest +of the drama, welcomed as by-standers however. There is something +ungracious in a comic actor holding himself aloof from all +participation or concern with those who are come to be diverted by +him. Macbeth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of +it; but an old fool in farce may think he _sees something_, and by +conscious words and looks express it, as plainly as he can speak, to +pit, box, and gallery. When an impertinent in tragedy, an Osric, for +instance, breaks in upon the serious passions of the scene, we approve +of the contempt with which he is treated. But when the pleasant +impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and +raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, worries the studious man +with taking up his leisure, or making his house his home, the same +sort of contempt expressed (however _natural_) would destroy the +balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion comic, +the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature; he +must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much +dissatisfaction and peevishness as is consistent with the pleasure of +comedy. In other words, his perplexity must seem half put on. If he +repel the intruder with the sober set face of a man in earnest, and +more especially if he deliver his expostulations in a tone which in +the world must necessarily provoke a duel; his real-life manner will +destroy the whimsical and purely dramatic existence of the other +character (which to render it comic demands an antagonist comicality +on the part of the character opposed to it), and convert what was +meant for mirth, rather than belief, into a downright piece of +impertinence indeed, which would raise no diversion in us, but rather +stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest upon any unworthy person. A +very judicious actor (in most of his parts) seems to have fallen into +an error of this sort in his playing with Mr. Wrench in the farce of +Free and Easy. + +Many instances would be tedious; these may suffice to show that comic +acting at least does not always demand from the performer that strict +abstraction from all reference to an audience, which is exacted of +it; but that in some cases a sort of compromise may take place, and +all the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by a judicious +understanding, not too openly announced, between the ladies and +gentlemen--on both sides of the curtain. + + + + +TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON + + +Joyousest of once embodied spirits, whither at length hast thou flown? +to what genial region are we permitted to conjecture that thou has +flitted. + +Art thou sowing thy WILD OATS yet (the harvest time was still to come +with thee) upon casual sands of Avernus? or art thou enacting ROVER +(as we would gladlier think) by wandering Elysian streams? + +This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us, +was in truth any thing but a prison to thee, as the vain Platonist +dreams of this _body_ to be no better than a county gaol, forsooth, or +some house of durance vile, whereof the five senses are the fetters. +Thou knewest better than to be in a hurry to cast off those gyves; and +had notice to quit, I fear, before thou wert quite ready to abandon +this fleshly tenement. It was thy Pleasure House, thy Palace of Dainty +Devices; thy Louvre, or thy White Hall. + +What new mysterious lodgings dost thou tenant now? or when may we +expect thy aërial house-warming? + +Tartarus we know, and we have read of the Blessed Shades; now cannot I +intelligibly fancy thee in either. + +Is it too much to hazard a conjecture, that (as the school-men +admitted a receptacle apart for Patriarchs and un-chrisom Babes) there +may exist--not far perchance from that storehouse of all vanities, +which Milton saw in visions--a LIMBO somewhere for PLAYERS? and that + + Up thither like aërial vapours fly + Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things + Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame? + All the unaccomplish'd works of Authors' hands, + Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, + Damn'd upon earth, fleet thither-- + Play, Opera, Farce, with all their trumpery-- + +There, by the neighbouring moon (by some not improperly supposed +thy Regent Planet upon earth) mayst thou not still be acting thy +managerial pranks, great disembodied Lessee? but Lessee still, and +still a Manager. + +In Green Rooms, impervious to mortal eye, the muse beholds thee +wielding posthumous empire. + +Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) circle thee in +endlessly, and still their song is _Fye on sinful Phantasy_. + +Magnificent were thy capriccios on this globe of earth, ROBERT WILLIAM +ELLISTON! for as yet we know not thy new name in heaven. + +It irks me to think, that, stript of thy regalities, thou shouldst +ferry over, a poor forked shade, in crazy Stygian wherry. Methinks I +hear the old boatman, paddling by the weedy wharf, with raucid voice, +bawling "SCULLS, SCULLS:" to which, with waving hand, and majestic +action, thou deignest no reply, other than in two curt monosyllables, +"No: OARS." + +But the laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king, +and cobbler; manager, and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life +were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by +cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently +departed candle-snuffer. + +But mercy! what strippings, what tearing off of histrionic robes, +and private vanities! what denudations to the bone, before the surly +Ferryman will admit you to set a foot within his battered lighter! + +Crowns, sceptres; shield, sword, and truncheon; thy own coronation +robes (for thou hast brought the whole property man's wardrobe with +thee, enough to sink a navy); the judge's ermine; the coxcomb's wig; +the snuff-box _à la Foppington_--all must overboard, he positively +swears--and that ancient mariner brooks no denial; for, since the +tiresome monodrame of the old Thracian Harper, Charon, it is to be +believed, hath shown small taste for theatricals. + +Aye, now 'tis done. You are just boat weight; _pura et puta anima_. + +But bless me, how _little_ you look! + +So shall we all look--kings, and keysars--stript for the last voyage. + +But the murky rogue pushes off. Adieu, pleasant, and thrice pleasant +shade! with my parting thanks for many a heavy hour of life lightened +by thy harmless extravaganzas, public or domestic. + +Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below, leaving to his +two brethren the heavy calendars--honest Rhadamanth, always partial +to players, weighing their parti-coloured existence here upon +earth,--making account of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy +_real life_ as we call it, (though, substantially, scarcely less a +vapour than thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury,) as but of +so many echoes, natural repercussions, and results to be expected from +the assumed extravagancies of thy _secondary_ or _mock life_, nightly +upon a stage--after a lenient castigation, with rods lighter than +of those Medusean ringlets, but just enough to "whip the offending +Adam out of thee"--shall courteously dismiss thee at the right +hand gate--the O.P. side of Hades--that conducts to masques, and +merry-makings, in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine. + +PLAUDITO, ET VALETO + + + + +ELLISTONIANA + + +My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we all deplore, +was but slight. + +My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into an +acquaintance a little on this side of intimacy, was over a counter +of the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered upon by a branch +of his family. E., whom nothing misbecame--to auspicate, I suppose, +the filial concern, and set it a going with a lustre--was serving in +person two damsels fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to +inquire for some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of +the illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an air did +he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his opinion upon the +worth of the work in question, and launching out into a dissertation +on its comparative merits with those of certain publications of a +similar stamp, its rivals! his enchanted customers fairly hanging on +his lips, subdued to their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a +gentleman in comedy _acting_ the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves +in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he contrived to +carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from the occupation he had +so generously submitted to; and from that hour I judged him, with no +after repentance, to be a person, with whom it would be a felicity to +be more acquainted. + +To descant upon his merits as a Comedian would be superfluous. With +his blended private and professional habits alone I have to do; +that harmonious fusion of the manners of the player into those of +every day life, which brought the stage boards into streets, and +dining-parlours, and kept up the play when the play was ended.--"I +like Wrench," a friend was saying to him one day, "because he is the +same natural, easy creature, _on_ the stage, that he is _off_." "My +case exactly," retorted Elliston--with a charming forgetfulness, +that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same +conclusion--"I am the same person _off_ the stage that I am _on_." The +inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, +and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the other +always, _acting_. + +And in truth this was the charm of Elliston's private deportment. +You had a spirited performance always going on before your eyes, +with nothing to pay. As where a monarch takes up his casual abode for +a night, the poorest hovel which he honours by his sleeping in it, +becomes _ipso facto_ for that time a palace; so where-ever Elliston +walked, sate, or stood still, there was the theatre. He carried about +with him his pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his portable +playhouse at corners of streets, and in the market-places. Upon +flintiest pavements he trod the boards still; and if his theme chanced +to be passionate, the green baize carpet of tragedy spontaneously rose +beneath his feet. Now this was hearty, and showed a love for his art. +So Apelles _always_ painted--in thought. So G.D. _always_ poetises. +I hate a lukewarm artist. I have known actors--and some of them of +Elliston's own stamp--who shall have agreeably been amusing you in +the part of a rake or a coxcomb, through the two or three hours of +their dramatic existence; but no sooner does the curtain fall with +its leaden clatter, but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their +faculties. They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their +families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding your heart +with generous deeds and sentiments, till it even beats with yearnings +of universal sympathy; you absolutely long to go home, and do some +good action. The play seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of +the house, and realise your laudable intentions. At length the final +bell rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable +in human breasts steps forth--a miser. Elliston was more of a piece. +Did he _play_ Ranger? and did Ranger fill the general bosom of the +town with satisfaction? why should _he_ not be Ranger, and diffuse +the same cordial satisfaction among his private circles? with _his_ +temperament, _his_ animal spirits, _his_ good-nature, _his_ follies +perchance, could he do better than identify himself with his +impersonation? Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the +stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical character +presented to us in actual life? or what would the performer have +gained by divesting himself of the impersonation? Could the man +Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he +had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the +airy briskness, the forwardness, and 'scape goat trickeries of his +prototype? + +"But there is something not natural in this everlasting _acting_; we +want the real man." + +Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom you cannot, or +will not see, under some adventitious trappings, which, nevertheless, +sit not at all inconsistently upon him? What if it is the nature of +some men to be highly artificial? The fault is least reprehensible in +_players_. Cibber was his own Foppington, with almost as much wit as +Vanburgh could add to it. + +"My conceit of his person,"--it is Ben Jonson speaking of Lord +Bacon,--"was never increased towards him by his _place_ or _honours_. +But I have, and do reverence him for the _greatness_, that was only +proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever one of the _greatest_ +men, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that +heaven would give him strength; for _greatness_ he could not want." + +The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicuous in the +subject of these idle reminiscences, than in my Lord Verulam. Those +who have imagined that an unexpected elevation to the direction of a +great London Theatre, affected the consequence of Elliston, or at all +changed his nature, knew not the essential _greatness_ of the man whom +they disparage. It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan's +Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more than dust +and a shadow), on the morning of his election to that high office. +Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,--"Have +you heard the news?"--then with another look following up +the blow, he subjoined, "I am the future Manager of Drury Lane +Theatre."--Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation +or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his +new-blown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could be said to +it. Expressive silence alone could muse his praise. This was in his +_great_ style. + +But was he less _great_, (be witness, O ye Powers of Equanimity, +that supported in the ruins of Carthage the consular exile, and +more recently transmuted for a more illustrious exile the barren +constableship of Elba into an image of Imperial France), when, in +melancholy after-years, again, much near the same spot, I met him, +when that sceptre had been wrested from his hand, and his dominion was +curtailed to the petty managership, and part proprietorship, of the +small Olympic, _his Elba?_ He still played nightly upon the boards +of Drury, but in parts alas! allotted to him, not magnificently +distributed by him. Waiving his great loss as nothing, and +magnificently sinking the sense of fallen _material_ grandeur in +the more liberal resentment of depreciations done to his more +lofty _intellectual_ pretensions, "Have you heard" (his customary +exordium)--"have you heard," said he, "how they treat me? they put me +in _comedy_." Thought I--but his finger on his lips forbade any verbal +interruption--"where could they have put you better?" Then, after a +pause--"Where I formerly played Romeo, I now play Mercutio,"--and so +again he stalked away, neither staying, nor caring for, responses. + +O, it was a rich scene,--but Sir A---- C----, the best of +story-tellers and surgeons, who mends a lame narrative almost as +well as he sets a fracture, alone could do justice to it--that I was +witness to, in the tarnished room (that had once been green) of that +same little Olympic. There, after his deposition from Imperial Drury, +he substituted a throne. That Olympic Hill was his "highest heaven;" +himself "Jove in his chair." There he sat in state, while before +him, on complaint of prompter, was brought for judgment--how shall +I describe her?--one of those little tawdry things that flirt at +the tails of choruses--a probationer for the town, in either of its +senses--the pertest little drab--a dirty fringe and appendage of the +lamps' smoke--who, it seems, on some disapprobation expressed by a +"highly respectable" audience, had precipitately quitted her station +on the boards, and withdrawn her small talents in disgust. + +"And how dare you," said her Manager--assuming a censorial severity +which would have crushed the confidence of a Vestris, and disarmed +that beautiful Rebel herself of her professional caprices--I verily +believe, he thought _her_ standing before him--"how dare you, Madam, +withdraw yourself, without a notice, from your theatrical duties?" "I +was hissed, Sir." "And you have the presumption to decide upon the +taste of the town?" "I don't know that, Sir, but I will never stand +to be hissed," was the subjoinder of young Confidence--when gathering +up his features into one significant mass of wonder, pity, and +expostulatory indignation--in a lesson never to have been lost upon a +creature less forward than she who stood before him--his words were +these: "They have hissed _me_." + +'Twas the identical argument _a fortiori_, which the son of Peleus +uses to Lycaon trembling under his lance, to persuade him to take his +destiny with a good grace. "I too am mortal." And it is to be believed +that in both cases the rhetoric missed of its application, for want +of a proper understanding with the faculties of the respective +recipients. + +"Quite an Opera pit," he said to me, as he was courteously conducting +me over the benches of his Surrey Theatre, the last retreat, and +recess, of his every-day waning grandeur. + +Those who knew Elliston, will know the _manner_ in which he pronounced +the latter sentence of the few words I am about to record. One proud +day to me he took his roast mutton with us in the Temple, to which +I had superadded a preliminary haddock. After a rather plentiful +partaking of the meagre banquet, not unrefreshed with the humbler sort +of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of the fare, +observing that for my own part I never ate but of one dish at dinner. +"I too never eat but one thing at dinner"--was his reply--then after +a pause--"reckoning fish as nothing." The manner was all. It was as +if by one peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all +the savory esculents, which the pleasant and nutritious-food-giving +Ocean pours forth upon poor humans from her watery bosom. This was +_greatness_, tempered with considerate _tenderness_ to the feelings of +his scanty but welcoming entertainer. + +_Great_ wert thou in thy life, Robert William Elliston! and _not +lessened_ in thy death, if report speak truly, which says that +thou didst direct that thy mortal remains should repose under no +inscription but one of pure _Latinity_. Classical was thy bringing +up! and beautiful was the feeling on thy last bed, which, connecting +the man with the boy, took thee back in thy latest exercise +of imagination, to the days when, undreaming of Theatres and +Managerships, thou wert a scholar, and an early ripe one, under the +roofs builded by the munificent and pious Colet. For thee the Pauline +Muses weep. In elegies, that shall silence this crude prose, they +shall celebrate thy praise. + + + + +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING + + + To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with + the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of + quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts + of his own. + + _Lord Foppington in the Relapse._ + + +An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this +bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, +to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of +losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no +inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream +away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other +men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and +think. Books think for me. + +I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor +Jonathan Wild too low. I can read any thing which I call a _book_. +There are things in that shape which I cannot allow for such. + +In this catalogue of _books which are no books--biblia a-biblia_--I +reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught Boards +bound and lettered at the back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, +Statutes at Large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, +Soame Jenyns, and, generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's +library should be without:" the Histories of Flavins Josephus (that +learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I +can read almost any thing. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, +so unexcluding. + +I confess that it moves my spleen to see these _things in books' +clothing_ perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true +shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate +occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and +hope it is some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what "seem its +leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a +Steele, or a Farquhar, and find--Adam Smith. To view a well-arranged +assortment of blockheaded Encyclopædias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) +set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that +good leather would comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios; would +renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like +himself again in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to +strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. + +To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. +Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be +lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress +a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or +half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is _our_ costume. A Shakespeare, +or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were mere foppery to trick +out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinction. The +exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to +say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the +owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little +torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading +are the sullied leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the very +odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in +fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones, or Vicar +of Wakefield! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned +over their pages with delight!--of the lone sempstress, whom they may +have cheered (milliner, or harder-working mantua-maker) after her long +day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an +hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean +cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a +whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them +in? + +In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from +binding. Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually +self-reproductive volumes--Great Nature's Stereotypes--we see them +individually perish with less regret, because we know the copies +of them to be "eterne." But where a book is at once both good and +rare--where the individual is almost the species, and when _that_ +perishes, + + We know not where is that Promethean torch + That can its light relumine-- + +such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by +his Duchess--no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, +to honour and keep safe such a jewel. + +Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to +be reprinted; but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sydney, +Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose-works, Fuller--of whom we _have_ +reprints, yet the books themselves, though they go about, and are +talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened themselves +(nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to become stock +books--it is good to possess these in durable and costly covers. I do +not care for a First Folio of Shakspeare. I rather prefer the common +editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with _plates_, which, +being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the +text; and without pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are +so much better than the Shakspeare gallery _engravings_, which _did_. +I have a community of feeling with my countrymen about his Plays, and +I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled +about and handled.--On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and +Fletcher but in Folio. The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I +have no sympathy with them. If they were as much read as the current +editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the +older one. I do not know a more heartless sight than the reprint of +the Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones +of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of +the newest fashion to modern censure? what hapless stationer could +dream of Burton ever becoming popular?--The wretched Malone could not +do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him +white-wash the painted effigy of old Shakspeare, which stood there, +in rude but lively fashion depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, +the eye, the eye-brow, hair, the very dress he used to wear--the only +authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, of these curious parts +and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of white paint. +By ----, if I had been a justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would +have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair +of meddling sacrilegious varlets. + +I think I see them at their work--these sapient trouble-tombs. + +Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some +of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear--to +mine, at least--than that of Milton or of Shakspeare? It may be, that +the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The +sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit +Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. + +Much depends upon _when_ and _where_ you read a book. In the five or +six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would +think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of +Bishop Andrewes' sermons? + +Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before +you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, +had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. + +Winter evenings--the world shut out--with less of ceremony the gentle +Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's +Tale-- + +These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud--to yourself, or (as +it chances) to some single person listening. More than one--and it +degenerates into an audience. + +Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye +to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never +listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme +irksomeness. + +A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices +it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the +clerks--who is the best scholar--to commence upon the Times, or the +Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud _pro bono publico_. +With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly +vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will get up, +and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. +Another follows with _his_ selection. So the entire journal transpires +at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without +this expedient no one in the company would probably ever travel +through the contents of a whole paper. + +Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without +a feeling of disappointment. + +What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the +paper! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, "the +Chronicle is in hand, Sir." + +Coming in to an inn at night--having ordered your supper--what can be +more delightful than to find lying in the window-seat, left there time +out of mind by the carelessness of some former guest--two or three +numbers of the old Town and Country Magazine, with its amusing +_tête-à-tête_ pictures--"The Royal Lover and Lady G----;" "The Melting +Platonic and the old Beau,"--and such like antiquated scandal? Would +you exchange it--at that time, and in that place--for a better book? + +Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so much for the +weightier kinds of reading--the Paradise Lost, or Comus, he could have +_read_ to him--but he missed the pleasure of skimming over with his +own eye a magazine, or a light pamphlet. + +I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some +cathedral alone, and reading _Candide_. + +I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having been once +detected--by a familiar damsel--reclined at my ease upon the grass, on +Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading--_Pamela_. There was nothing in +the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she +seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, +I could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very +sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her +taste, she got up, and--went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee +to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was +the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you +shall never get the secret. + +I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my +spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who was generally to be +seen upon Snow-hill (as yet Skinner's-street _was not_), between the +hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. +I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I +used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular contacts. +An illiterate encounter with a porter's knot, or a bread basket, would +have quickly put to flight all the theology I am master of, and have +left me worse than indifferent to the five points. + +There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate +without affection--the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy +or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls--the owner, +with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and +thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after +page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, +and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they "snatch +a fearful joy." Martin B----, in this way, by daily fragments, +got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped +his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) +whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares, that under no +circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the +satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess +of our day has moralised upon this subject in two very touching but +homely stanzas. + + I saw a boy with eager eye + Open a book upon a stall, + And read, as he'd devour it all; + Which when the stall-man did espy, + Soon to the boy I heard him call, + "You, Sir, you never buy a book, + Therefore in one you shall not look." + The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh + He wish'd he never had been taught to read, + Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. + + Of sufferings the poor have many, + Which never can the rich annoy: + I soon perceiv'd another boy, + Who look'd as if he'd not had any + Food, for that day at least--enjoy + The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. + This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, + Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, + Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat: + No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat. + + + + +THE OLD MARGATE HOY + + +I am fond of passing my vacations (I believe I have said so before) at +one or other of the Universities. Next to these my choice would fix +me at some woody spot, such as the neighbourhood of Henley affords in +abundance, upon the banks of my beloved Thames. But somehow or other +my cousin contrives to wheedle me once in three or four seasons to a +watering place. Old attachments cling to her in spite of experience. +We have been dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton another, +dullest at Eastbourn a third, and are at this moment doing dreary +penance at--Hastings!--and all because we were happy many years ago +for a brief week at--Margate. That was our first sea-side experiment, +and many circumstances combined to make it the most agreeable holyday +of my life. We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been +from home so long together in company. + +Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, +sun-burnt captain, and his rough accommodations--ill exchanged for the +foppery and fresh-water niceness of the modern steam-packet? To the +winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage, and didst +ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons. With +the gales of heaven thou wentest swimmingly; or, when it was their +pleasure, stoodest still with sailor-like patience. Thy course was +natural, not forced, as in a hot-bed; nor didst thou go poisoning +the breath of ocean with sulphureous smoke--a great sea-chimæra, +chimneying and furnacing the deep; or liker to that fire-god parching +up Scamander. + +Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy reluctant +responses (yet to the suppression of anything like contempt, to the +raw questions, which we of the great city would be ever and anon +putting to them, as to the uses of this or that strange naval +implement?) 'Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade +of refuge between us and them, conciliating interpreter of their skill +to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador between sea and land!--whose +sailor-trowsers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted +denizen of the former, than thy white cap, and whiter apron over them, +with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee +to have been of inland nurture heretofore--a master cook of Eastcheap? +How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, +attendant, chamberlain; here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at +once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier ministrations--not +to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our +infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might +haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing +billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we +had stiff and blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, +still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more +cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of +thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, nor very inviting, little +cabin! + +With these additaments to boot, we had on board a fellow-passenger, +whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we +meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. +He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, remarkably handsome, +with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of +assertion. He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, +or since. He was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most +painful description of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and +only giving you as much as they see you can swallow at a time--the +nibbling pickpockets of your patience--but one who committed +downright, daylight depredations upon his neighbour's faith. He did +not stand shivering upon the brink, but was a hearty thoroughpaced +liar, and plunged at once into the depths of your credulity. I partly +believe, he made pretty sure of his company. Not many rich, not +many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common stowage +of a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set of as unseasoned +Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse name) as Aldermanbury, or +Watling-street, at that time of day could have supplied. There might +be an exception or two among us, but I scorn to make any invidious +distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's company, as +those were whom I sailed with. Something too must be conceded to the +_Genius Loci_. Had the confident fellow told us half the legends on +land, which he favoured us with on the other element, I flatter myself +the good sense of most of us would have revolted. But we were in a new +world, with everything unfamiliar about us, and the time and place +disposed us to the reception of any prodigious marvel whatsoever. Time +has obliterated from my memory much of his wild fablings; and the +rest would appear but dull, as written, and to be read on shore. He +had been Aid-de-camp (among other rare accidents and fortunes) to +a Persian prince, and at one blow had stricken off the head of the +King of Carimania on horseback. He, of course, married the Prince's +daughter. I forget what unlucky turn in the politics of that court, +combining with the loss of his consort, was the reason of his quitting +Persia; but with the rapidity of a magician he transported himself, +along with his hearers, back to England, where we still found +him in the confidence of great ladies. There was some story of a +Princess--Elizabeth, if I remember--having intrusted to his care an +extraordinary casket of jewels, upon some extraordinary occasion--but +as I am not certain of the name or circumstance at this distance of +time, I must leave it to the Royal daughters of England to settle the +honour among themselves in private. I cannot call to mind half his +pleasant wonders; but I perfectly remember, that in the course of his +travels he had seen a phoenix; and he obligingly undeceived us of +the vulgar error, that there is but one of that species at a time, +assuring us that they were not uncommon in some parts of Upper Egypt. +Hitherto he had found the most implicit listeners. His dreaming +fancies had transported us beyond the "ignorant present." But when +(still hardying more and more in his triumphs over our simplicity) he +went on to affirm that he had actually sailed through the legs of the +Colossus at Rhodes, it really became necessary to make a stand. And +here I must do justice to the good sense and intrepidity of one of our +party, a youth, that had hitherto been one of his most deferential +auditors, who, from his recent reading, made bold to assure the +gentleman, that there must be some mistake, as "the Colossus in +question had been destroyed long since;" to whose opinion, delivered +with all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede thus much, +that "the figure was indeed a little damaged." This was the only +opposition he met with, and it did not at all seem to stagger him, for +he proceeded with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swallow +with still more complacency than ever,--confirmed, as it were, by the +extreme candour of that concession. With these prodigies he wheedled +us on till we came in sight of the Reculvers, which one of our own +company (having been the vogage before) immediately recognising, and +pointing out to us, was considered by us as no ordinary seaman. + +All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a different +character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, very infirm, and very +patient. His eye was ever on the sea, with a smile: and, if he caught +now and then some snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, +and they seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whispered more +pleasant stories. He was as one, being with us, but not of us. He +heard the bell of dinner ring without stirring; and when some of +us pulled out our private stores--our cold meat and our salads--he +produced none, and seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had +laid in; provision for the one or two days and nights, to which these +vessels then were oftentimes obliged to prolong their voyage Upon a +nearer acquaintance with him, which he seemed neither to court nor +decline, we learned that he was going to Margate, with the hope of +being admitted into the Infirmary there for sea-bathing. His disease +was a scrofula, which appeared to have eaten all over him. He +expressed great hopes of a cure; and when we asked him, whether he had +any friends where he was going, he replied, "he _had_ no friends." + +These pleasant, and some mournful passages, with the first sight +of the sea, co-operating with youth, and a sense of holydays, and +out-of-door adventure, to me that had been pent up in populous cities +for many months before,--have left upon my mind the fragrance as of +summer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for +cold and wintry hours to chew upon. + +Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some unwelcome +comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the _dissatisfaction_ +which I have heard so many persons confess to have felt (as I did +myself feel in part on this occasion), _at the sight of the sea for +the first time?_ I think the reason usually given--referring to the +incapacity of actual objects for satisfying our preconceptions of +them--scarcely goes deep enough into the question. Let the same person +see a lion, an elephant, a mountain, for the first time in his life, +and he shall perhaps feel himself a little mortified. The things do +not fill up that space, which the idea of them seemed to take up in +his mind. But they have still a correspondency to his first notion, +and in time grow up to it, so as to produce a very similar impression: +enlarging themselves (if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the sea +remains a disappointment.--Is it not, that in _the latter_ we had +expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but, I am afraid, by the law of +imagination unavoidably) not a definite object, as those wild beasts, +or that mountain compassable by the eye, but _all the sea at once_, +THE COMMENSURATE ANTAGONIST OF THE EARTH! I do not say we, tell +ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is to be satisfied with +nothing less. I will suppose the case of a young person of fifteen +(as I then was) knowing nothing of the sea, but from description. He +comes to it for the first time--all that he has been reading of it all +his life, and _that_ the most enthusiastic part of life,--all he has +gathered from narratives of wandering seamen; what he has gained from +true voyages, and what he cherishes as credulously from romance and +poetry; crowding their images, and exacting strange tributes from +expectation.--He thinks of the great deep, and of those who go down +unto it; of its thousand isles, and of the vast continents it washes; +of its receiving the mighty Plata, or Orellana, into its bosom, +without disturbance, or sense of augmentation; of Biscay swells, and +the mariner + + For many a day, and many a dreadful night, + Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape; + +of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Bermoothes;" of great whirlpools, +and the water-spout; of sunken ships, and sumless treasures swallowed +up in the unrestoring depths: of fishes and quaint monsters, to which +all that is terrible on earth-- + + Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal, + Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral; + +of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and shells; of coral +beds, and of enchanted isles; of mermaids' grots-- + +I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be shown all these +wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny of a mighty faculty, +which haunts him with confused hints and shadows of all these; and +when the actual object opens first upon him, seen (in tame weather too +most likely) from our unromantic coasts--a speck, a slip of sea-water, +as it shows to him--what can it prove but a very unsatisfying and +even diminutive entertainment? Or if he has come to it from the mouth +of a river, was it much more than the river widening? and, even out +of sight of land, what had he but a flat watery horizon about him, +nothing comparable to the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his familiar +object, seen daily without dread or amazement?--Who, in similar +circumstances, has not been tempted to exclaim with Charoba, in the +poem of Gebir,-- + + Is this the mighty ocean?--is this _all_? + +I love town, or country; but this detestable Cinque Port is neither. I +hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting out their starved foliage from +between the horrid fissures of dusty innutritious rocks; which the +amateur calls "verdure to the edge of the sea." I require woods, and +they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and +pant for fresh streams, and inland murmurs. I cannot stand all day on +the naked beach, watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting +like the colours of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out at the +windows of this island-prison. I would fain retire into the interior +of my cage. While I gaze upon the sea, I want to be on it, over it, +across it. It binds me in with chains, as of iron. My thoughts are +abroad. I should not so feel in Staffordshire. There is no home for me +here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive +resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stock-brokers, +Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If +it were what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to +have remained, a fair honest fishing town, and no more, it were +something--with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, +artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it +were something. I could abide to dwell with Meschek; to assort with +fisher-swains, and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, many +of this latter occupation here. Their faces become the place. I like +a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the +revenue,--an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out +with them in their mackarel boats, or about their less ostensible +business, with some satisfaction. I can even tolerate those poor +victims to monotony, who from day to day pace along the beach, +in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their illicit +countrymen--townsfolk or brethren perchance--whistling to the +sheathing and unsheathing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who +under the mild name of preventive service, keep up a legitimated civil +warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, to show their +detestation of run hollands, and zeal for old England. But it is the +visitants from town, that come here to _say_ that they have been here, +with no more relish of the sea than a pond perch, or a dace might be +supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a foolish dace +in these regions, and have as little toleration for myself here, as +for them. What can they want here? if they had a true relish of the +ocean, why have they brought all this land luggage with them? or why +pitch their civilised tents in the desert? What mean these scanty +book-rooms--marine libraries as they entitle them--if the sea were, as +they would have us believe, a book "to read strange matter in?" what +are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain be +thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves? All is false and +hollow pretention. They come, because it is the fashion, and to +spoil the nature of the place. They are mostly, as I have said, +stockbrokers; but I have watched the better sort of them--now and +then, an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity of his +heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea +breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it +in their countenance. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, +picking up cockleshells, and thinking them great things; but, in a +poor week, imagination slackens: they begin to discover that cockles +produce no pearls, and then--O then!--if I could interpret for the +pretty creatures (I know they have not the courage to confess it +themselves) how gladly would they exchange their sea-side rambles +for a Sunday walk on the green-sward of their accustomed Twickenham +meadows! + +I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, who think they +truly love the sea, with its wild usages, what would their feelings +be, if some of the unsophisticated aborigines of this place, +encouraged by their courteous questionings here, should venture, on +the faith of such assured sympathy between them, to return the visit, +and come up to see--London. I must imagine them with their fishing +tackle on their back, as we carry our town necessaries. What a +sensation would it cause in Lothbury? What vehement laughter would it +not excite among + + The daughters of Cheapside, and wives of Lombard-street. + +I am sure that no town-bred, or inland-born subjects, can feel their +true and natural nourishment at these sea-places. Nature, where she +does not mean us for mariners and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The +salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. I am not half so good-natured +as by the milder waters of my natural river. I would exchange these +sea-gulls for swans, and scud a swallow for ever about the banks of +Thamesis. + + + + +THE CONVALESCENT + + +A pretty severe fit of indisposition which, under the name of a +nervous fever, has made a prisoner of me for some weeks past, and is +but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an incapacity of reflecting +upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy conclusions from +me this month, reader; I can offer you only sick men's dreams. + +And truly the whole state of sickness is such; for what else is it +but a magnificent dream for a man to lie a-bed, and draw day-light +curtains about him; and, shutting out the sun, to induce a total +oblivion of all the works which are going on under it? To become +insensible to all the operations of life, except the beatings of one +feeble pulse? + +If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the patient lords +it there! what caprices he acts without controul! how kinglike he +sways his pillow--tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, +and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it, to the ever varying +requisitions of his throbbing temples. + +He changes _sides_ oftener than a politician. Now he lies full length, +then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across +the bed; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four +curtains he is absolute. They are his Mare Clausum. + +How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he +is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon +him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has +nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or +within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. + +A little while ago he was greatly concerned in the event of a +law-suit, which was to be the making or the marring of his dearest +friend. He was to be seen trudging about upon this man's errand to +fifty quarters of the town at once, jogging this witness, refreshing +that solicitor. The cause was to come on yesterday. He is absolutely +as indifferent to the decision, as if it were a question to be tried +at Pekin. Peradventure from some whispering, going on about the +house, not intended for his hearing, he picks up enough to make him +understand, that things went cross-grained in the Court yesterday, +and his friend is ruined. But the word "friend," and the word "ruin," +disturb him no more than so much jargon. He is not to think of any +thing but how to get better. + +What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorbing +consideration! + +He has put on the strong armour of sickness, he is wrapped in the +callous hide of suffering; he keeps his sympathy, like some curious +vintage, under trusty lock and key, for his own use only. + +He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself; he yearneth +over himself; his bowels are even melted within him, to think what he +suffers; he is not ashamed to weep over himself. + +He is for ever plotting how to do some good to himself; studying +little stratagems and artificial alleviations. + +He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable +fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and +sorrowing members. Sometimes he meditates--as of a thing apart from +him--upon his poor aching head, and that dull pain which, dozing or +waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance +of pain, not to be removed without opening the very scull, as it +seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated +fingers. He compassionates himself all over; and his bed is a very +discipline of humanity, and tender heart. + +He is his own sympathiser; and instinctively feels that none can so +well perform that office for him. He cares for few spectators to his +tragedy. Only that punctual face of the old nurse pleases him, that +announces his broths, and his cordials. He likes it because it is +so unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations +before it as unreservedly as to his bed-post. + +To the world's business he is dead. He understands not what the +callings and occupations of mortals are; only he has a glimmering +conceit of some such thing, when the doctor makes his daily call: +and even in the lines of that busy face he reads no multiplicity of +patients, but solely conceives of himself as _the sick man_. To what +other uneasy couch the good man is hastening, when he slips out of +his chamber, folding up his thin douceur so carefully for fear of +rustling--is no speculation which he can at present entertain. He +thinks only of the regular return of the same phenomenon at the same +hour to-morrow. + +Household rumours touch him not. Some faint murmur, indicative of life +going on within the house, soothes him, while he knows not distinctly +what it is. He is not to know any thing, not to think of any thing. +Servants gliding up or down the distant staircase, treading as +upon velvet, gently keep his ear awake, so long as he troubles not +himself further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter +knowledge would be a burthen to him: he can just endure the pressure +of conjecture. He opens his eye faintly at the dull stroke of the +muffled knocker, and closes it again without asking "who was it?" He +is flattered by a general notion that inquiries are making after him, +but he cares not to know the name of the inquirer. In the general +stillness, and awful hush of the house, he lies in state, and feels +his sovereignty. + +To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare the silent +tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only, with which he is +served--with the careless demeanour, the unceremonious goings in +and out (slapping of doors, or leaving them open) of the very same +attendants, when he is getting a little better--and you will confess, +that from the bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the +elbow chair of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to a +deposition. + +How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature! where +is now the space, which he occupied so lately, in his own, in the +family's eye? The scene of his regalities, his sick room, which was +his presence chamber, where he lay and acted his despotic fancies--how +is it reduced to a common bedroom! The trimness of the very bed has +something petty and unmeaning about it. It is _made_ every day. +How unlike to that wavy, many-furrowed, oceanic surface, which it +presented so short a time since, when to _make_ it was a service not +to be thought of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when +the patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while +out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome neatness, and +decencies which his shaken frame deprecated; then to be lifted into it +again, for another three or four days' respite, to flounder it out of +shape again, while every fresh furrow was a historical record of some +shifting posture, some uneasy turning, some seeking for a little ease; +and the shrunken skin scarce told a truer story than the crumpled +coverlid. + +Hushed are those mysterious sighs--those groans--so much more awful, +while we knew not from what caverns of vast hidden suffering they +proceeded. The Lernean pangs are quenched. The riddle of sickness is +solved; and Philoctetes is become an ordinary personage. + +Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness survives in +the still lingering visitations of the medical attendant. But how +is he too changed with everything else! Can this be he--this man of +news--of chat--of anecdote--of every thing but physic--can this be he, +who so lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as on some +solemn embassy from Nature, erecting herself into a high mediating +party? Pshaw!'tis some old woman. + +Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous--the spell that +hushed the household--the desart-like stillness, felt throughout +its inmost chambers--the mute attendance--the inquiry by looks--the +still softer delicacies of self-attention--the sole and single eye of +distemper alonely fixed upon itself--world-thoughts excluded--the man +a world unto himself--his own theatre-- + + What a speck is he dwindled into! + +In this flat swamp of convalescence, left by the ebb of sickness, yet +far enough from the terra firma of established health, your note, +dear Editor, reached me, requesting--an article. In Articulo Mortis, +thought I; but it is something hard--and the quibble, wretched as it +was, relieved me. The summons, unseasonable as it appeared, seemed to +link me on again to the petty businesses of life, which I had lost +sight of; a gentle call to activity, however trivial; a wholesome +weaning from that preposterous dream of self-absorption--the puffy +state of sickness--in which I confess to have lain so long, insensible +to the magazines and monarchies, of the world alike; to its laws, and +to its literature. The hypochondriac flatus is subsiding; the acres, +which in imagination I had spread over--for the sick man swells in +the sole contemplation of his single sufferings, till he becomes +a Tityus to himself--are wasting to a span; and for the giant of +self-importance, which I was so lately, you have me once again in my +natural pretensions--the lean and meagre figure of your insignificant +Essayist. + + + + +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS + + +So far from the position holding true, that great wit (or genius, in +our modern way of speaking), has a necessary alliance with insanity, +the greatest wits, on the contrary, will ever be found to be the +sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad +Shakspeare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here +chiefly to be understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of +all the faculties. Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess +of any one of them. "So strong a wit," says Cowley, speaking of a +poetical friend, + + "--did Nature to him frame, + As all things but his judgment overcame, + His judgment like the heavenly moon did show, + Tempering that mighty sea below." + +The ground of the mistake is, that men, finding in the raptures of +the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no +parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of +it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the +poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by +his subject, but has dominion over it. In the groves of Eden he walks +familiar as in his native paths. He ascends the empyrean heaven, and +is not intoxicated. He treads the burning marl without dismay; he wins +his flight without self-loss through realms of chaos "and old night." +Or if, abandoning himself to that severer chaos of a "human mind +untuned," he is content awhile to be mad with Lear, or to hate mankind +(a sort of madness) with Timon, neither is that madness, nor this +misanthropy, so unchecked, but that,--never letting the reins of +reason wholly go, while most he seems to do so,--he has his better +genius still whispering at his ear, with the good servant Kent +suggesting saner counsels, or with the honest steward Flavius +recommending kindlier resolutions. Where he seems most to recede from +humanity, he will be found the truest to it. From beyond the scope of +Nature if he summon possible existences, he subjugates them to the +law of her consistency. He is beautifully loyal to that sovereign +directress, even when he appears most to betray and desert her. His +ideal tribes submit to policy; his very monsters are tamed to his +hand, even as that wild sea-brood, shepherded by Proteus. He tames, +and he clothes them with attributes of flesh and blood, till they +wonder at themselves, like Indian Islanders forced to submit to +European vesture. Caliban, the Witches, are as true to the laws of +their own nature (ours with a difference), as Othello, Hamlet, and +Macbeth. Herein the great and the little wits are differenced; that if +the latter wander ever so little from nature or actual existence, they +lose themselves, and their readers. Their phantoms are lawless; their +visions nightmares. They do not create, which implies shaping and +consistency. Their imaginations are not active--for to be active is to +call something into act and form--but passive, as men in sick dreams. +For the super-natural, or something super-added to what we know of +nature, they give you the plainly non-natural. And if this were all, +and that these mental hallucinations were discoverable only in the +treatment of subjects out of nature, or transcending it, the judgment +might with some plea be pardoned if it ran riot, and a little +wantonized: but even in the describing of real and every day life, +that which is before their eyes, one of these lesser wits shall more +deviate from nature--show more of that inconsequence, which has a +natural alliance with frenzy,--than a great genius in his "maddest +fits," as Withers somewhere calls them. We appeal to any one that is +acquainted with the common run of Lane's novels,--as they existed some +twenty or thirty years back,--those scanty intellectual viands of the +whole female reading public, till a happier genius arose, and expelled +for ever the innutritious phantoms,--whether he has not found his +brain more "betossed," his memory more puzzled, his sense of when and +where more confounded, among the improbable events, the incoherent +incidents, the inconsistent characters, or no-characters, of some +third-rate love intrigue--where the persons shall be a Lord Glendamour +and a Miss Rivers, and the scene only alternate between Bath and +Bond-street--a more bewildering dreaminess induced upon him, than +he has felt wandering over all the fairy grounds of Spenser. In the +productions we refer to, nothing but names and places is familiar; the +persons are neither of this world nor of any other conceivable one; an +endless string of activities without purpose, of purposes destitute +of motive:--we meet phantoms in our known walks; _fantasques_ only +christened. In the poet we have names which announce fiction; and we +have absolutely no place at all, for the things and persons of the +Fairy Queen prate not of their "whereabout." But in their inner +nature, and the law of their speech and actions, we are at home and +upon acquainted ground. The one turns life into a dream; the other to +the wildest dreams gives the sobrieties of every day occurrences. By +what subtile art of tracing the mental processes it is effected, we +are not philosophers enough to explain, but in that wonderful episode +of the cave of Mammon, in which the Money God appears first in the +lowest form of a miser, is then a worker of metals, and becomes the +god of all the treasures of the world; and has a daughter, Ambition, +before whom all the world kneels for favours--with the Hesperian +fruit, the waters of Tantalus, with Pilate washing his hands vainly, +but not impertinently, in the same stream--that we should be at one +moment in the cave of an old hoarder of treasures, at the next at the +forge of the Cyclops, in a palace and yet in hell, all at once, with +the shifting mutations of the most rambling dream, and our judgment +yet all the time awake, and neither able nor willing to detect the +fallacy,--is a proof of that hidden sanity which still guides the poet +in his widest seeming-aberrations. + +It is not enough to say that the whole episode is a copy of the mind's +conceptions in sleep; it is, in some sort--but what a copy! Let the +most romantic of us, that has been entertained all night with the +spectacle of some wild and magnificent vision, recombine it in the +morning, and try it by his waking judgment. That which appeared so +shifting, and yet so coherent, while that faculty was passive, when +it comes under cool examination, shall appear so reasonless and so +unlinked, that we are ashamed to have been so deluded; and to have +taken, though but in sleep, a monster for a god. But the transitions +in this episode are every whit as violent as in the most extravagant +dream, and yet the waking judgment ratifies them. + + + + +CAPTAIN JACKSON + + +Among the deaths in our obituary for this month, I observe with +concern "At his cottage on the Bath road, Captain Jackson." The +name and attribution are common enough; but a feeling like reproach +persuades me, that this could have been no other in fact than my dear +old friend, who some five-and-twenty years ago rented a tenement, +which he was pleased to dignify with the appellation here used, about +a mile from Westbourn Green. Alack, how good men, and the good turns +they do us, slide out of memory, and are recalled but by the surprise +of some such sad memento as that which now lies before us! + +He whom I mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a wife and two +grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with the port and notions of +gentlewomen upon that slender professional allowance. Comely girls +they were too. + +And was I in danger of forgetting this man?--his cheerful suppers--the +noble tone of hospitality, when first you set your foot in the +_cottage_--the anxious ministerings about you, where little or +nothing (God knows) was to be ministered.--Althea's horn in a poor +platter--the power of self-enchantment, by which, in his magnificent +wishes to entertain you, he multiplied his means to bounties. + +You saw with your bodily eyes indeed what seemed a bare scrag--cold +savings from the foregone meal--remnant hardly sufficient to send +a mendicant from the door contented. But in the copious will--the +revelling imagination of your host--the "mind, the mind, Master +Shallow," whole beeves were spread before you--hecatombs--no end +appeared to the profusion. + +It was the widow's cruse--the loaves and fishes; carving could not +lessen nor helping diminish it--the stamina were left--the elemental +bone still flourished, divested of its accidents. + +"Let us live while we can," methinks I hear the open-handed creature +exclaim; "while we have, let us not want," "here is plenty left;" +"want for nothing"--with many more such hospitable sayings, the +spurs of appetite, and old concomitants of smoaking boards, and +feast-oppressed chargers. Then sliding a slender ratio of Single +Gloucester upon his wife's plate, or the daughter's, he would convey +the remanent rind into his own, with a merry quirk of "the nearer the +bone," &c., and declaring that he universally preferred the outside. +For we had our table distinctions, you are to know, and some of us in +a manner sate above the salt. None but his guest or guests dreamed of +tasting flesh luxuries at night, the fragments were _verè hospilibus +sacra_. But of one thing or another there was always enough, and +leavings: only he would sometimes finish the remainder crust, to show +that he wished no savings. + +Wine he had none; nor, except on very rare occasions, spirits; +but the sensation of wine was there. Some thin kind of ale I +remember--"British beverage," he would say! "Push about, my boys;" +"Drink to your sweethearts, girls." At every meagre draught a toast +must ensue, or a song. All the forms of good liquor were there, with +none of the effects wanting. Shut your eyes, and you would swear +a capacious bowl of punch was foaming in the centre, with beams of +generous Port or Madeira radiating to it from each of the table +corners. You got flustered, without knowing whence; tipsy upon +words; and reeled under the potency of his unperforming Bacchanalian +encouragements. + +We had our songs--"Why, Soldiers, Why"--and the "British +Grenadiers"--in which last we were all obliged to bear chorus. Both +the daughters sang. Their proficiency was a nightly theme--the masters +he had given them--the "no-expence" which he spared to accomplish them +in a science "so necessary to young women." But then--they could not +sing "without the instrument." + +Sacred, and by me, never-to-be violated, Secrets of Poverty! Should +I disclose your honest aims at grandeur, your make-shift efforts +of magnificence? Sleep, sleep, with all thy broken keys, if one of +the bunch be extant; thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs; dear, +cracked spinnet of dearer Louisa! Without mention of mine, be dumb, +thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble! A veil be spread over +the dear delighted face of the well-deluded father, who now haply +listening to cherubic notes, scarce feels sincerer pleasure than when +she awakened thy time-shaken chords responsive to the twitterings of +that slender image of a voice. + +We were not without our literary talk either. It did not extend far, +but as far as it went, it was good. It was bottomed well; had good +grounds to go upon. In _the cottage_ was a room, which tradition +authenticated to have been the same in which Glover, in his occasional +retirements, had penned the greater part of his Leonidas. This +circumstance was nightly quoted, though none of the present inmates, +that I could discover, appeared ever to have met with the poem in +question. But that was no matter. Glover had written there, and the +anecdote was pressed into the account of the family importance. It +diffused a learned air through the apartment, the little side casement +of which (the poet's study window), opening upon a superb view as far +as to the pretty spire of Harrow, over domains and patrimonial acres, +not a rood nor square yard whereof our host could call his own, yet +gave occasion to an immoderate expansion of--vanity shall I call +it?--in his bosom, as he showed them in a glowing summer evening. It +was all his, he took it all in, and communicated rich portions of it +to his guests. It was a part of his largess, his hospitality; it was +going over his grounds; he was lord for the time of showing them, and +you the implicit lookers-up to his magnificence. + +He was a juggler, who threw mists before your eyes--you had no time +to detect his fallacies. He would say "hand me the _silver_ sugar +tongs;" and, before you could discover it was a single spoon, and +that _plated_, he would disturb and captivate your imagination by a +misnomer of "the urn" for a tea kettle; or by calling a homely bench +a sofa. Rich men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you +from it; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply assuming that +everything was handsome about him, you were positively at a demur what +you did, or did not see, at _the cottage_. With nothing to live on, he +seemed to live on everything. He had a stock of wealth in his mind; +not that which is properly termed _Content_, for in truth he was not +to be _contained_ at all, but overflowed all bounds by the force of a +magnificent self-delusion. + +Enthusiasm is catching; and even his wife, a sober native of North +Britain, who generally saw things more as they were, was not proof +against the continual collision of his credulity. Her daughters +were rational and discreet young women; in the main, perhaps, not +insensible to their true circumstances. I have seen them assume a +thoughtful air at times. But such was the preponderating opulence of +his fancy, that I am persuaded, not for any half hour together, did +they ever look their own prospects fairly in the face. There was no +resisting the vortex of his temperament. His riotous imagination +conjured up handsome settlements before their eyes, which kept them +up in the eye of the world too, and seem at last to have realised +themselves; for they both have married since, I am told, more than +respectably. + +It is long since, and my memory waxes dim on some subjects, or I +should wish to convey some notion of the manner in which the pleasant +creature described the circumstances of his own wedding-day. I faintly +remember something of a chaise and four, in which he made his entry +into Glasgow on that morning to fetch the bride home, or carry her +thither, I forget which. It so completely made out the stanza of the +old ballad-- + + When we came down through Glasgow town, + We were a comely sight to see; + My love was clad in black velve, + And I myself in cramasie. + +I suppose it was the only occasion, upon which his own actual +splendour at all corresponded with the world's notions on that +subject. In homely cart, or travelling caravan, by whatever humble +vehicle they chanced to be transported in less prosperous days, the +ride through Glasgow came back upon his fancy, not as a humiliating +contrast, but as a fair occasion for reverting to that one day's +state. It seemed an "equipage etern" from which no power of fate or +fortune, once mounted, had power thereafter to dislodge him. + +There is some merit in putting a handsome face upon indigent +circumstances. To bully and swagger away the sense of them, before +strangers, may be not always discommendable. Tibbs, and Bobadil, even +when detected, have more of our admiration than contempt. But for a +man to put the cheat upon himself; to play the Bobadil at home; and, +steeped in poverty up to the lips, to fancy himself all the while +chin-deep in riches, is a strain of constitutional philosophy, and a +mastery over fortune, which was reserved for my old friend Captain +Jackson. + + + + +THE SUPERANNUATED MAN + + + Sera tamen respexit + Libertas. + + VIRGIL. + + + A Clerk I was in London gay. + + O'KEEFE. + + +If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years +of thy life--thy shining youth--in the irksome confinement of an +office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to +decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to +have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to +remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then +only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance. + +It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in +Mincing-lane. Melancholy was the transition at fourteen from the +abundant play-time, and the frequently-intervening vacations of school +days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance +at a counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to anything. +I gradually became content--doggedly contented, as wild animals in +cages. + +It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays, admirable as the +institution of them is for purposes of worship, are for that very +reason the very worst adapted for days of unbending and recreation. In +particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a +weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, and +the ballad-singers--the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those +eternal bells depress me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, +all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, +and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which make a +week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so +delightful--are shut out. No book-stalls deliciously to idle over--No +busy faces to recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever passing +by--the very face of business a charm by contrast to his temporary +relaxation from it. Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances--or +half-happy at best--of emancipated 'prentices and little trades-folks, +with here and there a servant maid that has got leave to go out, who, +slaving all the week, with the habit has lost almost the capacity of +enjoying a free hour; and livelily expressing the hollowness of a +day's pleasuring. The very strollers in the fields on that day look +anything but comfortable. + +But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, +with a full week in the summer to go and air myself in my native +fields of Hertfordshire. This last was a great indulgence; and the +prospect of its recurrence, I believe, alone kept me up through the +year, and made my durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did +the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me? or rather +was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit +of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most +of them? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest? Before I had a +taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the desk again, counting upon +the fifty-one tedious weeks that must intervene before such another +snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something of +an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I +have said, I could scarcely have sustained my thraldom. + +Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have ever been haunted +with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of incapacity for business. +This, during my latter years, had increased to such a degree, that it +was visible in all the lines of my countenance. My health and my good +spirits flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which I +should be found unequal. Besides my daylight servitude, I served over +again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary +false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like. I was fifty years +of age, and no prospect of emancipation presented itself. I had grown +to my desk, as it were; and the wood had entered into my soul. + +My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon the trouble +legible in my countenance; but I did not know that it had raised the +suspicions of any of my employers, when, on the 5th of last month, +a day ever to be remembered by me, L----, the junior partner in the +firm, calling me on one side, directly taxed me with my bad looks, +and frankly inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made +confession of my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I should +eventually be obliged to resign his service. He spoke some words of +course to hearten me, and there the matter rested. A whole week I +remained labouring under the impression that I had acted imprudently +in my disclosure; that I had foolishly given a handle against myself, +and had been anticipating my own dismissal. A week passed in this +manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe, in my whole life, when +on the evening of the 12th of April, just as I was about quitting my +desk to go home (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful +summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled firm in the +formidable back parlour. I thought, now my time is surely come, I +have done for myself, I am going to be told that they have no longer +occasion for me. L----, I could see, smiled at the terror I was in, +which was a little relief to me,--when to my utter astonishment B----, +the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to me on the length of +my services, my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time +(the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I never +had the confidence to think as much). He went on to descant on the +expediency of retiring at a certain time of life (how my heart +panted!) and asking me a few questions as to the amount of my own +property, of which I have a little, ended with a proposal, to which +his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should accept from +the house, which I had served so well, a pension for life to the +amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary--a magnificent offer! I +do not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it was +understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was +free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, +and at just ten minutes after eight I went home--for ever. This noble +benefit--gratitude forbids me to conceal their names--I owe to the +kindness of the most munificent firm in the world--the house of +Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. + + +_Esto perpetua!_ + +For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only +apprehend my felicity; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I +wandered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing that I was not. I +was in the condition of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let +loose after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself +with myself. It was like passing out of Time into Eternity--for it +is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. +It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever +manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into +a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some +steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me. +And here let me caution persons grown old in active business, not +lightly, nor without weighing their own resources, to forego their +customary employment all at once, for there may be danger in it. I +feel it by myself, but I know that my resources are sufficient; and +now that those first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet +home-feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no hurry. +Having all holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time hung heavy +upon me, I could walk it away; but I do _not_ walk all day long, as +I used to do in those old transient holidays, thirty miles a day, to +make the most of them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it away, +but I do _not_ read in that violent measure, with which, having no +Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my head and +eyesight in by-gone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just +when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure; I let it come +to me. I am like the man + + --That's born, and has his years come to him, + In some green desart. + +"Years," you will say! "what is this superannuated simpleton +calculating upon? He has already told us, he is past fifty." + +I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the +hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you +will find me still a young fellow. For _that_ is the only true Time, +which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to +himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is +other people's time, not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or +short, is at least multiplied for me three-fold. My ten next years, if +I stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair +rule-of-three sum. + +Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the commencement of my +freedom, and of which all traces are not yet gone, one was, that a +vast tract of time had intervened since I quitted the Counting House. +I could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, +and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many +hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly +removed from them--they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, +which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert +Howard, speaking of a friend's death: + + --'Twas but just now he went away; + I have not since had time to shed a tear; + And yet the distance does the same appear + As if he had been a thousand years from me. + Time takes no measure in Eternity. + +To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go among them +once or twice since; to visit my old desk-fellows--my co-brethren of +the quill--that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the +kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that +pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them. +We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but +faintly. My old desk; the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated +to another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D----l +take me, if I did not feel some remorse--beast, if I had not,--at +quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six +and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums +the ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then +after all? or was I a coward simply? Well, it is too late to repent; +and I also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the +mind on such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken +the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some +time before I get quite reconciled to the separation. Farewell, old +cronies, yet not for long, for again and again I will come among +ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell Ch----, dry, sarcastic, +and friendly! Do----, mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly! Pl----, +officious to do, and to volunteer, good services!--and thou, thou +dreary pile, fit mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington of old, +stately House of Merchants; with thy labyrinthine passages, and +light-excluding, pent-up offices, where candles for one half the year +supplied the place of the sun's light; unhealthy contributor to my +weal, stern fosterer of my living, farewell! In thee remain, and not +in the obscure collection of some wandering bookseller, my "works!" +There let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy massy +shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas left, and full as +useful! My mantle I bequeath among ye. + +A fortnight has passed since the date of my first communication. At +that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but had not reached it. +I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of +the first flutter was left; an unsettling sense of novelty; the dazzle +to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, +as if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a +poor Carthusian, from strict cellular discipline suddenly by some +revolution returned upon the world. I am now as if I had never been +other than my own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, +to do what I please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in +Bond-street, and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there +at that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a +book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector. There is +nothing strange nor new in it. I find myself before a fine picture +in a morning. Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish-street +Hill? Where is Fenchurch-street? Stones of old Mincing-lane, which I +have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six and thirty years, to the +footsteps of what toil-worn clerk are your everlasting flints now +vocal? I indent the gayer flags of Pall Mall. It is Change time, and +I am strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole when I +ventured to compare the change in my condition to a passing into +another world. Time stands still in a manner to me. I have lost all +distinction of season. I do not know the day of the week, or of the +month. Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference +to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, +the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' +sensations. The genius of each day was upon me distinctly during the +whole of it, affecting my appetite, spirits, &c. The phantom of the +next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor +Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What +is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself--that +unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my +sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity +of pleasure out of it--is melted down into a week day. I can spare +to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used +to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I +can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt the man of much occupation +when he is busiest. I can insult over him with an invitation to take +a day's pleasure with me to Windsor this fine May-morning. It is +Lucretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I have left behind +in the world, carking and caring; like horses in a mill, drudging on +in the same eternal round--and what is it all for? A man can never +have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little +son, I would christen him NOTHING-TO-DO; he should do nothing. Man, I +verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am +altogether for the life contemplative. Will no kindly earthquake come +and swallow up those accursed cotton mills? Take me that lumber of a +desk there, and bowl it down + + As low as to the fiends. + +I am no longer ******, clerk to the Firm of &c. I am Retired Leisure. +I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by +my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace, +nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not to and from. They tell +me, a certain _cum dignitate_ air, that has been buried so long with +my other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my person. I grow +into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a newspaper, it is to read +the state of the opera. _Opus operatum est_. I have done all that I +came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest +of the day to myself. + + + + +THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING + + +It is an ordinary criticism, that my Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir William +Temple, are models of the genteel style in writing. We should prefer +saying--of the lordly, and the gentlemanly. Nothing can be more unlike +than the inflated finical rhapsodies of Shaftesbury, and the plain +natural chit-chat of Temple. The man of rank is discernible in both +writers; but in the one it is only insinuated gracefully, in the other +it stands out offensively. The peer seems to have written with his +coronet on, and his Earl's mantle before him; the commoner in his +elbow chair and undress.--What can be more pleasant than the way in +which the retired statesman peeps out in the essays, penned by the +latter in his delightful retreat at Shene? They scent of Nimeguen, +and the Hague. Scarce an authority is quoted under an ambassador. +Don Francisco de Melo, a "Portugal Envoy in England," tells him it +was frequent in his country for men, spent with age or other decays, +so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life, to ship +themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their arrival there to +go on a great length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, or more, +by the force of that vigour they recovered with that remove. "Whether +such an effect (Temple beautifully adds) might grow from the air, or +the fruits of that climate, or by approaching nearer the sun, which +is the fountain of light and heat, when their natural heat was so +far decayed: or whether the piecing out of an old man's life were +worth the pains; I cannot tell: perhaps the play is not worth the +candle."--Monsieur Pompone, "French Ambassador in his (Sir William's) +time at the Hague," certifies him, that in his life he had never +heard of any man in France that arrived at a hundred years of age; a +limitation of life which the old gentleman imputes to the excellence +of their climate, giving them such a liveliness of temper and humour, +as disposes them to more pleasures of all kinds than in other +countries; and moralises upon the matter very sensibly. The "late +Robert Earl of Leicester" furnishes him with a story of a Countess of +Desmond, married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and who +lived far in King James's reign. The "same noble person" gives him +an account, how such a year, in the same reign, there went about the +country a set of morrice-dancers, composed of ten men who danced, a +Maid Marian, and a tabor and pipe; and how these twelve, one with +another, made up twelve hundred years. "It was not so much (says +Temple) that so many in one small county (Herefordshire) should live +to that age, as that they should be in vigour and in humour to travel +and to dance." Monsieur Zulichem, one of his "colleagues at the +Hague," informs him of a cure for the gout; which is confirmed by +another "Envoy," Monsieur Serinchamps, in that town, who had tried +it.--Old Prince Maurice of Nassau recommends to him the use of +hammocks in that complaint; having been allured to sleep, while +suffering under it himself, by the "constant motion or swinging of +those airy beds." Count Egmont, and the Rhinegrave who "was killed +last summer before Maestricht," impart to him their experiences. + +But the rank of the writer is never more innocently disclosed, than +where he takes for granted the compliments paid by foreigners to his +fruit-trees. For the taste and perfection of what we esteem the best, +he can truly say, that the French, who have eaten his peaches and +grapes at Shene in no very ill year, have generally concluded that +the last are as good as any they have eaten in France on this side +Fontainebleau; and the first as good as any they have eat in Gascony. +Italians have agreed his white figs to be as good as any of that sort +in Italy, which is the earlier kind of white fig there; for in the +later kind and the blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, no +more than in the Frontignac or Muscat grape. His orange-trees too, are +as large as any he saw when he was young in France, except those of +Fontainebleau, or what he has seen since in the Low Countries; except +some very old ones of the Prince of Orange's. Of grapes he had the +honour of bringing over four sorts into England, which he enumerates, +and supposes that they are all by this time pretty common among some +gardeners in his neighbourhood, as well as several persons of quality; +for he ever thought all things of this kind "the commoner they are +made the better." The garden pedantry with which he asserts that 'tis +to little purpose to plant any of the best fruits, as peaches or +grapes, hardly, he doubts, beyond Northamptonshire at the furthest +northwards; and praises the "Bishop of Munster at Cosevelt," for +attempting nothing beyond cherries in that cold climate; is equally +pleasant and in character. "I may perhaps" (he thus ends his sweet +Garden Essay with a passage worthy of Cowley) "be allowed to know +something of this trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be +good for nothing else, which few men will do, or enjoy their gardens, +without often looking abroad to see how other matters play, what +motions in the state, and what invitations they may hope for into +other scenes. For my own part, as the country life, and this part of +it more particularly, were the inclination of my youth itself, so they +are the pleasure of my age; and I can truly say that, among many great +employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought +for any of them, but have often endeavoured to escape from them, into +the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own +way and his own pace, in the common paths and circles of life. The +measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen, +which I thank God has befallen me; and though among the follies of my +life, building and planting have not been the least, and have cost +me more than I have the confidence to own; yet they have been fully +recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, +since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public +employments, I have passed five years without ever once going to town, +though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready +to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have +thought it, but a mere want of desire or humour to make so small a +remove; for when I am in this corner, I can truly say with Horace, _Me +quoties reficit, &c._ + + "Me, when the cold Digentian stream revives, + What does my friend believe I think or ask? + Let me yet less possess, so I may live, + Whate'er of life remains, unto myself. + May I have books enough; and one year's store, + Not to depend upon each doubtful hour: + This is enough of mighty Jove to pray, + Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away." + +The writings of Temple are, in general, after this easy copy. On one +occasion, indeed, his wit, which was mostly subordinate to nature and +tenderness, has seduced him into a string of felicitous antitheses; +which, it is obvious to remark, have been a model to Addison and +succeeding essayists. "Who would not be covetous, and with reason," +he says, "if health could be purchased with gold? who not ambitious, +if it were at the command of power, or restored by honour? but, alas! +a white staff will not help gouty feet to walk better than a common +cane; nor a blue riband bind up a wound so well as a fillet. The +glitter of gold, or of diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of +curing them; and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a +crown, than a common night-cap." In a far better style, and more +accordant with his own humour of plainness, are the concluding +sentences of his "Discourse upon Poetry." Temple took a part in the +controversy about the ancient and the modern learning; and, with +that partiality so natural and so graceful in an old man, whose +state engagements had left him little leisure to look into modern +productions, while his retirement gave him occasion to look back upon +the classic studies of his youth--decided in favour of the latter. +"Certain it is," he says, "that, whether the fierceness of the Gothic +humours, or noise of their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or that +the unequal mixture of the modern languages would not bear it--the +great heights and excellency both of poetry and music fell with +the Roman learning and empire, and have never since recovered the +admiration and applauses that before attended them. Yet, such as they +are amongst us, they must be confessed to be the softest and sweetest, +the most general and most innocent amusements of common time and life. +They still find room in the courts of princes, and the cottages of +shepherds. They serve to revive and animate the dead calm of poor +and idle lives, and to allay or divert the violent passions and +perturbations of the greatest and the busiest men. And both these +effects are of equal use to human life; for the mind of man is like +the sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder nor the voyager, +in a calm or in a storm, but is so to both when a little agitated by +gentle gales; and so the mind, when moved by soft and easy passions or +affections. I know very well that many who pretend to be wise by the +forms of being grave, are apt to despise both poetry and music, as +toys and trifles too light for the use or entertainment of serious +men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to their charms, +would, I think, do well to keep their own counsel, for fear of +reproaching their own temper, and bringing the goodness of their +natures, if not of their understandings, into question. While this +world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and request of these two +entertainments will do so too; and happy those that content themselves +with these, or any other so easy and so innocent, and do no trouble +the world or other men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, +though nobody hurts them." "When all is done (he concludes), human +life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that +must be played with, and humoured a little, to keep it quiet, till it +falls asleep, and then the care is over." + + + + +BARBARA S---- + + +On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, +just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S----, with her accustomed +punctuality ascended the long rambling staircase, with awkward +interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort +of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few +of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island +it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the +players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not +much that Barbara had to claim. + +This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important +station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which +she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, +had given an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You +would have taken her to have been at least five years older. + +Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where +children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing +a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few +months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may +guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already +drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine +petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that +petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder +child in Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life; but as yet the +"Children in the Wood" was not. + +Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some +of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied +out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed +a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies +of the establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, +as for a child's use, she kept them all; and in the zenith of her +after reputation it was a delightful sight to behold them bound up in +costliest Morocco, each single--each small part making a _book_--with +fine clasps, gilt-splashed, &c. She had conscientiously kept them +as they had been delivered to her; not a blot had been effaced +or tampered with. They were precious to her for their affecting +remembrancings. They were her principia, her rudiments; the elementary +atoms; the little steps by which she pressed forward to perfection. +"What," she would say, "could Indian rubber, or a pumice stone, have +done for these darlings?" + +I am in no hurry to begin my story--indeed I have little or none to +tell--so I will just mention an observation of hers connected with +that interesting time. + +Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her on the +quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic performer +experiences during acting. I ventured to think, that though in the +first instance such players must have possessed the feelings which +they so powerfully called up in others, yet by frequent repetition +those feelings must become deadened in great measure, and the +performer trust to the memory of past emotion, rather than express a +present one. She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly +great tragedian the operation, by which such effects were produced +upon an audience, could ever degrade itself into what was purely +mechanical. With much delicacy, avoiding to instance in her +_self_-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when she used to +play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, (I think it +was) when that impressive actress has been bending over her in some +heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling +from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly +scalded her back. + +I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter; but it was some great +actress of that day. The name is indifferent; but the fact of the +scalding tears I most distinctly remember. + +I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an +impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) +even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got +over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from +adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to +have been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at +serious whist with Mr. Listen. I have chatted with ever good-humoured +Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her +accomplished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference +with Macready; and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery, at Mr. +Matthews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the +old actors (whom he loves so much) went over it with me, supplying +to his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give +them--voice; and their living motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd +and Parsons, and Baddeley, have lived again for me at his bidding. +Only Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with ----; but I +am growing a coxcomb. + +As I was about to say--at the desk of the then treasurer of the old +Bath theatre--not Diamond's--presented herself the little Barbara +S----. + +The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father +had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his +practice from causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that +way to arraign--or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies +some people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible to +lay at the door of imprudence--was now reduced to nothing. They were +in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew +and respected them in better days, took the little Barbara into his +company. + +At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole +support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw +a veil over some mortifying circumstances. Enough to say, that her +Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their +only) meal of meat. + +One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in +her theatrical character she was to sup off a roast fowl (O joy to +Barbara!) some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this +dainty--in the misguided humour of his part, threw over the dish +such a quantity of salt (O grief and pain of heart to Barbara!) that +when he crammed a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged +sputteringly to reject it; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, +and pain of real appetite at missing such a dainty, her little heart +sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which the well-fed +spectators were totally unable to comprehend, mercifully relieved her. + +This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old +Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. + +Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people besides +herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no +head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and +summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so +deficient, blest himself that it was no worse. + +Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea.--By mistake he +popped into her hand a--whole one. + +Barbara tripped away. + +She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake: God knows, +Ravenscroft would never have discovered it. + +But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth +landing-places, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal +pressing her little hand. + +Now mark the dilemma. + +She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her +she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught her +nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral +philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she +might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty +commended, but never dreamed of its application to herself. She +thought of it as something which concerned grown-up people--men +and women. She had never known temptation, or thought of preparing +resistance against it. + +Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain +to him his blunder. He was already so confused with age, besides a +natural want of punctuality, that she would have had some difficulty +in making him understand it. She saw _that_ in an instant. And then +it was such a bit of money! and then the image of a larger allowance +of butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till +her little eyes glistened, and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. +Ravenscroft had always been so good-natured, had stood her friend +behind the scenes, and even recommended her promotion to some of her +little parts. But again the old man was reputed to be worth a world +of money. He was supposed to have fifty pounds a year clear of the +theatre. And then came staring upon her the figures of her little +stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat +white cotton stockings, which her situation at the theatre had made it +indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining +and pinching from the family stock, and thought how glad she should +be to cover their poor feet with the same--and how then they could +accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hitherto been precluded +from doing, by reason of their unfashionable attire--in these thoughts +she reached the second landing-place--the second, I mean from the +top--for there was still another left to traverse. + +Now virtue support Barbara! + +And that never-failing friend did step in--for at that moment a +strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her--a +reason above reasoning--and without her own agency, as it seemed (for +she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to +the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand +of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and +who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, +which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell +upon her heart, and she knew the quality of honesty. + +A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened +up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole +family upon their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of +discussing moral dogmas upon a landing-place. + +I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of +mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man +pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes. + +This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of +the late Mrs. Crawford,[1] then sixty-seven years of age (she died +soon after); and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have +sometimes ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending +the heart in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in +after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the +part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. + +[Footnote 1: The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she +changed, by successive marriages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and +Crawford. She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third time a widow, when I +knew her.] + + + + +THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY + +IN A LETTER TO R---- S----, ESQ. + + +Though in some points of doctrine, and perhaps of discipline I am +diffident of lending a perfect assent to that church which you have +so worthily _historified_, yet may the ill time never come to me, +when with a chilled heart, or a portion of irreverent sentiment, I +shall enter her beautiful and time-hallowed Edifices. Judge then +of my mortification when, after attending the choral anthems of +last Wednesday at Westminster, and being desirous of renewing my +acquaintance, after lapsed years, with the tombs and antiquities +there, I found myself excluded; turned out like a dog, or some profane +person, into the common street, with feelings not very congenial to +the place, or to the solemn service which I had been listening to. It +was a jar after that music. + +You had your education at Westminster; and doubtless among those dim +aisles and cloisters, you must have gathered much of that devotional +feeling in those young years, on which your purest mind feeds +still--and may it feed! The antiquarian spirit, strong in you, and +gracefully blending ever with the religious, may have been sown in +you among those wrecks of splendid mortality. You owe it to the +place of your education; you owe it to your learned fondness for the +architecture of your ancestors; you owe it to the venerableness of +your ecclesiastical establishment, which is daily lessened and called +in question through these practices--to speak aloud your sense of +them; never to desist raising your voice against them, till they be +totally done away with and abolished; till the doors of Westminster +Abbey be no longer closed against the decent, though low-in-purse, +enthusiast, or blameless devotee, who must commit an injury against +his family economy, if he would be indulged with a bare admission +within its walls. You owe it to the decencies, which you wish to see +maintained in its impressive services, that our Cathedral be no longer +an object of inspection to the poor at those times only, in which they +must rob from their Attendance on the worship every minute which they +can bestow upon the fabric. In vain the public prints have taken up +this subject, in vain such poor nameless writers as myself express +their indignation. A word from you, Sir--a hint in your Journal--would +be sufficient to fling open the doors of the Beautiful Temple again, +as we can remember them when we were boys. At that time of life, what +would the imaginative faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have +suffered, if the entrance to so much reflection had been obstructed +by the demand of so much silver!--If we had scraped it up to gain an +occasional admission (as we certainly should have done) would the +sight of those old tombs have been as impressive to us (while we had +been weighing anxiously prudence against sentiment) as when the gates +stood open, as those of the adjacent Park; when we could walk in at +any time, as the mood brought us, for a shorter or longer time, as +that lasted? Is the being shown over a place the same as silently for +ourselves detecting the genius of it? In no part of our beloved Abbey +now can a person find entrance (out of service time) under the sum of +_two shillings_. The rich and the great will smile at the anticlimax, +presumed to lie in these two short words. But you can tell them, Sir, +how much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged feeling, how +much taste and genius, may coexist, especially in youth, with a purse +incompetent to this demand.--A respected friend of ours, during his +late visit to the metropolis, presented himself for admission to Saint +Paul's. At the same time a decently clothed man, with as decent a +wife, and child, were bargaining for the same indulgence. The price +was only two-pence each person. The poor but decent man hesitated, +desirous to go in; but there were three of them, and he turned away +reluctantly. Perhaps he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. +Perhaps the Interior of the Cathedral was his object. But in the state +of his finances, even sixpence might reasonably seem too much. Tell +the Aristocracy of the country (no man can do it more impressively); +instruct them of what value these insignificant pieces of money, these +minims to their sight, may be to their humbler brethren. Shame these +Sellers out of the Temple. Stifle not the suggestions of your better +nature with the pretext, that an indiscriminate admission would expose +the Tombs to violation. Remember your boy-days. Did you ever see, +or hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it was free to all? Do the +rabble come there, or trouble their heads about such speculations? +It is all that you can do to drive them into your churches; they do +not voluntarily offer themselves. They have, alas! no passion for +antiquities; for tomb of king or prelate, sage or poet. If they had, +they would be no longer the rabble. + +For forty years that I have known the Fabric, the only well-attested +charge of violation adduced, has been--a ridiculous dismemberment +committed upon the effigy of that amiable spy, Major André. And is it +for this--the wanton mischief of some schoolboy, fired perhaps with +raw notions of Transatlantic Freedom--or the remote possibility +of such a mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented +by stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are +incompetent to the duty--is it upon such wretched pretences, that +the people of England are made to pay a new Peter's Pence, so long +abrogated; or must content themselves with contemplating the ragged +Exterior of their Cathedral? The mischief was done about the time that +you were a scholar there. Do you know any thing about the unfortunate +relic?-- + + + + +AMICUS REDIVIVUS + + + Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep + Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? + + +I do not know when I have experienced a stranger sensation, than +on seeing my old friend G.D., who had been paying me a morning +visit a few Sundays back, at my cottage at Islington, upon taking +leave, instead of turning down the right hand path by which he had +entered--with staff in hand, and at noon day, deliberately march right +forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and totally +disappear. A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling +enough; but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such an unreserved +motion towards self-destruction in a valued friend, took from me all +power of speculation. + +How I found my feet, I know not. Consciousness was quite gone. Some +spirit, not my own, whirled me to the spot. I remember nothing but the +silvery apparition of a good white head emerging; nigh which a staff +(the hand unseen that wielded it) pointed upwards, as feeling for the +skies. In a moment (if time was in that time) he was on my shoulders, +and I--freighted with a load more precious than his who bore Anchises. + +And here I cannot but do justice to the officious zeal of sundry +passers by, who, albeit arriving a little too late to participate in +the honours of the rescue, in philanthropic shoals came thronging to +communicate their advice as to the recovery; prescribing variously +the application, or non-application, of salt, &c., to the person of +the patient. Life meantime was ebbing fast away, amidst the stifle of +conflicting judgments, when one, more sagacious than the rest, by a +bright thought, proposed sending for the Doctor. Trite as the counsel +was, and impossible, as one should think, to be missed on,--shall I +confess?--in this emergency, it was to me as if an Angel had spoken. +Great previous exertions--and mine had not been inconsiderable--are +commonly followed by a debility of purpose. This was a moment of +irresolution. + +MONOCULUS--for so, in default of catching his true name, I choose +to designate the medical gentleman who now appeared--is a grave, +middle-aged person, who, without having studied at the college, or +truckled to the pedantry of a diploma, hath employed a great portion +of his valuable time in experimental processes upon the bodies of +unfortunate fellow-creatures, in whom the vital spark, to mere +vulgar thinking, would seem extinct, and lost for ever. He omitteth +no occasion of obtruding his services, from a case of common +surfeit-suffocation to the ignobler obstructions, sometimes induced by +a too wilful application of the plant _Cannabis_ outwardly. But though +he declineth not altogether these drier extinctions, his occupation +tendeth for the most part to water-practice; for the convenience +of which, he hath judiciously fixed his quarters near the grand +repository of the stream mentioned, where, day and night, from his +little watch-tower, at the Middleton's-Head, he listeneth to detect +the wrecks of drowned mortality--partly, as he saith, to be upon the +spot--and partly, because the liquids which he useth to prescribe +to himself and his patients, on these distressing occasions, are +ordinarily more conveniently to be found at these common hostelries, +than in the shops and phials of the apothecaries. His ear hath arrived +to such finesse by practice, that it is reported, he can distinguish +a plunge at a half furlong distance; and can tell, if it be casual or +deliberate. He weareth a medal, suspended over a suit, originally of a +sad brown, but which, by time, and frequency of nightly divings, has +been dinged into a true professional sable. He passeth by the name of +Doctor, and is remarkable for wanting his left eye. His remedy--after +a sufficient application of warm blankets, friction, &c., is a simple +tumbler, or more, of the purest Cognac, with water, made as hot as +the convalescent can bear it. Where he findeth, as in the case of my +friend, a squeamish subject, he condescendeth to be the taster; and +showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the prescription. +Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure. It addeth +confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in +hand with himself in the remedy. When the doctor swalloweth his own +draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion? +In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender +pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out +in the endeavour to save the lives of others--his pretensions so +moderate, that with difficulty I could press a crown upon him, for the +price of restoring the existence of such an invaluable creature to +society as G.D. + +It was pleasant to observe the effect of the subsiding alarm upon +the nerves of the dear absentee. It seemed to have given a shake +to memory, calling up notice after notice, of all the providential +deliverances he had experienced in the course of his long and innocent +life. Sitting up in my couch--my couch which, naked and void of +furniture hitherto, for the salutary repose which it administered, +shall be honoured with costly valance, at some price, and henceforth +be a state-bed at Colebrooke,--he discoursed of marvellous escapes--by +carelessness of nurses--by pails of gelid, and kettles of the +boiling element, in infancy--by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs, +in schoolboy frolics--by descent of tiles at Trumpington, and of +heavier tomes at Pembroke--by studious watchings, inducing frightful +vigilance--by want, and the fear of want, and all the sore throbbings +of the learned head.--Anon, he would burst out into little fragments +of chaunting--of songs long ago--ends of deliverance-hymns, not +remembered before since childhood, but coming up now, when his +heart was made tender as a child's--for the _tremor cordis_, in the +retrospect of a recent deliverance, as in a case of impending danger, +acting upon an innocent heart, will produce a self-tenderness, which +we should do ill to christen cowardice; and Shakspeare, in the latter +crisis, has made his good Sir Hugh to remember the sitting by Babylon, +and to mutter of shallow rivers. + +Waters of Sir Hugh Middleton--what a spark you were like to have +extinguished for ever! Your salubrious streams to this City, for now +near two centuries, would hardly have atoned for what you were in a +moment washing away. Mockery of a river--liquid artifice--wretched +conduit! henceforth rank with canals, and sluggish aqueducts. Was +it for this, that, smit in boyhood with the explorations of that +Abyssinian traveller, I paced the vales of Amwell to explore your +tributary springs, to trace your salutary waters sparkling through +green Hertfordshire, and cultured Enfield parks?--Ye have no swans--no +Naiads--no river God--or did the benevolent hoary aspect of my friend +tempt ye to suck him in, that ye also might have the tutelary genius +of your waters? + +Had he been drowned in Cam there would have been some consonancy +in it; but what willows had ye to wave and rustle over his moist +sepulture?--or, having no _name_, besides that unmeaning assumption +of _eternal novity_, did ye think to get one by the noble prize, and +henceforth to be termed the STREAM DYERIAN? + + And could such spacious virtue find a grave + Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a wave? + +I protest, George, you shall not venture out again--no, not by +daylight--without a sufficient pair of spectacles--in your musing +moods especially. Your absence of mind we have borne, till your +presence of body came to be called in question by it. You shall not go +wandering into Euripus with Aristotle, if we can help it. Fie, man, +to turn dipper at your years' after your many tracts in favour of +sprinkling only! + +I have nothing but water in my head o' nights since this frightful +accident. Sometimes I am with Clarence in his dream. At others, I +behold Christian beginning to sink, and crying out to his good brother +Hopeful (that is to me), "I sink in deep waters; the billows go over +my head, all the waves go over me. Selah." Then I have before me +Palinurus, just letting go the steerage. I cry out too late to save. +Next follow--a mournful procession--_suicidal faces_, saved against +their wills from drowning; dolefully trailing a length of reluctant +gratefulness, with ropy weeds pendant from locks of watchet +hue-constrained Lazari--Pluto's half-subjects--stolen fees from the +grave-bilking Charon of his fare. At their head Arion--or is it +G.D.?--in his singing garments marcheth singly, with harp in hand, +and votive garland, which Machaon (or Dr. Hawes) snatcheth straight, +intending to suspend it to the stern God of Sea. Then follow dismal +streams of Lethe, in which the half-drenched on earth are constrained +to drown downright, by wharfs where Ophelia twice acts her muddy +death. + +And, doubtless, there is some notice in that invisible world, when one +of us approacheth (as my friend did so lately) to their inexorable +precincts. When a soul knocks once, twice, at death's door, the +sensation aroused within the palace must be considerable; and the grim +Feature, by modern science so often dispossessed of his prey, must +have learned by this time to pity Tantalus. + +A pulse assuredly was felt along the line of the Elysian shades, when +the near arrival of G.D. was announced by no equivocal indications. +From their seats of Asphodel arose the gentler and the graver +ghosts-poet, or historian--of Grecian or of Roman lore--to crown with +unfading chaplets the half-finished love-labours of their unwearied +scholiast. Him Markland expected--him Tyrwhitt hoped to encounter--him +the sweet lyrist of Peter House, whom he had barely seen upon +earth[1], with newest airs prepared to greet ----; and, patron of +the gentle Christ's boy,--who should have been his patron through +life--the mild Askew, with longing aspirations, leaned foremost from +his venerable Æsculapian chair, to welcome into that happy company the +matured virtues of the man, whose tender scions in the boy he himself +upon earth had so prophetically fed and watered. + +[Footnote 1: Graium _tantum vidit_.] + + + + +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY + + +Sydney's Sonnets--I speak of the best of them--are among the very best +of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, +and high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his +compositions of a similar structure. They are in truth what Milton, +censuring the Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort +of after-tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet the +things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the romance) may +be "full of worth and wit." They savour of the Courtier, it must be +allowed, and not of the Commonwealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier +when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still more a Courtier +when he composed the Arcades. When the national struggle was to begin, +he becomingly cast these vanities behind him; and if the order of time +had thrown Sir Philip upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, +there is no reason why he should not have acted the same part in that +emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Sydney. He did not +want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His letter on the French +match may testify, he could speak his mind freely to Princes. The +times did not call him to the scaffold. + +The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the +compositions of his maturest years. Those of Sydney, which I am about +to produce, were written in the very hey-day of his blood. They are +stuck full of amorous fancies--far-fetched conceits, befitting his +occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts +upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich +pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in +self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the +Beloved. We must be Lovers--or at least the cooling touch of time, +the _circum præcordia frigus_, must not have so damped our faculties, +as to take away our recollection that we were once so--before we can +duly appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles, of +the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though by some +accounted the only natural) are least natural for the high Sydnean +love to express its fancies by. They may serve for the loves of +Tibullus, or the dear Author of the Schoolmistress; for passions that +creep and whine in Elegies and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton +never loved at this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses (_ad +Leonoram_ I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the +poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when he could thus +apostrophise a singing-girl:-- + + Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes) + Obtigit ætheriis ales ab ordinibus. + Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi si gloria major, + Nam tua præsentem vox sonat ipsa Deum? + Aut Deus, aut vacui certè mens tertia coeli, + Per tua secretò guttura serpit agens; + Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia corda + Sensim immortali assuescere posse sono. + QUOD SI CUNCTA QUIDEM DEUS EST, PER CUNCTAQUE FUSUS, + IN TE UN LOQUITUR, CÆTERA MUTUS HABET. + +This is loving in a strange fashion; and it requires some candour of +construction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast +a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in +the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if +he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, +Sydney has no nights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the +sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship +with his mortal passions. + + I + + With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies; + How silently; and with how wan a face! + What! may it be, that even in heavenly place + That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries? + Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes + Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; + I read it in thy looks; thy languish! grace + To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. + Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, + Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit? + Are beauties there as proud as here they be? + Do they above love to be loved, and yet + Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? + Do they call _virtue_ there--_ungratefulness_! + +The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He +means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue? + + II + + Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, + The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, + The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, + The indifferent judge between the high and low; + With shield of proof shield me from out the prease[1] + Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw; + O make in me those civil wars to cease: + I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. + Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + And if these things, as being thine by right, + Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, + Livelier than elsewhere, STELLA'S image see. + + + III + + The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness + Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes, + Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, + With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. + Some, that know how my spring I did address, + Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; + Others, because the Prince my service tries, + Think, that I think state errors to redress; + But harder judges judge, ambition's rage, + Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place, + Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden cage. + O fools, or over-wise! alas, the race + Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, + But only STELLA'S eyes, and STELLA'S heart. + + + IV + + Because I oft in dark abstracted guise + Seem most alone in greatest company, + With dearth of words, or answers quite awry, + To them that would make speech of speech arise; + They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies, + That poison foul of bubbling _Pride_ doth lie + So in my swelling breast, that only I + Fawn on myself, and others do despise; + Yet _Pride_, I think, doth not my Soul possess, + Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass: + But one worse fault--_Ambition_--I confess, + That makes me oft my best friends overpass, + Unseen, unheard--while Thought to highest place + Bends all his powers, even unto STELLA'S grace. + + + V + + Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance, + Guided so well that I obtained the prize, + Both by the judgment of the English eyes, + And of some sent from that _sweet enemy_,--France; + Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; + Townsfolk my strength; a daintier judge applies + His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise; + Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; + Others, because of both sides I do take + My blood from them, who did excel in this, + Think Nature me a man of arms did make. + How far they shot awry! the true cause is, + STELLA look'd on, and from her heavenly face + Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. + + + VI + + In martial sports I had my cunning tried, + And yet to break more staves did me address, + While with the people's shouts (I must confess) + Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride-- + When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried + In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, + "What now, Sir Fool!" said he; "I would no less: + Look here, I say." I look'd, and STELLA spied, + Who hard by made a window send forth light. + My heart then quak'd, then dazzled were mine eyes; + One hand forgot to rule, th'other to fight; + Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries. + My foe came on, and beat the air for me-- + Till that her blush made me my shame to see. + + + VII + + No more, my dear, no more these counsels try; + O give my passions leave to run their race; + Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace; + Let folk o'er-charged with brain against me cry; + Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye; + Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace; + Let all the earth with scorn recount my case-- + But do not will me from my love to fly. + I do not envy Aristotle's wit, + Nor do aspire to Cæsar's bleeding fame; + Nor aught do care, though some above me sit; + Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame. + But that which once may win thy cruel heart: + Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. + + + VIII + + Love still a boy, and oft a wanton, is, + School'd only by his mother's tender eye; + What wonder then, if he his lesson miss, + When for so soft a rod dear play he try? + And yet my STAR, because a sugar'd kiss + In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie, + Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only this. + Sweet, it was saucy LOVE, not humble I. + But no 'scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear + In beauty's throne--see now, who dares come near + Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain? + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face + Anger invests with such a lovely grace, + That anger's self I needs must kiss again. + + + IX + + I never drank of Aganippe well, + Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, + And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell; + Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit. + Some do I bear of Poets' fury tell, + But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it; + And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, + I am no pick-purse of another's wit. + How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease + My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow + In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? + Guess me the cause--what is it thus?--fye, no. + Or so?--much less. How then? sure thus it is, + My lips are sweet, inspired with STELLA'S kiss. + + + X + + Of all the kings that ever here did reign, + Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name, + Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain-- + Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame. + Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame + His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain; + And, gain'd by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame, + That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late obtain. + Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so 'fraid, + Though strongly hedged of bloody Lions' paws + That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid. + Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause-- + But only, for this worthy knight durst prove + To lose his crown rather than fail his love. + + + XI + + O happy Thames, that didst my STELLA bear, + I saw thyself, with many a smiling line + Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear, + While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; + The boat for joy could not to dance forbear, + While wanton winds, with beauty so divine + Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair + They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine. + And fain those Æol's youth there would their stay + Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly, + First did with puffing kiss those locks display. + She, so dishevell'd, blush'd; from window I + With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace, + Let honour's self to thee grant highest place! + + + XII + + Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be; + And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, + Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet, + More soft than to a chamber melody,-- + Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me + To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet, + My Muse and I must you of duty greet + With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. + Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed, + By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot; + Nor blam'd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed. + And that you know, I envy you no lot + Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, + Hundreds of years you STELLA'S feet may kiss. + +[Footnote 1: Press.] + +Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last sonnet, are +my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they +are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of +chivalry,"--of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been +the "president,"--shines through them. I confess I can see nothing +of the "jejune" or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and +"cumbrous"--which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The +verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the +trumpet; or tempered (as himself expresses it) to "trampling horses' +feet." They abound in felicitous phrases-- + + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face-- + +_8th Sonnet._ + + --Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + +_2nd Sonnet._ + + --That sweet enemy,--France-- + +_5th Sonnet._ + +But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalised +feelings--the failing too much of some poetry of the present day--they +are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriates +every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a +thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and +illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions +of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs +through them, which almost affixes a date to them; marks the _when_ +and _where_ they were written. + +I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, +because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it +by a gentler name) with which W.H. takes every occasion of insulting +the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of +Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the +most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and +authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived +an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a +king-hater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to +a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a _fine idea_ from my mind. +The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of +character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and +encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries +have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the Critic, that Sir +Philip Sydney was that _opprobrious thing_ which a foolish nobleman in +his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph +made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon +the beautiful lines in the "Friend's Passion for his Astrophel," +printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others. + + You knew--who knew not Astrophel? + (That I should live to say I knew, + And have not in possession still!)-- + Things known permit me to renew-- + Of him you know his merit such, + I cannot say--you hear--too much. + + Within these woods of Arcady + He chief delight and pleasure took; + And on the mountain Partheny. + Upon the crystal liquid brook, + The Muses met him every day, + That taught him sing, to write, and say. + + When he descended down the mount, + His personage seemed most divine: + A thousand graces one might count + Upon his lovely chearful eyne. + To hear him speak, and sweetly smile, + You were in Paradise the while, + + _A sweet attractive kind of grace; + A full assurance given by looks; + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books--_ + I trow that count'nance cannot lye, + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + * * * * * + + Above all others this is he, + Which erst approved in his song, + That love and honour might agree, + And that pure love will do no wrong. + Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame + To love a man of virtuous name. + + Did never Love so sweetly breathe + In any mortal breast before: + Did never Muse inspire beneath + A Poet's brain with finer store. + He wrote of Love with high conceit, + And beauty rear'd above her height. + +Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in +the Poem,--the last in the collection accompanying the above,--which +from internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brooke's,--beginning with +"Silence augmenteth grief,"--and then seriously ask himself, whether +the subject of such absorbing and confounding regrets could have been +_that thing_ which Lord Oxford termed him. + + + + +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO + + +Dan Stuart once told us, that he did not remember that he ever +deliberately walked into the Exhibition at Somerset House in his life. +He might occasionally have escorted a party of ladies across the way +that were going in; but he never went in of his own head. Yet the +office of the Morning Post newspaper stood then just where it does +now--we are carrying you back, Reader, some thirty years or more--with +its gilt-globe-topt front facing that emporium of our artists' grand +Annual Exposure. We sometimes wish, that we had observed the same +abstinence with Daniel. + +A word or two of D.S. He ever appeared to us one of the finest +tempered of Editors. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, was equally +pleasant, with a dash, no slight one either, of the courtier. S. was +frank, plain, and English all over. We have worked for both these +gentlemen. + +It is soothing to contemplate the head of the Ganges; to trace the +first little bubblings of a mighty river; + + With holy reverence to approach the rocks, + Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song. + +Fired with a perusal of the Abyssinian Pilgrim's exploratory ramblings +after the cradle of the infant Nilus, we well remember on one fine +summer holyday (a "whole day's leave" we called it at Christ's +Hospital) sallying forth at rise of sun, not very well provisioned +either for such an undertaking, to trace the current of the New +River--Middletonian stream!--to its scaturient source, as we had read, +in meadows by fair Amwell. Gallantly did we commence our solitary +quest--for it was essential to the dignity of a DISCOVERY, that no eye +of schoolboy, save our own, should beam on the detection. By flowery +spots, and verdant lanes, skirting Hornsey, Hope trained us on in many +a baffling turn; endless, hopeless meanders, as it seemed; or as if +the jealous waters had _dodged_ us, reluctant to have the humble spot +of their nativity revealed; till spent, and nigh famished, before set +of the same sun, we sate down somewhere by Bowes Farm, near Tottenham, +with a tithe of our proposed labours only yet accomplished; sorely +convinced in spirit, that that Brucian enterprise was as yet too +arduous for our young shoulders. + +Not more refreshing to the thirsty curiosity of the traveller is the +tracing of some mighty waters up to their shallow fontlet, than it is +to a pleased and candid reader to go back to the inexperienced essays, +the first callow flights in authorship, of some established name in +literature; from the Gnat which preluded to the Æneid, to the Duck +which Samuel Johnson trod on. + +In those days every Morning Paper, as an essential retainer to its +establishment, kept an author, who was bound to furnish daily a +quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke--and it was thought +pretty high too--was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases. +The chat of the day, scandle, but, above all, _dress_, furnished +the material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven lines. +Shorter they might be, but they must be poignant. + +A fashion of _flesh_, or rather _pink_-coloured hose for the ladies, +luckily coming up at the juncture, when we were on our probation for +the place of Chief Jester to S.'s Paper, established our reputation in +that line. We were pronounced a "capital hand." O the conceits which +we varied upon _red_ in all its prismatic differences! from the trite +and obvious flower of Cytherea, to the flaming costume of the lady +that has her sitting upon "many waters." Then there was the collateral +topic of ancles. What an occasion to a truly chaste writer, like +ourself, of touching that nice brink, and yet never tumbling over it, +of a seemingly ever approximating something "not quite proper;" while, +like a skilful posture-master, balancing betwixt decorums and their +opposites, he keeps the line, from which a hair's-breadth deviation is +destruction; hovering in the confines of light and darkness, or where +"both seem either;" a hazy uncertain delicacy; Autolycus-like in the +Play, still putting off his expectant auditory with "Whoop, do me no +harm, good man!" But, above all, that conceit arrided us most at that +time, and still tickles our midriff to remember, where, allusively +to the flight of Astræa--_ultima Calestûm terras reliquit_--we +pronounced--in reference to the stockings still--that MODESTY TAKING +HER FINAL LEAVE OF MORTALS, HER LAST BLUSH WAS VISIBLE IN HER ASCENT +TO THE HEAVENS BY THE TRACT OF THE GLOWING INSTEP. This might be +called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed tolerable writing in +those days. + +But the fashion of jokes, with all other things, passes away; as did +the transient mode which had so favoured us. The ancles of our fair +friends in a few weeks began to reassume their whiteness, and left us +scarce a leg to stand upon. Other female whims followed, but none, +methought, so pregnant, so invitatory of shrewd conceits, and more +than single meanings. + +Somebody has said, that to swallow six cross-buns daily consecutively +for a fortnight would surfeit the stoutest digestion. But to have to +furnish as many jokes daily, and that not for a fortnight, but for a +long twelvemonth, as we were constrained to do, was a little harder +execution. "Man goeth forth to his work until the evening"--from a +reasonable hour in the morning, we presume it was meant. Now as our +main occupation took us up from eight till five every day in the City; +and as our evening hours, at that time of life, had generally to do +with any thing rather than business, it follows, that the only time +we could spare for this manufactory of jokes--our supplementary +livelihood, that supplied us in every want beyond mere bread and +cheese--was exactly that part of the day which (as we have heard of No +Man's Land) may be fitly denominated No Man's Time; that is, no time +in which a man ought to be up, and awake, in. To speak more plainly, +it is that time, of an hour, or an hour and a half's duration, in +which a man, whose occasions call him up so preposterously, has to +wait for his breakfast. + +O those headaches at dawn of day, when at five, or half-past-five in +summer, and not much later in the dark seasons, we were compelled to +rise, having been perhaps not above four hours in bed--(for we were no +go-to-beds with the lamb, though we anticipated the lark ofttimes in +her rising--we liked a parting cup at midnight, as all young men did +before these effeminate times, and to have our friends about us--we +were not constellated under Aquarius, that watery sign, and therefore +incapable of Bacchus, cold, washy, bloodless--we were none of your +Basilian water-sponges, nor had taken our degrees at Mount Ague--we +were right toping Capulets, jolly companions, we and they)--but to +have to get up, as we said before, curtailed of half our fair sleep, +fasting, with only a dim vista of refreshing Bohea in the distance--to +be necessitated to rouse ourselves at the detestable rap of an old +hag of a domestic, who seemed to take a diabolical pleasure in her +announcement that it was "time to rise;" and whose chappy knuckles +we have often yearned to amputate, and string them up at our chamber +door, to be a terror to all such unseasonable rest-breakers in +future-- + +"Facil" and sweet, as Virgil sings, had been the "descending" of the +over-night, balmy the first sinking of the heavy head upon the pillow; +but to get up, as he goes on to say, + + --revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras-- + +and to get up moreover to make jokes with malice prepended--there was +the "labour," there the "work." + +No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to that, our +slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny, +which this necessity exercised upon us. Half a dozen jests in a day +(bating Sundays too), why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number +every day in our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical +exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when the head has to +go out to them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet-- + +Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth. + +It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings came up; but +mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic +impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature, upon which +no smile could play; some flint, from which no process of ingenuity +could procure a distillation. There they lay; there your appointed +tale of brick-making was set before you, which you must finish, +with or without straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon--_the +Public_--like him in Bel's temple--must be fed; it expected its daily +rations; and Daniel, and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we +could on this side bursting him. + +While we were wringing our coy sprightlinesses for the Post, and +writhing under the toil of what is called "easy writing," Bob Allen, +our quondam schoolfellow, was tapping his impracticable brains in a +like service for the "Oracle." Not that Robert troubled himself much +about wit. If his paragraphs had a sprightly air about them, it was +sufficient. He carried this nonchalance so far at last, that a matter +of intelligence, and that no very important one, was not seldom palmed +upon his employers for a good jest; for example sake--"_Walking +yesterday morning casually down Snow Hill, who should we meet but Mr. +Deputy Humphreys! we rejoice to add, that the worthy Deputy appeared +to enjoy a good state of health. We do not remember ever to have seen +him look better._" This gentleman, so surprisingly met upon Snow Hill, +from some peculiarities in gait or gesture, was a constant butt for +mirth to the small paragraph-mongers of the day; and our friend +thought that he might have his fling at him with the rest. We met +A. in Holborn shortly after this extraordinary rencounter, which he +told with tears of satisfaction in his eyes, and chuckling at the +anticipated effects of its announcement next day in the paper. We did +not quite comprehend where the wit of it lay at the time; nor was it +easy to be detected, when the thing came out, advantaged by type and +letter-press. He had better have met any thing that morning than a +Common Council Man. His services were shortly after dispensed with, +on the plea that his paragraphs of late had been deficient in point. +The one in question, it must be owned, had an air, in the opening +especially, proper to awaken curiosity; and the sentiment, or moral, +wears the aspect of humanity, and good neighbourly feeling. But +somehow the conclusion was not judged altogether to answer to the +magnificent promise of the premises. We traced our friend's pen +afterwards in the "True Briton," the "Star," the "Traveller,"--from +all which he was successively dismissed, the Proprietors having "no +further occasion for his services." Nothing was easier than to detect +him. When wit failed, or topics ran low, there constantly appeared the +following--"_It is not generally known that the three Blue Balls at +the Pawnbrokers' shops are the ancient arms of Lombardy. The Lombards +were the first money-brokers in Europe._" Bob has done more to set +the public right on this important point of blazonry, than the whole +College of Heralds. + +The appointment of a regular wit has long ceased to be a part of the +economy of a Morning Paper. Editors find their own jokes, or do as +well without them. Parson Este, and Topham, brought up the set custom +of "witty paragraphs," first in the "World." Boaden was a reigning +paragraphist in his day, and succeeded poor Allen in the Oracle. +But, as we said, the fashion of jokes passes away; and it would be +difficult to discover in the Biographer of Mrs. Siddons, any traces +of that vivacity and fancy which charmed the whole town at the +commencement of the present century. Even the prelusive delicacies +of the present writer--the curt "Astræan allusion"--would be thought +pedantic, and out of date, in these days. + +From the office of the Morning Post (for we may as well exhaust our +Newspaper Reminiscences at once) by change of property in the paper, +we were transferred, mortifying exchange! to the office of the +Albion Newspaper, late Rackstrow's Museum, in Fleet-street. What a +transition--from a handsome apartment, from rose-wood desks, and +silver-inkstands, to an office--no office, but a _den_ rather, but +just redeemed from the occupation of dead monsters, of which it +seemed redolent--from the centre of loyalty and fashion, to a focus +of vulgarity and sedition! Here in murky closet, inadequate from its +square contents to the receipt of the two bodies of Editor, and humble +paragraph-maker, together at one time, sat in the discharge of his new +Editorial functions (the "Bigod" of Elia) the redoubted John Fenwick. + +F., without a guinea in his pocket, and having left not many in the +pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick +doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the +rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one +Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory +for a libel on the Prince of Wales. With this hopeless concern--for +it had been sinking ever since its commencement, and could now reckon +upon not more than a hundred subscribers--F. resolutely determined +upon pulling down the Government in the first instance, and making +both our fortunes by way of corollary. For seven weeks and mote did +this infatuated Democrat go about borrowing seven shilling pieces, +and lesser coin, to meet the daily demands of the Stamp Office, which +allowed no credit to publications of that side in politics. An outcast +from politer bread, we attached our small talents to the forlorn +fortunes of our friend. Our occupation now was to write treason. + +Recollections of feelings--which were all that now remained from our +first boyish heats kindled by the French Revolution, when if we were +misled, we erred in the company of some, who are accounted very +good men now--rather than any tendency at this time to Republican +doctrines--assisted us in assuming a style of writing, while the +paper lasted, consonant in no very under-tone to the right earnest +fanaticism of F. Our cue was now to insinuate, rather than recommend, +possible abdications. Blocks, axes, Whitehall tribunals, were covered +with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis--as Mr. Bayes says, never +naming the _thing_ directly--that the keen eye of an Attorney General +was insufficient to detect the lurking snake among them. There were +times, indeed, when we sighed for our more gentleman-like occupation +under Stuart. But with change of masters it is ever change of service. +Already one paragraph, and another, as we learned afterwards from a +gentleman at the Treasury, had begun to be marked at that office, with +a view of its being submitted at least to the attention of the proper +Law Officers--when an unlucky, or rather lucky epigram from our pen, +aimed at Sir J----s M----h, who was on the eve of departing for India +to reap the fruits of his apostacy, as F. pronounced it, (it is hardly +worth particularising), happening to offend the nice sense of Lord, +or, as he then delighted to be called, Citizen Stanhope, deprived F. +at once of the last hopes of a guinea from the last patron that had +stuck by us; and breaking up our establishment, left us to the safe, +but somewhat mortifying, neglect of the Crown Lawyers.--It was about +this time, or a little earlier, that Dan. Stuart made that curious +confession to us, that he had "never deliberately walked into an +Exhibition at Somerset House in his life." + + + + +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART + + +Hogarth excepted, can we produce any one painter within the last fifty +years, or since the humour of exhibiting began, that has treated a +story _imaginatively_? By this we mean, upon whom his subject has +so acted, that it has seemed to direct _him_--not to be arranged by +him? Any upon whom its leading or collateral points have impressed +themselves so tyrannically, that he dared not treat it otherwise, +lest he should falsify a revelation? Any that has imparted to his +compositions, not merely so much truth as is enough to convey a story +with clearness, but that individualising property, which should keep +the subject so treated distinct in feature from every other subject, +however similar, and to common apprehensions almost identical; so as +that we might say, this and this part could have found an appropriate +place in no other picture in the world but this? Is there anything in +modern art--we will not demand that it should be equal--but in any +way analogous to what Titian has effected, in that wonderful bringing +together of two times in the "Ariadne," in the National Gallery? +Precipitous, with his reeling Satyr rout about him, re-peopling and +re-illuming suddenly the waste places, drunk with a new fury beyond +the grape, Bacchus, born in fire, fire-like flings himself at the +Cretan. This is the time present. With this telling of the story an +artist, and no ordinary one, might remain richly proud. Guido, in +his harmonious version of it, saw no further. But from the depths of +the imaginative spirit Titian has recalled past time, and laid it +contributory with the present to one simultaneous effect. With the +desert all ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made lucid +with the presence and new offers of a god,--as if unconscious of +Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning +pageant--her soul undistracted from Theseus--Ariadne is still pacing +the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same +local solitude, with which she awoke at day-break to catch the forlorn +last glances of the sail that bore away the Athenian. + +Here are two points miraculously co-uniting; fierce society, with +the feeling of solitude still absolute; noon-day revelations, with +the accidents of the dull grey dawn unquenched and lingering; the +_present_ Bacchus, with the _past_ Ariadne; two stories, with double +Time; separate, and harmonising. Had the artist made the woman one +shade less indifferent to the God; still more, had she expressed a +rapture at his advent, where would have been the story of the mighty +desolation of the heart previous? merged in the insipid accident of a +flattering offer met with a welcome acceptance. The broken heart for +Theseus was not lightly to be pieced up by a God. + +We have before us a fine rough print, from a picture by Raphael in +the Vatican. It is the Presentation of the newborn Eve to Adam by the +Almighty. A fairer mother of mankind we might imagine, and a goodlier +sire perhaps of men since born. But these are matters subordinate to +the conception of the _situation_, displayed in this extraordinary +production. A tolerably modern artist would have been satisfied with +tempering certain raptures of connubial anticipation, with a suitable +acknowledgment to the Giver of the blessing, in the countenance of the +first bridegroom; something like the divided attention of the child +(Adam was here a child man) between the given toy, and the mother +who had just blest it with the bauble. This is the obvious, the +first-sight view, the superficial. An artist of a higher grade, +considering the awful presence they were in, would have taken care +to subtract something from the expression of the more human passion, +and to heighten the more spiritual one. This would be as much as an +exhibition-goer, from the opening of Somerset House to last year's +show, has been encouraged to look for. It is obvious to hint at a +lower expression, yet in a picture, that for respects of drawing +and colouring, might be deemed not wholly inadmissible within these +art-fostering walls, in which the raptures should be as ninety-nine, +the gratitude as one, or perhaps Zero! By neither the one passion nor +the other has Raphael expounded the situation of Adam. Singly upon his +brow sits the absorbing sense of wonder at the created miracle. The +_moment_ is seized by the intuitive artist, perhaps not self-conscious +of his art, in which neither of the conflicting emotions--a moment how +abstracted--have had time to spring up, or to battle for indecorous +mastery.--We have seen a landscape of a justly admired neoteric, in +which he aimed at delineating a fiction, one of the most severely +beautiful in antiquity--the gardens of the Hesperides. To do Mr. ---- +justice, he had painted a laudable orchard, with fitting seclusion, +and a veritable dragon (of which a Polypheme by Poussin is somehow a +fac-simile for the situation), looking over into the world shut out +backwards, so that none but a "still-climbing Hercules" could hope to +catch a peep at the admired Ternary of Recluses. No conventual porter +could keep his keys better than this custos with the "lidless eyes." +He not only sees that none _do_ intrude into that privacy, but, as +clear as daylight, that none but _Hercules aut Diabolus_ by any manner +of means _can_. So far all is well. We have absolute solitude here +or nowhere. _Ab extra_ the damsels are snug enough. But here the +artist's courage seems to have failed him. He began to pity his pretty +charge, and, to comfort the irksomeness, has peopled their solitude +with a bevy of fair attendants, maids of honour, or ladies of the +bed-chamber, according to the approved etiquette at a court of the +nineteenth century; giving to the whole scene the air of a _fête +champêtre_, if we will but excuse the absence of the gentlemen. +This is well, and Watteauish. But what is become of the solitary +mystery--the + + Daughters three, + That sing around the golden tree? + +This is not the way in which Poussin would have treated this subject. + +The paintings, or rather the stupendous architectural designs, of a +modern artist, have been urged as objections to the theory of our +motto. They are of a character, we confess, to stagger it. His towered +structures are of the highest order of the material sublime. Whether +they were dreams, or transcripts of some elder workmanship--Assyrian +ruins old--restored by this mighty artist, they satisfy our most +stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the antique +world. It is a pity that they were ever peopled. On that side, the +imagination of the artist halts, and appears defective. Let us examine +the point of the story in the "Belshazzar's Feast." We will introduce +it by an apposite anecdote. + +The court historians of the day record, that at the first dinner given +by the late King (then Prince Regent) at the Pavilion, the following +characteristic frolic was played off. The guests were select and +admiring; the banquet profuse and admirable; the lights lustrous and +oriental; the eye was perfectly dazzled with the display of plate, +among which the great gold salt-cellar, brought from the regalia in +the Tower for this especial purpose, itself a tower! stood conspicuous +for its magnitude. And now the Rev. **** the then admired court +Chaplain, was proceeding with the grace, when, at a signal given, the +lights were suddenly overcast, and a huge transparency was discovered, +in which glittered in golden letters-- + + "BRIGHTON-EARTHQUAKE-SWALLOW-UP-ALIVE!" + +Imagine the confusion of the guests; the Georges and garters, jewels, +bracelets, moulted upon the occasion! The fans dropt, and picked up +the next morning by the sly court pages! Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name +fainting, and the Countess of **** holding the smelling bottle, +till the good-humoured Prince caused harmony to be restored by calling +in fresh candles, and declaring that the whole was nothing but a +pantomime _hoax_, got up by the ingenious Mr. Farley, of Covent +Garden, from hints which his Royal Highness himself had furnished! +Then imagine the infinite applause that followed, the mutual +rallyings, the declarations that "they were not much frightened," of +the assembled galaxy. + +The point of time in the picture exactly answers to the appearance of +the transparency in the anecdote. The huddle, the flutter, the bustle, +the escape, the alarm, and the mock alarm; the prettinesses heightened +by consternation; the courtier's fear which was flattery, and the +lady's which was affectation; all that we may conceive to have taken +place in a mob of Brighton courtiers, sympathising with the well-acted +surprise of their sovereign; all this, and no more, is exhibited by +the well-dressed lords and ladies in the Hall of Belus. Just this sort +of consternation we have seen among a flock of disquieted wild geese +at the report only of a gun having gone off! + +But is this vulgar fright, this mere animal anxiety for the +preservation of their persons,--such as we have witnessed at a +theatre, when a slight alarm of fire has been given--an adequate +exponent of a supernatural terror? the way in which the finger of God, +writing judgments, would have been met by the withered conscience? +There is a human fear, and a divine fear. The one is disturbed, +restless, and bent upon escape. The other is bowed down, effortless, +passive. When the spirit appeared before Eliphaz in the visions of the +night, and the hair of his flesh stood up, was it in the thoughts +of the Temanite to ring the bell of his chamber, or to call up the +servants? But let us see in the text what there is to justify all this +huddle of vulgar consternation. + +From the words of Daniel it appears that Belshazzar had made a great +feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. +The golden and silver vessels are gorgeously enumerated, with the +princes, the king's concubines, and his wives. Then follows-- + +"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over +against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's +palace; and the _king_ saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the +_king's_ countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so +that the joints of his loins were loosened, and his knees smote one +against another." + +This is the plain text. By no hint can it be otherwise inferred, but +that the appearance was solely confined to the fancy of Belshazzar, +that his single brain was troubled. Not a word is spoken of its being +seen by any else there present, not even by the queen herself, who +merely undertakes for the interpretation of the phenomenon, as related +to her, doubtless, by her husband. The lords are simply said to be +astonished; _i.e._ at the trouble and the change of countenance in +their sovereign. Even the prophet does not appear to have seen the +scroll, which the king saw. He recals it only, as Joseph did the Dream +to the King of Egypt. "Then was the part of the hand sent from him +[the Lord], and this writing was written." He speaks of the phantasm +as past. + +Then what becomes of this needless multiplication of the miracle? this +message to a royal conscience, singly expressed--for it was said, +"thy kingdom is divided,"--simultaneously impressed upon the fancies +of a thousand courtiers, who were implied in it neither directly nor +grammatically? But admitting the artist's own version of the story, +and that the sight was seen also by the thousand courtiers--let it +have been visible to all Babylon--as the knees of Belshazzar were +shaken, and his countenance troubled, even so would the knees of every +man in Babylon, and their countenances, as of an individual man, been +troubled; bowed, bent down, so would they have remained, stupor-fixed, +with no thought of struggling with that inevitable judgment. + +Not all that is optically possible to be seen, is to be shown in every +picture. The eye delightedly dwells upon the brilliant individualities +in a "Marriage at Cana," by Veronese, or Titian, to the very texture +and colour of the wedding garments, the ring glittering upon the +bride's fingers, the metal and fashion of the wine pots; for at such +seasons there is leisure and luxury to be curious. But in a "day of +judgment," or in a "day of lesser horrors, yet divine," as at the +impious feast of Belshazzar, the eye should see, as the actual eye of +an agent or patient in the immediate scene would see, only in masses +and indistinction. Not only the female attire and jewelry exposed +to the critical eye of the fashion, as minutely as the dresses in +a lady's magazine, in the criticised picture,--but perhaps the +curiosities of anatomical science, and studied diversities of posture +in the falling angels and sinners of Michael Angelo,--have no business +in their great subjects. There was no leisure of them. + +By a wise falsification, the great masters of painting got at their +true conclusions; by not showing the actual appearances, that is, all +that was to be seen at any given moment by an indifferent eye, but +only what the eye might be supposed to see in the doing or suffering +of some portentous action. Suppose the moment of the swallowing up of +Pompeii. There they were to be seen--houses, columns, architectural +proportions, differences of public and private buildings, men and +women at their standing occupations, the diversified thousand +postures, attitudes, dresses, in some confusion truly, but physically +they were visible. But what eye saw them at that eclipsing moment, +which reduces confusion to a kind of unity, and when the senses +are upturned from their proprieties, when sight and hearing are a +feeling only? A thousand years have passed, and we are at leisure to +contemplate the weaver fixed standing at his shuttle, the baker at his +oven, and to turn over with antiquarian coolness the pots and pans of +Pompeii. + +"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeah, and thou, Moon, in the valley of +Ajalon." Who, in reading this magnificent Hebraism, in his conception, +sees aught but the heroic son of Nun, with the out-stretched arm, +and the greater and lesser light obsequious? Doubtless there were to +be seen hill and dale, and chariots and horsemen, on open plain, or +winding by secret defiles, and all the circumstances and stratagems +of war. But whose eyes would have been conscious of this array at the +interposition of the synchronic miracle? Yet in the picture of this +subject by the artist of the "Belshazzar's Feast"--no ignoble work +either--the marshalling and landscape of the war is everything, the +miracle sinks into an anecdote of the day; and the eye may "dart +through rank and file traverse" for some minutes, before it shall +discover, among his armed followers, _which is Joshua_! Not modern art +alone, but ancient, where only it is to be found if anywhere, can be +detected erring, from defect of this imaginative faculty. The world +has nothing to show of the preternatural in painting, transcending the +figure of Lazarus bursting his grave-clothes, in the great picture at +Angerstein's. It seems a thing between two beings. A ghastly horror +at itself struggles with newly-apprehending gratitude at second life +bestowed. It cannot forget that it was a ghost. It has hardly felt +that it is a body. It has to tell of the world of spirits.--Was it +from a feeling, that the crowd of half-impassioned by-standers, and +the still more irrelevant herd of passers-by at a distance, who have +not heard or but faintly have been told of the passing miracle, +admirable as they are in design and hue--for it is a glorified +work--do not respond adequately to the action--that the single figure +of the Lazarus has been attributed to Michael Angelo, and the mighty +Sebastian unfairly robbed of the fame of the greater half of the +interest? Now that there were not indifferent passers-by within actual +scope of the eyes of those present at the miracle, to whom the sound +of it had but faintly, or not at all, reached, it would be hardihood +to deny; but would they see them? or can the mind in the conception of +it admit of such unconcerning objects? can it think of them at all? or +what associating league to the imagination can there be between the +seers, and the seers not, of a presential miracle? + +Were an artist to paint upon demand a picture of a Dryad, we will ask +whether, in the present low state of expectation, the patron would +not, or ought not to be fully satisfied with a beautiful naked figure +recumbent under wide-stretched oaks? Disseat those woods, and place +the same figure among fountains, and falls of pellucid water, and +you have a--Naiad! Not so in a rough print we have seen after Julio +Romano, we think--for it is long since--_there_, by no process, with +mere change of scene, could the figure have reciprocated characters. +Long, grotesque, fantastic, yet with a grace of her own, beautiful in +convolution and distortion, linked to her connatural tree, co-twisting +with its limbs her own, till both seemed either--these, animated +branches; those, disanimated members--yet the animal and vegetable +lives sufficiently kept distinct--_his_ Dryad lay--an approximation of +two natures, which to conceive, it must be seen; analogous to, not the +same with, the delicacies of Ovidian transformations. + +To the lowest subjects, and, to a superficial comprehension, the +most barren, the Great Masters gave loftiness and fruitfulness. The +large eye of genius saw in the meanness of present objects their +capabilities of treatment from their relations to some grand +Past or Future. How has Raphael--we must still linger about the +Vatican--treated the humble craft of the ship-builder, in _his_ +"Building of the Ark?" It is in that scriptural series, to which we +have referred, and which, judging from some fine rough old graphic +sketches of them which we possess, seem to be of a higher and more +poetic grade than even the Cartoons. The dim of sight are the +timid and the shrinking. There is a cowardice in modern art. As +the Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend made the prophetic guess +at Rome, from the beard and horns of the Moses of Michael Angelo +collected no inferences beyond that of a He Goat and a Cornuto; so +from this subject, of mere mechanic promise, it would instinctively +turn away, as from one incapable of investiture with any grandeur. The +dock-yards at Woolwich would object derogatory associations. The depôt +at Chatham would be the mote and the beam in its intellectual eye. But +not to the nautical preparations in the ship-yards of Civita Vecchia +did Raphael look for instructions, when he imagined the Building of +the Vessel that was to be conservatory of the wrecks of the species of +drowned mankind. In the intensity of the action, he keeps ever out of +sight the meanness of the operation. There is the Patriarch, in calm +forethought, and with holy prescience, giving directions. And there +are his agents--the solitary but sufficient Three--hewing, sawing, +every one with the might and earnestness of a Demiurgus; under some +instinctive rather than technical guidance; giant-muscled; every one a +Hercules, or liker to those Vulcanian Three, that in sounding caverns +under Mongibello wrought in fire--Brontes, and black Steropes, and +Pyracmon. So work the workmen that should repair a world! + +Artists again err in the confounding of _poetic_ with _pictorial +subjects_. In the latter, the exterior accidents are nearly +everything, the unseen qualities as nothing. Othello's colour--the +infirmities and corpulence of a Sir John Falstaff--do they haunt us +perpetually in the reading? or are they obtruded upon our conceptions +one time for ninety-nine that we are lost in admiration at the +respective moral or intellectual attributes of the character? But in +a picture Othello is _always_ a Blackamoor; and the other only Plump +Jack. Deeply corporealised, and enchained hopelessly in the grovelling +fetters of externality, must be the mind, to which, in its better +moments, the image of the high-souled, high-intelligenced Quixote--the +errant Star of Knighthood, made more tender by eclipse--has never +presented itself, divested from the unhallowed accompaniment of a +Sancho, or a rabblement at the heels of Rosinante. That man has read +his book by halves; he has laughed, mistaking his author's purport, +which was--tears. The artist that pictures Quixote (and it is in this +degrading point that he is every season held up at our Exhibitions) +in the shallow hope of exciting mirth, would have joined the rabble +at the heels of his starved steed. We wish not to see _that_ +counterfeited, which we would not have wished to see in the reality. +Conscious of the heroic inside of the noble Quixote, who, on hearing +that his withered person was passing, would have stepped over his +threshold to gaze upon his forlorn habiliments, and the "strange +bed-fellows which misery brings a man acquainted with?" Shade of +Cervantes! who in thy Second Part could put into the mouth of thy +Quixote those high aspirations of a super-chivalrous gallantry, where +he replies to one of the shepherdesses, apprehensive that he would +spoil their pretty networks, and inviting him to be a guest with them, +in accents like these: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actæon was not more +astonished when he saw Diana bathing herself at the fountain, than +I have been in beholding your beauty: I commend the manner of your +pastime, and thank you for your kind offers; and, if I may serve +you, so I may be sure you will be obeyed, you may command me: for my +profession is this, To shew myself thankful, and a doer of good to all +sorts of people, especially of the rank that your person shows you to +be; and if those nets, as they take up but a little piece of ground, +should take up the whole world, I would seek out new worlds to pass +through, rather than break them: and (he adds,) that you may give +credit to this my exaggeration, behold at least he that promiseth you +this, is Don Quixote de la Mancha, if haply this name hath come to +your hearing." Illustrious Romancer! were the "fine frenzies," which +possessed the brain of thy own Quixote, a fit subject, as in this +Second Part, to be exposed to the jeers of Duennas and Serving Men? to +be monstered, and shown up at the heartless banquets of great men? Was +that pitiable infirmity, which in thy First Part misleads him, _always +from within_, into half-ludicrous, but more than half-compassionable +and admirable errors, not infliction enough from heaven, that men by +studied artifices must devise and practise upon the humour, to inflame +where they should soothe it? Why, Goneril would have blushed to +practise upon the abdicated king at this rate, and the she-wolf Regan +not have endured to play the pranks upon his fled wits, which thou +hast made thy Quixote suffer in Duchesses' halls, and at the hands of +that unworthy nobleman.[1] + +In the First Adventures, even, it needed all the art of the most +consummate artist in the Book way that the world hath yet seen, +to keep up in the mind of the reader the heroic attributes of the +character without relaxing; so as absolutely that they shall suffer no +alloy from the debasing fellowship of the clown. If it ever obtrudes +itself as a disharmony, are we inclined to laugh; or not, rather, +to indulge a contrary emotion?--Cervantes, stung, perchance, by the +relish with which _his_ Reading Public had received the fooleries of +the man, more to their palates than the generosities of the master, in +the sequel let his pen run riot, lost the harmony and the balance, and +sacrificed a great idea to the taste of his contemporaries. We know +that in the present day the Knight has fewer admirers than the Squire. +Anticipating, what did actually happen to him--as afterwards it did +to his scarce inferior follower, the Author of "Guzman de +Alfarache"--that some less knowing hand would prevent him by a +spurious Second Part: and judging, that it would be easier for his +competitor to out-bid him in the comicalities, than in the _romance_, +of his work, he abandoned his Knight, and has fairly set up the Squire +for his Hero. For what else has he unsealed the eyes of Sancho; and +instead of that twilight state of semi-insanity--the madness at +second-hand--the contagion, caught from a stronger mind infected--that +war between native cunning, and hereditary deference, with which he +has hitherto accompanied his master--two for a pair almost--does he +substitute a downright Knave, with open eyes, for his own ends only +following a confessed Madman; and offering at one time to lay, if not +actually laying, hands upon him! From the moment that Sancho loses his +reverence, Don Quixote is become a--treatable lunatic. Our artists +handle him accordingly. + +[Footnote 1: Yet from this Second Part, our cried-up pictures are +mostly selected; the waiting-women with beards, &c.] + + + + +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE + + +The _Old Year_ being dead, and the _New Year_ coming of age, which +he does, by Calendar Law, as soon as the breath is out of the old +gentleman's body, nothing would serve the young spark but he must +give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the _Days_ in the year +were invited. The _Festivals_, whom he deputed as his stewards, were +mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged time out of +mind, they said, in providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below; +and it was time they should have a taste of their own bounty. It was +stiffly debated among them, whether the _Fasts_ should be admitted. +Some said, the appearance of such lean, starved guests, with their +mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But the +objection was over-ruled by _Christmas Day_, who had a design upon +_Ash Wednesday_ (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how +the old Domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the _Vigils_ +were requested to come with their lanterns, to light the gentlefolks +home at night. + +All the _Days_ came to their day. Covers were provided for three +hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table: with an +occasional knife and fork at the side-board for the _Twenty-Ninth of +February_. + +I should have told you, that cards of invitation had been issued. The +carriers were the _Hours_; twelve little, merry, whirligig foot-pages, +as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the +persons invited well enough, with the exception of _Easter Day_, +_Shrove Tuesday_, and a few such _Moveables_, who had lately shifted +their quarters. + +Well, they all met at last, foul _Days_, fine _Days_, all sorts of +_Days_, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but, Hail! +fellow _Day_,--well met--brother _Day_--sister _Day_,--only _Lady Day_ +kept a little on the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some +said, _Twelfth Day_ cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany +suit, white and gold, like a queen on a frost-cake, all royal, +glittering, and _Epiphanous_. The rest came, some in green, some in +white--but old _Lent and his family_ were not yet out of mourning. +Rainy _Days_ came in, dripping; and sun-shiny _Days_ helped them +to change their stockings. _Wedding Day_ was there in his marriage +finery, a little the worse for wear. _Pay Day_ came late, as he always +does; and _Doomsday_ sent word--he might be expected. + +_April Fool_ (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal +the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old +Erra Pater to have found out any given _Day_ in the year, to erect a +scheme upon--good _Days_, bad _Days_, were so shuffled together, to +the confounding of all sober horoscopy. + +He had stuck the _Twenty First of June_ next to the _Twenty Second of +December_, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. +_Ash Wednesday_ got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt _Christmas_ +and _Lord Mayor's Days_. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but +barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great +greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still +_Christmas Day_ was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till +he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried +ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, +censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a +gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard +that stood before his _left-hand neighbour_, and daubed his hungry +beard all over with it, till you would have taken him for the _Last +Day in December_, it so hung in icicles. + +At another part of the table, _Shrove Tuesday_ was helping the _Second +of September_ to some cock broth,--which courtesy the latter returned +with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant--so there was no love lost +for that matter. The _Last of Lent_ was spunging upon _Shrovetide's_ +pancakes; which _April Fool_ perceiving, told him he did well, for +pancakes were proper to a _good fry-day_. + +In another part, a hubbub arose about the _Thirtieth of January_, who, +it seems, being a sour puritanic character, that thought nobody's meat +good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a calf's +head, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking +to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, _March +manyweathers_, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the megrims, +screamed out there was a "human head in the platter," and raved about +Herodias' daughter to that degree, that the obnoxious viand was +obliged to be removed; nor did she recover her stomach till she had +gulped down a _Restorative_, confected of _Oak Apple_, which the merry +_Twenty Ninth of May_ always carries about with him for that purpose. + +The King's health[1] being called for after this, a notable +dispute arose between the _Twelfth of August_ (a zealous old Whig +gentlewoman,) and the _Twenty Third of April_ (a new-fangled lady of +the Tory stamp,) as to which of them should have the honour to propose +it. _August_ grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the +prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had basely +supplanted her; whom she represented as little better than a _kept_ +mistress, who went about in _fine clothes_, while she (the legitimate +BIRTHDAY) had scarcely a rag, &c. + +_April fool_, being made mediator, confirmed the right in the +strongest form of words to the appellant, but decided for peace' sake +that the exercise of it should remain with the present possessor. At +the same time, he slily rounded the first lady in the ear, that an +action might lie against the Crown for _bi-geny_. + +It beginning to grow a little duskish, _Candlemas_ lustily bawled out +for lights, which was opposed by all the _Days_, who protested against +burning daylight. Then fair water was handed round in silver ewers, +and the _same lady_ was observed to take an unusual time in _Washing_ +herself. + +_May Day_, with that sweetness which is peculiar to her, in a neat +speech proposing the health of the founder, crowned her goblet (and by +her example the rest of the company) with garlands. This being done, +the lordly _New Year_ from the upper end of the table, in a cordial +but somewhat lofty tone, returned thanks. He felt proud on an occasion +of meeting so many of his worthy father's late tenants, promised to +improve their farms, and at the same time to abate (if any thing was +found unreasonable) in their rents. + +At the mention of this, the four _Quarter Days_ involuntarily looked +at each other, and smiled; _April Fool_ whistled to an old tune of +"New Brooms;" and a surly old rebel at the farther end of the table +(who was discovered to be no other than the _Fifth of November_,) +muttered out, distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, +words to this effect, that, "when the old one is gone, he is a fool +that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, +unanimously voted his expulsion; and the male-content was thrust out +neck and heels into the cellar, as the properest place for such a +_boutefeu_ and firebrand as he had shown himself to be. + +Order being restored--the young lord (who to say truth, had been a +little ruffled, and put beside his oratory) in as few, and yet as +obliging words as possible, assured them of entire welcome; and, with +a graceful turn, singling out poor _Twenty Ninth of February_, that +had sate all this while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple +his health with that of the good company before him--which he drank +accordingly; observing, that he had not seen his honest face any time +these four years, with a number of endearing expressions besides. At +the same time, removing the solitary _Day_ from the forlorn seat which +had been assigned him, he stationed him at his own board, somewhere +between the _Greek Calends_ and _Latter Lammas_. + +_Ash Wednesday_, being now called upon for a song, with his eyes fast +stuck in his head, and as well as the Canary he had swallowed would +give him leave, struck up a Carol, which _Christmas Day_ had taught +him for the nonce; and was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" +in fine style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl of +_Old Mortification_ with infinite humour. _April Fool_ swore they had +exchanged conditions: but _Good Friday_ was observed to look extremely +grave; and _Sunday_ held her fan before her face, that she might not +be seen to smile. + +_Shrove-tide_, _Lord Mayor's Day_, and _April Fool_, next joined in a +glee-- + + Which is the properest day to drink? + +in which all the _Days_ chiming in, made a merry burden. + +They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The question being +proposed, who had the greatest number of followers--the _Quarter Days_ +said, there could be no question as to that; for they had all the +creditors in the world dogging their heels. But _April Fool_ gave it +in favour of the _Forty Days before Easter_; because the debtors in +all cases outnumbered the creditors, and they kept _lent_ all the +year. + +All this while, _Valentine's Day_ kept courting pretty _May_, who sate +next him, slipping amorous _billets-doux_ under the table, till the +_Dog Days_ (who are naturally of a warm constitution) began to be +jealous, and to bark and rage exceedingly. _April Fool_, who likes +a bit of sport above measure, and had some pretensions to the lady +besides, as being but a cousin once removed,--clapped and halloo'd +them on; and as fast as their indignation cooled, those mad wags, the +_Ember Days_, were at it with their bellows, to blow it into a flame; +and all was in a ferment: till old Madam _Septuagesima_ (who boasts +herself the _Mother of the Days_) wisely diverted the conversation +with a tedious tale of the lovers which she could reckon when she was +young; and of one Master _Rogation Day_ in particular, who was for +ever putting the _question_ to her; but she kept him at a distance, as +the chronicle would tell--by which I apprehend she meant the Almanack. +Then she rambled on to the _Days that were gone_, the _good old Days_, +and so to the _Days before the Flood_--which plainly showed her old +head to be little better than crazed and doited. + +Day being ended, the _Days_ called for their cloaks and great coats, +and took their leaves. _Lord Mayor's Day_ went off in a Mist, as +usual; _Shortest Day_ in a deep black Fog, that wrapt the little +gentleman all round like a hedge-hog. Two _Vigils_--so watchmen are +called in heaven--saw _Christmas Day_ safe home--they had been used to +the business before. Another _Vigil_--a stout, sturdy patrole, called +the _Eve of St. Christopher_--seeing _Ash Wednesday_ in a condition +little better than he should be--e'en whipt him over his shoulders, +pick-a-back fashion, and _Old Mortification_ went floating home, +singing-- + + On the bat's back do I fly, + +and a number of old snatches besides, between drunk and sober, but +very few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may believe me) were among them. +_Longest Day_ set off westward in beautiful crimson and gold--the +rest, some in one fashion, some in another; but _Valentine_ and pretty +_May_ took their departure together in one of the prettiest silvery +twilights a Lover's Day could wish to set in. + +[Footnote 1: The late King.] + + + + +THE WEDDING + + +I do not know when I have been better pleased than at being invited +last week to be present at the wedding of a friend's daughter. I like +to make one at these ceremonies, which to us old people give back our +youth in a manner, and restore our gayest season, in the remembrance +of our own success, or the regrets, scarcely less tender, of our own +youthful disappointments, in this point of a settlement. On these +occasions I am sure to be in good-humour for a week or two after, and +enjoy a reflected honey-moon. Being without a family, I am flattered +with these temporary adoptions into a friend's family; I feel a +sort of cousinhood, or uncleship, for the season; I am inducted +into degrees of affinity; and, in the participated socialities of +the little community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary +bachelorship. I carry this humour so far, that I take it unkindly to +be left out, even when a funeral is going on in the house of a dear +friend. But to my subject.-- + +The union itself had been long settled, but its celebration had been +hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable state of suspense in the +lovers, by some invincible prejudices which the bride's father had +unhappily contracted upon the subject of the too early marriages of +females. He has been lecturing any time these five years--for to +that length the courtship has been protracted--upon the propriety of +putting off the solemnity, till the lady should have completed her +five and twentieth year. We all began to be afraid that a suit, which +as yet had abated of none of its ardours, might at last be lingered +on, till passion had time to cool, and love go out in the experiment. +But a little wheedling on the part of his wife, who was by no means +a party to these overstrained notions, joined to some serious +expostulations on that of his friends, who, from the growing +infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise ourselves many +years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious to bring matters to +a conclusion during his life-time, at length prevailed; and on Monday +last the daughter of my old friend, Admiral ---- having attained the +_womanly_ age of nineteen, was conducted to the church by her pleasant +cousin J----, who told some few years older. + +Before the youthful part of my female readers express their +indignation at the abominable loss of time occasioned to the lovers +by the preposterous notions of my old friend, they will do well to +consider the reluctance which a fond parent naturally feels at parting +with his child. To this unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may +be traced the difference of opinion on this point between child and +parent, whatever pretences of interest or prudence may be held out to +cover it. The hard-heartedness of fathers is a fine theme for romance +writers, a sure and moving topic; but is there not something untender, +to say no more of it, in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes +in to tear herself from the parental stock, and commit herself to +strange graftings? The case is heightened where the lady, as in the +present instance, happens to be an only child. I do not understand +these matters experimentally, but I can make a shrewd guess at +the wounded pride of a parent upon these occasions. It is no new +observation, I believe, that a lover in most cases has no rival so +much to be feared as the father. Certainly there is a jealousy in +_unparallel subjects_, which is little less heart-rending than the +passion which we more strictly christen by that name. Mothers' +scruples are more easily got over; for this reason, I suppose, that +the protection transferred to a husband is less a derogation and a +loss to their authority than to the paternal. Mothers, besides, have a +trembling foresight, which paints the inconveniences (impossible to be +conceived in the same degree by the other parent) of a life of forlorn +celibacy, which the refusal of a tolerable match may entail upon +their child. Mothers' instinct is a surer guide here, than the cold +reasonings of a father on such a topic. To this instinct may be +imputed, and by it alone may be excused, the unbeseeming artifices, by +which some wives push on the matrimonial projects of their daughters, +which the husband, however approving, shall entertain with comparative +indifference. A little shamelessness on this head is pardonable. +With this explanation, forwardness becomes a grace, and maternal +importunity receives the name of a virtue.--But the parson stays, +while I preposterously assume his office; I am preaching, while the +bride is on the threshold. + +Nor let any of my female readers suppose that the sage reflections +which have just escaped me have the obliquest tendency of application +to the young lady, who, it will be seen, is about to venture upon a +change in her condition, at a _mature and competent age_, and not +without the fullest approbation of all parties. I only deprecate _very +hasty marriages_. + +It had been fixed that the ceremony should be gone through at an early +hour, to give time for a little _déjeuné_ afterwards, to which a +select party of friends had been invited. We were in church a little +before the clock struck eight. + +Nothing could be more judicious or graceful than the dress of the +bride-maids--the three charming Miss Foresters--on this morning. To +give the bride an opportunity of shining singly, they had come habited +all in green. I am ill at describing female apparel; but, while _she_ +stood at the altar in vestments white and candid as her thoughts, a +sacrificial whiteness, _they_ assisted in robes, such as might become +Diana's nymphs--Foresters indeed--as such who had not yet come to the +resolution of putting off cold virginity. These young maids, not being +so blest as to have a mother living, I am told, keep single for their +father's sake, and live altogether so happy with their remaining +parent, that the hearts of their lovers are ever broken with the +prospect (so inauspicious to their hopes) of such uninterrupted +and provoking home-comfort. Gallant girls! each a victim worthy of +Iphigenia! + +I do not know what business I have to be present in solemn places. I +cannot divest me of an unseasonable disposition to levity upon the +most awful occasions. I was never cut out for a public functionary. +Ceremony and I have long shaken hands; but I could not resist the +importunities of the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily +confined him at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and _give +away the bride._ Something ludicrous occurred to me at this most +serious of all moments--a sense of my unfitness to have the disposal, +even in imagination, of the sweet young creature beside me. I fear I +was betrayed to some lightness, for the awful eye of the parson--and +the rector's eye of Saint Mildred's in the Poultry is no trifle of a +rebuke--was upon me in an instant, souring my incipient jest to the +tristful severities of a funeral. + +This was the only misbehaviour which I can plead to upon this solemn +occasion, unless what was objected to me after the ceremony by one of +the handsome Miss T----s, be accounted a solecism. She was pleased to +say that she had never seen a gentleman before me give away a bride in +black. Now black has been my ordinary apparel so long--indeed I take +it to be the proper costume of an author--the stage sanctions it--that +to have appeared in some lighter colour would have raised more mirth +at my expense, than the anomaly had created censure. But I could +perceive that the bride's mother, and some elderly ladies present (God +bless them!) would have been well content, if I had come in any other +colour than that. But I got over the omen by a lucky apologue, which +I remembered out of Pilpay, or some Indian author, of all the birds +being invited to the linnets' wedding, at which, when all the rest +came in their gayest feathers, the raven alone apologised for his +cloak because "he had no other." This tolerably reconciled the elders. +But with the young people all was merriment, and shakings of hands, +and congratulations, and kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings +from her in return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in +these matters, having worn the nuptial bands some four or five weeks +longer than her friend, rescued her, archly observing, with half an +eye upon the bridegroom, that at this rate she would have "none left." + +My friend the admiral was in fine wig and buckle on this occasion--a +striking contrast to his usual neglect of personal appearance. He did +not once shove up his borrowed locks (his custom ever at his morning +studies) to betray the few grey stragglers of his own beneath them. +He wore an aspect of thoughtful satisfaction. I trembled for the +hour, which at length approached, when after a protracted _breakfast_ +of three hours--if stores of cold fowls, tongues, hams, botargoes, +dried fruits, wines, cordials, &c., can deserve so meagre an +appellation--the coach was announced, which was come to carry off the +bride and bridegroom for a season, as custom has sensibly ordained, +into the country; upon which design, wishing them a felicitous +journey, let us return to the assembled guests. + + As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage, + The eyes of men + Are idly bent on him that enters next, + +so idly did we bend our eyes upon one another, when the chief +performers in the morning's pageant had vanished. None told his tale. +None sipt her glass. The poor Admiral made an effort--it was not much. +I had anticipated so far. Even the infinity of full satisfaction, that +had betrayed itself through the prim looks and quiet deportment of his +lady, began to wane into something of misgiving. No one knew whether +to take their leaves or stay. We seemed assembled upon a silly +occasion. In this crisis, betwixt tarrying and departure, I must do +justice to a foolish talent of mine, which had otherwise like to +have brought me into disgrace in the fore-part of the day; I mean a +power, in any emergency, of thinking and giving vent to all manner +of strange nonsense. In this awkward dilemma I found it sovereign. I +rattled off some of my most excellent absurdities. All were willing +to be relieved, at any expense of reason, from the pressure of the +intolerable vacuum which had succeeded to the morning bustle. By this +means I was fortunate in keeping together the better part of the +company to a late hour: and a rubber of whist (the Admiral's favourite +game) with some rare strokes of chance as well as skill, which came +opportunely on his side--lengthened out till midnight--dismissed the +old gentleman at last to his bed with comparatively easy spirits. + +I have been at my old friend's various times since. I do not know a +visiting place where every guest is so perfectly at his ease; nowhere, +where harmony is so strangely the result of confusion. Every body is +at cross purposes, yet the effect is so much better than uniformity. +Contradictory orders; servants pulling one way; master and mistress +driving some other, yet both diverse; visitors huddled up in corners; +chairs unsymmetrised; candles disposed by chance; meals at odd hours, +tea and supper at once, or the latter preceding the former; the host +and the guest conferring, yet each upon a different topic, each +understanding himself, neither trying to understand or hear the +other; draughts and politics, chess and political economy, cards and +conversation on nautical matters, going on at once, without the hope, +or indeed the wish, of distinguishing them, make it altogether the +most perfect _concordia discors_ you shall meet with. Yet somehow the +old house is not quite what it should be. The Admiral still enjoys +his pipe, but he has no Miss Emily to fill it for him. The instrument +stands where it stood, but she is gone, whose delicate touch could +sometimes for a short minute appease the warring elements. He has +learnt, as Marvel expresses it, to "make his destiny his choice." He +bears bravely up, but he does not come out with his flashes of wild +wit so thick as formerly. His sea songs seldomer escape him. His wife, +too, looks as if she wanted some younger body to scold and set to +rights. We all miss a junior presence. It is wonderful how one young +maiden freshens up, and keeps green, the paternal roof. Old and young +seem to have an interest in her, so long as she is not absolutely +disposed of. The youthfulness of the house is flown. Emily is married. + + + + +THE CHILD ANGEL + +A DREAM + + +I chanced upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of a dream the +other night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves +of the Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations, +suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth to +innumerable conjectures; and, I remember, the last waking thought, +which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder, "what +could come of it." + +I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make +out--but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens +neither--not the downright Bible heaven--but a kind of fairyland +heaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air +itself, I will hope, without presumption. + +Methought--what wild things dreams are!--I was present--at what would +you imagine?--at an angel's gossiping. + +Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it came +purely of its own head, neither you nor I know--but there lay, sure +enough, wrapped in its little cloudy swaddling bands--a Child Angel. + +Sun-threads--filmy beams--ran through the celestial napery of what +seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered round, +watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which, +when it did, first one, and then the other--with a solicitude and +apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dims the expanding +eye-lids of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those +its unhereditary palaces--what an inextinguishable titter that time +spared not celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming--O the +inexplicable simpleness of dreams!--bowls of that cheering nectar, + + --which mortals _caudle_ call below-- + +Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants,--stricken in years, +as it might seem,--so dexterous were those heavenly attendants to +counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrial +child-rites the young _present_, which earth had made to heaven. + +Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those by +which the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earth +speak oftentimes, muffled; so to accommodate their sound the better +to the weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those +subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments +of pinions--but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of +those full-winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as years +went round in heaven--a year in dreams is as a day--continually its +white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but, wanting the perfect +angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell +fluttering--still caught by angel hands--for ever to put forth shoots, +and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the unmixed +vigour of heaven. + +And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to be called +_Ge-Urania_, because its production was of earth and heaven. + +And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption into +immortal palaces: but it was to know weakness, and reliance, and the +shadow of human imbecility; and it went with a lame gait; but in its +goings it exceeded all mortal children in grace and swiftness. Then +pity 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 +and strife to their natures (not grief), put back their bright +intelligences, and reduce their ethereal minds, schooling them to +degrees and slower processes, so to adapt their lessons to the gradual +illumination (as must needs be) of the half-earth-born; and what +intuitive notices they could not repel (by reason that their nature +is, to know all things at once), the half-heavenly novice, by the +better part of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding; +so that Humility and Aspiration went on even-paced in the instruction +of the glorious Amphibium. + +But, by reason that Mature Humanity is too gross to breathe the air of +that super-subtile region, its portion was, and is, to be a child for +ever. + +And because the human part of it might not press into the heart and +inwards of the palace of its adoption, those full-natured angels +tended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace, where were shady +groves and rivulets, like this green earth from which it came: so +Love, with Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertainment of the +new-adopted. + +And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is nothing), and +still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the Tutelar +Genius of Childhood upon earth, and still goes lame and lovely. + +By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the grave of +the terrestrial Adah, whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child; but not the +same which I saw in heaven. A mournful hue overcasts its lineaments; +nevertheless, a correspondency is between the child by the grave, and +that celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of the grief +upon the heavenly, is as a shadow or emblem of that which stains +the beauty of the terrestrial. And this correspondency is not to be +understood but by dreams. + +And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how that once +the angel Nadir, being exiled from his place for mortal passion, +upspringing on the wings of parental love (such power had parental +love for a moment to suspend the else-irrevocable law) appeared for +a brief instant in his station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth, +straightway disappeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And this +charge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely--but Adah +sleepeth by the river Pison. + + + + +A DEATH-BED + +IN A LETTER TO R.H. ESQ. OF B---- + + +I called upon you this morning, and found that you were gone to visit +a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor N.R. has lain +dying now for almost a week; such is the penalty we pay for having +enjoyed through life a strong constitution. Whether he knew me or not, +I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the +group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it, +were assembled his Wife, their two Daughters, and poor deaf Robert, +looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been +sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. R. +Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time it must be +all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He +was my friend, and my father's friend, for all the life that I can +remember. I seem to have made foolish friendships since. Those are the +friendships, which outlast a second generation. Old as I am getting, +in his eyes I was still the child he knew me. To the last he called +me Jemmy. I have none to call me Jemmy now. He was the last link that +bound me to B----. You are but of yesterday. In him I seem to have +lost the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Lettered +he was not; his reading scarcely exceeded the Obituary of the old +Gentleman's Magazine, to which he has never failed of having recourse +for these last fifty years. Yet there was the pride of literature +about him from that slender perusal; and moreover from his office of +archive-keeper to your ancient city, in which he must needs pick up +some equivocal Latin; which, among his less literary friends, assumed +the air of a very pleasant pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look +with which, having tried to puzzle out the text of a Black lettered +Chaucer in your Corporation Library, to which he was a sort of +Librarian, he gave it up with this consolatory reflection--"Jemmy," +said he, "I do not know what you find in these very old books, but I +observe, there is a deal of very indifferent spelling in them." His +jokes (for he had some) are ended; but they were old Perennials, +staple, and always as good as new. He had one Song, that spake of the +"flat bottoms of our foes coming over in darkness," and alluded to a +threatened Invasion, many years since blown over; this he reserved to +be sung on Christmas Night, which we always passed with him, and he +sung it with the freshness of an impending event. How his eyes would +sparkle when he came to the passage: + + We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and Brussels' Gazette! + +What is the Brussels' Gazette now? I cry, while I endite these +trifles. His poor girls who are, I believe, compact of solid goodness, +will have to receive their afflicted mother at an unsuccessful home +in a petty village in ----shire, where for years they have been +struggling to raise a Girls' School with no effect. Poor deaf Robert +(and the less hopeful for being so) is thrown upon a deaf world, +without the comfort to his father on his death-bed of knowing him +provided for. They are left almost provisionless. Some life assurance +there is; but, I fear, not exceeding ----. Their hopes must be from +your Corporation, which their father has served for fifty years. Who +or what are your Leading Members now, I know not. Is there any, to +whom without impertinence, you can represent the true circumstances of +the family? You cannot say good enough of poor R., and his poor wife. +Oblige me and the dead, if you can. + + + + +OLD CHINA + + +I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see +any great house, I inquire for the china-closet, and next for the +picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference, but by +saying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date +to admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I +can call to mind the first play, and the first exhibition, that I was +taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers +were 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 and +women, float about, uncircumscribed by any element, in that world +before perspective--a china tea-cup. + +I like to see my old friends--whom distance cannot diminish--figuring +up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on _terra firma_ +still--for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, +which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up +beneath their sandals. + +I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with +still more womanish expressions. + +Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a +salver--two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! +And here the same lady, or another--for likeness is identity on +tea-cups--is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither +side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a +right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly +land her in the midst of a flowery mead--a furlong off on the other +side of the same strange stream! + +Farther on--if far or near can be predicated of their world--see +horses, 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 (which we +are old fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon) some +of these _speciosa miracula_ upon a set of extraordinary old blue +china (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using; +and could not help remarking, how favourable circumstances had been +to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes +with trifles of this sort--when a passing sentiment seemed to +over-shade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these +summer clouds in Bridget. + +"I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor; but there +was a middle state;"--so she was pleased to ramble on,--"in which I am +sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now +that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a +triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to +get you to consent in those times!) we were used to have a debate two +or three days before, and to weigh the _for_ and _against_, and think +what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that +should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt +the money that we paid for it. + +"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till +all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare--and all +because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we +eyed 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 of +the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you +should be too late--and when the old bookseller with some grumbling +opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting +bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures--and when +you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome--and when you +presented it to me--and when we were exploring the perfectness of it +(_collating_ you called it)--and while I was repairing some of the +loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be +left till day-break--was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can +those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to +keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half +the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn +suit--your old corbeau--for four or five weeks longer than you should +have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen--or +sixteen shillings was it?--a great affair we thought it then--which +you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book +that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any +nice old purchases now. + +"When you come home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number +of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the +'Lady Blanch;' when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the +money--and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture--was +there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but +to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do +you? + +"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's +Bar, 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 used +to deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad--and how you +would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go +in, and produce our store--only paying for the ale that you must call +for--and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was +likely to allow us a table-cloth--and wish for such another honest +hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant +banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing--and sometimes they would +prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon +us--but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat +our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? +Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we +_ride_ part of the way--and go into a fine inn, and order the best of +dinners, never debating the expense--which, after all, never has half +the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of +uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome. + +"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do +you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the battle of +Hexham, and the surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland +in the Children in the Wood--when we squeezed out our shillings +a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling +gallery--where you felt all the time that you ought not to have +brought me--and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having +brought me--and the pleasure was the better for a little shame--and +when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or +what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with +Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to +say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play +socially--that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion +to the infrequency of going--that the company we met there, not being +in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and +did attend, to what was going on, on the stage--because a word lost +would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill +up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then--and I appeal +to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and +accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations +in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those +inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,--but there was still a law of +civility to women recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever +found in the other passages--and how a little difficulty overcome +heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we can only +pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries +now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then--but sight, and +all, I think, is gone with our poverty. + +"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite +common--in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear--to have +them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we +were to treat ourselves now--that is, to have dainties a little above +our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more +that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that +makes what 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 blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of +themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to +make much of others. But now--what I mean by the word--we never do +make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the +veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. + +"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the +end of the year to make all meet--and much ado we used to have every +Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings--many a +long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving +to make it out how we had spent so much--or that we had not spent so +much--or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year--and +still we found our slender capital decreasing--but then, betwixt ways, +and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of +curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future--and the +hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never +poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with +'lusty brimmers' (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--no +flattering promises about the new year doing better for us." + +Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she +gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could +not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear +imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor--hundred +pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but +we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the +excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should +not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew +up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and +knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been +to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now +complain of. The resisting power--those natural dilations of the +youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten--with us are long +since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth; a sorry +supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must +ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie softer--and shall +be wise to do so--than we had means to do in those good old days you +speak of. Yet could those days return--could you and I once more walk +our thirty miles a-day--could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, +and you and I be young to see them--could the good old one shilling +gallery days return--they are dreams, my cousin, now--but could +you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our +well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once +more struggling up those inconvenient stair-cases, pushed about, +and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery +scramblers--could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours--and +the delicious _Thank God, we are safe_, which always followed when the +topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful +theatre down beneath us--I know not the fathom line that ever touched +a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than +Croesus had, or the great Jew R---- is supposed to have, to purchase +it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding +an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that +pretty insipid half-Madona-ish chit of a lady in that very blue +summer-house." + + + + +POPULAR FALLACIES + + +I.--THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD + +This axiom contains a principle of compensation, which disposes us to +admit the truth of it. But there is no safe trusting to dictionaries +and definitions. We should more willingly fall in with this popular +language, if we did not find _brutality_ sometimes awkwardly coupled +with _valour_ in the same vocabulary. The comic writers, with their +poetical justice, have contributed not a little to mislead us upon +this point. To see a hectoring fellow exposed and beaten upon the +stage, has something in it wonderfully diverting. Some people's +share of animal spirits is notoriously low and defective. It has not +strength to raise a vapour, or furnish out the wind of a tolerable +bluster. These love to be told that huffing is no part of valour. +The truest courage with them is that which is the least noisy and +obtrusive. But confront one of these silent heroes with the swaggerer +of real life, and his confidence in the theory quickly vanishes. +Pretensions do not uniformly bespeak non-performance. A modest +inoffensive deportment does not necessarily imply valour; neither does +the absence of it justify us in denying that quality. Hickman wanted +modesty--we do not mean _him_ of Clarissa--but who ever doubted his +courage? Even the poets--upon whom this equitable distribution of +qualities should be most binding--have thought it agreeable to nature +to depart from the rule upon occasion. Harapha, in the "Agonistes," is +indeed a bully upon the received notions. Milton has made him at once +a blusterer, a giant, and a dastard. But Almanzor, in Dryden, talks +of driving armies singly before him--and does it. Tom Brown had a +shrewder insight into this kind of character than either of his +predecessors. He divides the palm more equably, and allows his hero +a sort of dimidiate pre-eminence:--"Bully Dawson kicked by half +the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson." This was true +distributive justice. + + +II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS + +The weakest part of mankind have this saying commonest in their mouth. +It is the trite consolation administered to the easy dupe, when he has +been tricked out of his money or estate, that the acquisition of +it will do the owner _no good_. But the rogues of this world--the +prudenter part of them, at least--know better; and, if the observation +had been as true as it is old, would not have failed by this time +to have discovered it. They have pretty sharp distinctions of the +fluctuating and the permanent. "Lightly come, lightly go," is a +proverb, which they can very well afford to leave, when they leave +little else, to the losers. They do not always find manors, got by +rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the poets will have +it; or that all gold glides, like thawing snow, from the thief's hand +that grasps it. Church land, alienated to lay uses, was formerly +denounced to have this slippery quality. But some portions of it +somehow always stuck so fast, that the denunciators have been vain to +postpone the prophecy of refundment to a late posterity. + + +III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST + +The severest exaction surely ever invented upon the self-denial of +poor human nature! This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat +without partaking of it; to sit esurient at his own table, and commend +the flavour of his venison upon the absurd strength of his never +touching it himself. On the contrary, we love to see a wag _taste_ +his own joke to his party; to watch a quirk, or a merry conceit, +flickering upon the lips some seconds before the tongue is delivered +of it. If it be good, fresh, and racy--begotten of the occasion; if he +that utters it never thought it before, he is naturally the first to +be tickled with it; and any suppression of such complacence we hold to +be churlish and insulting. What does it seem to imply, but that your +company is weak or foolish enough to be moved by an image or a fancy, +that shall stir you not at all, or but faintly? This is exactly the +humour of the fine gentleman in Mandeville, who, while he dazzles his +guests with the display of some costly toy, affects himself to "see +nothing considerable in it." + + +IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING.--THAT IT IS EASY TO PERCEIVE +HE IS NO GENTLEMAN + +A speech from the poorer sort of people, which always indicates that +the party vituperated is a gentleman. The very fact which they deny, +is that which galls and exasperates them to use this language. The +forbearance with which it is usually received, is a proof what +interpretation the bystander sets upon it. Of a kin to this, and still +less politic, are the phrases with which, in their street rhetoric, +they ply one another more grossly:--_He is a poor creature._--_He has +not a rag to cover_--_&c._; though this last, we confess, is more +frequently applied by females to females. They do not perceive that +the satire glances upon themselves. A poor man, of all things in +the world, should not upbraid an antagonist with poverty. Are there +no other topics--as, to tell him his father was hanged--his sister, +&c.--, without exposing a secret, which should be kept snug between +them; and doing an affront to the order to which they have the honour +equally to belong? All this while they do not see how the wealthier +man stands by and laughs in his sleeve at both. + + +V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH + +A smooth text to the latter; and, preached from the pulpit, is sure of +a docile audience from the pews lined with satin. It is twice sitting +upon velvet to a foolish squire to be told, that _he_--and not +_perverse nature_, as the homilies would make us imagine, is the true +cause of all the irregularities in his parish. This is striking at the +root of free-will indeed, and denying the originality of sin in any +sense. But men are not such implicit sheep as this comes to. If the +abstinence from evil on the part of the upper classes is to derive +itself from no higher principle, than the apprehension of setting +ill patterns to the lower, we beg leave to discharge them from +all squeamishness on that score: they may even take their fill of +pleasures, where they can find them. The Genius of Poverty, hampered +and straitened as it is, is not so barren of invention but it can +trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing upon their +capital. The poor are not quite such servile imitators as they take +them for. Some of them are very clever artists in their way. Here and +there we find an original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? +They did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties +surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be--no copyists. +In no other sense is it true that the poor copy them, than as servants +may be said to _take after_ their masters and mistresses, when +they succeed to their reversionary cold meats. If the master, from +indisposition or some other cause, neglect his food, the servant dines +notwithstanding. + +"O, but (some will say) the force of example is great." We knew a lady +who was so scrupulous on this head, that she would put up with the +calls of the most impertinent visitor, rather than let her servant say +she was not at home, for fear of teaching her maid to tell an untruth; +and this in the very face of the fact, which she knew well enough, +that the wench was one of the greatest liars upon the earth without +teaching; so much so, that her mistress possibly never heard two words +of consecutive truth from her in her life. But nature must go for +nothing: example must be every thing. This liar in grain, who never +opened her mouth without a lie, must be guarded against a remote +inference, which she (pretty casuist!) might possibly draw from a form +of words--literally false, but essentially deceiving no one--that +under some circumstances a fib might not be so exceedingly sinful--a +fiction, too, not at all in her own way, or one that she could be +suspected of adopting, for few servant-wenches care to be denied to +visitors. + +This word _example_ reminds us of another fine word which is in use +upon these occasions--_encouragement_. "People in our sphere must +not be thought to give encouragement to such proceedings." To such +a frantic height is this principle capable of being carried, that +we have known individuals who have thought it within the scope of +their influence to sanction despair, and give _éclat_ to--suicide. A +domestic in the family of a county member lately deceased, for love, +or some unknown cause, cut his throat, but not successfully. The poor +fellow was otherwise much loved and respected; and great interest was +used in his behalf, upon his recovery, that he might be permitted +to retain his place; his word being first pledged, not without some +substantial sponsors to promise for him, than the like should never +happen again. His master was inclinable to keep him, but his mistress +thought otherwise; and John in the end was dismissed, her ladyship +declaring that she "could not think of encouraging any such doings in +the county." + + +VI.--THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST + +Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who really +believes 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 the +palate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for +a feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually +something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to +a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervalue +_money_. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is +not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which +makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fine +clothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome +excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt to +acres--a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it is +true only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage saws +assuming to inculcate _content_, we verily believe to have been the +invention of some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse of +his wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to carry by force of +these verbal jugglings. Translate any one of these sayings out of the +artful metonyme which envelops it, and the trick is apparent. Goodly +legs and shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures, +the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence, heart's +ease, a man's own time to himself, are not _muck_--however we may be +pleased to scandalise with that appellation the faithful metal that +provides them for us. + + +VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG + +Our experience would lead us to quite an opposite conclusion. Temper, +indeed, is no test of truth; but warmth and earnestness are a proof +at least of a man's own conviction of the rectitude of that which +he maintains. Coolness is as often the result of an unprincipled +indifference to truth or falsehood, as of a sober confidence in a +man's own side in a dispute. Nothing is more insulting sometimes than +the appearance of this philosophic temper. There is little Titubus, +the stammering law-stationer in Lincoln's Inn--we have seldom known +this shrewd little fellow engaged in an argument where we were not +convinced he had the best of it, if his tongue would but fairly have +seconded him. When he has been spluttering excellent broken sense +for an hour together, writhing and labouring to be delivered of the +point of dispute--the very gist of the controversy knocking at his +teeth, which like some obstinate iron-grating still obstructed its +deliverance--his puny frame convulsed, and face reddening all over at +an unfairness in the logic which he wanted articulation to expose, it +has moved our gall to see a smooth portly fellow of an adversary, that +cared not a button for the merits of the question, by merely laying +his hand upon the head of the stationer, and desiring him to be _calm_ +(your tall disputants have always the advantage), with a provoking +sneer carry the argument clean from him in the opinion of all the +bystanders, who have gone away clearly convinced that Titubus must +have been in the wrong, because he was in a passion; and that Mr.----, +meaning his opponent, is one of the fairest, and at the same time one +of the most dispassionate arguers breathing. + + +VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT BEAR A +TRANSLATION + +The same might be said of the wittiest local allusions. A custom is +sometimes as difficult to explain to a foreigner as a pun. What would +become of a great part of the wit of the last age, if it were tried by +this test? How would certain topics, as aldermanity, cuckoldry, have +sounded to a Terentian auditory, though Terence himself had been alive +to translate them? _Senator urbanus_, with _Curruca_ to boot for a +synonime, would but faintly have done the business. Words, involving +notions, are hard enough to render; it is too much to expect us to +translate a sound, and give an elegant version to a jingle. The +Virgilian harmony is not translatable, but by substituting harmonious +sounds in another language for it. To Latinise a pun, we must seek +a pun in Latin, that will answer to it; as, to give an idea of the +double endings in Hudibras, we must have recourse to a similar +practice in the old monkish doggrel. Dennis, the fiercest oppugner of +puns in ancient or modern times, professes himself highly tickled +with the "a stick" chiming to "ecclesiastic." Yet what is this but a +species of pun, a verbal consonance? + + +IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST + +If by worst be only meant the most far-fetched and startling, we agree +to it. A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a +pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect. It +is an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into +the presence, and does not show the less comic for being dragged in +sometimes by the head and shoulders. What though it limp a little, or +prove defective in one leg--all the better. A pun may easily be too +curious and artificial. Who has not at one time or other been at a +party of professors (himself perhaps an old offender in that line), +where, after ringing a round of the most ingenious conceits, every man +contributing his shot, and some there the most expert shooters of the +day; after making a poor _word_ run the gauntlet till it is ready to +drop; after hunting and winding it through all the possible ambages of +similar sounds; after squeezing, and hauling, and tugging at it, till +the very milk of it will not yield a drop further,--suddenly some +obscure, unthought-of fellow in a corner, who was never 'prentice +to the trade, whom the company for very pity passed over, as we +do by a known poor man when a money-subscription is going round, +no one calling upon him for his quota--has all at once come out +with something so whimsical, yet so pertinent; so brazen in its +pretensions, yet so impossible to be denied; so exquisitely good, +and so deplorably bad, at the same time,--that it has proved a Robin +Hood's shot; any thing ulterior to that is despaired of; and the party +breaks up, unanimously voting it to be the very worst (that is, best) +pun of the evening. This species of wit is the better for not being +perfect in all its parts. What it gains in completeness, it loses in +naturalness. The more exactly it satisfies the critical, the less hold +it has upon some other faculties. The puns which are most entertaining +are those which will least bear an analysis. Of this kind is the +following, recorded, with a sort of stigma, in one of Swift's +Miscellanies. + +An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a hare through +the streets, accosts him with this extraordinary question: "Prithee, +friend, is that thy own hare, or a wig?" + +There is no excusing this, and no resisting it. A man might blur ten +sides of paper in attempting a defence of it against a critic who +should be laughter-proof. The quibble in itself is not considerable. +It is only a new turn given, by a little false pronunciation, to a +very common, though not very courteous inquiry. Put by one gentleman +to another at a dinner-party, it would have been vapid; to the +mistress of the house, it would have shown much less wit than +rudeness. We must take in the totality of time, place, and person; +the pert look of the inquiring scholar, the desponding looks of the +puzzled porter; the one stopping at leisure, the other hurrying on +with his burthen; the innocent though rather abrupt tendency of +the first member of the question, with the utter and inextricable +irrelevancy of the second; the place--a public street, not favourable +to frivolous investigations; the affrontive quality of the primitive +inquiry (the common question) invidiously transferred to the +derivative (the new turn given to it) in the implied satire; namely, +that few of that tribe are expected to eat of the good things which +they carry, they being in most countries considered rather as the +temporary trustees than owners of such dainties,--which the fellow was +beginning to understand; but then the _wig_ again comes in, and he can +make nothing of it: all put together constitute a picture: Hogarth +could have made it intelligible on canvass. + +Yet nine out of ten critics will pronounce this a very bad pun, +because of the defectiveness in the concluding member, which is its +very beauty, and constitutes the surprise. The same persons shall +cry up for admirable the cold quibble from Virgil about the broken +Cremona;[1] because it is made out in all its parts, and leaves +nothing to the imagination. We venture to call it cold; because of +thousands who have admired it, it would be difficult to find one who +has heartily chuckled at it. As appealing to the judgment merely +(setting the risible faculty aside,) we must pronounce it a monument +of curious felicity. But as some stories are said to be too good to be +true, it may with equal truth be asserted of this bi-verbal allusion, +that it is too good to be natural. One cannot help suspecting that the +incident was invented to fit the line. It would have been better had +it been less perfect. Like some Virgilian hemistichs, it has suffered +by filling up. The _nimium Vicina_ was enough in conscience; the +_Cremonæ_ afterwards loads it. It is in fact a double pun; and we +have always observed that a superfoetation in this sort of wit is +dangerous. When a man has said a good thing, it is seldom politic to +follow it up. We do not care to be cheated a second time; or, perhaps, +the mind of man (with reverence be it spoken) is not capacious enough +to lodge two puns at a time. The impression, to be forcible, must be +simultaneous and undivided. + +[Footnote 1: Swift.] + + +X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES + +Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs. Conrady. + +The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the celestial +beauty. As she partakes more or less of this heavenly light, she +informs, with corresponding characters, the fleshly tenement which she +chooses, and frames to herself a suitable mansion. + +All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in her +pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture. + +To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty, divine Spenser, +_platonizing_, sings:-- + + --"Every spirit as it is more pure, + And hath in it the more of heavenly light, + So it the fairer body doth procure + To habit in, and it more fairly dight + With cheerful grace and amiable sight. + For of the soul the body form doth take: + For soul is form, and doth the body make." + +But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. + +These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy; for here, in +his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause, which throws us all +out again, and leaves us as much to seek as ever:-- + + "Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind + Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd, + Either by chance, against the course of kind, + Or through unaptness in the substance found, + Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, + That will not yield unto her form's direction, + But is perform'd with some foul imperfection." + +From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs. +Conrady. + +The spirit of this good lady--her previous _anima_--must have stumbled +upon one of these untoward tabernacles which he speaks of. A more +rebellious commodity of clay for a ground, as the poet calls it, no +gentle mind--and sure hers is one of the gentlest--ever had to deal +with. + +Pondering upon her inexplicable visage--inexplicable, we mean, but by +this modification of the theory--we have come to a conclusion that, +if one must be plain, it is better to be plain all over, than, amidst +a tolerable residue of features, to hang out one that shall be +exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance, that it +would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to +pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her +own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The _tout ensemble_ +defies particularising. It is too complete--too consistent, as we may +say--to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some +Apelles had picked out here a lip--and there a chin--out of the +collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical +whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or +parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is +improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than +is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too +it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without +pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the +course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight +of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to +have seen it--like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one +ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and +not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her +for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face +somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in +such a parlour it first struck you--like a bust. You wondered where +the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it +began to move its lips--so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking +her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would +be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart, which, once +seen, can never be out of it. It is not a mean face either; its entire +originality precludes that. Neither is it of that order of plain faces +which improve upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people, +by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat upon our +eyes: juggle our senses out of their natural impressions; and set us +upon discovering good indications in a countenance, which at first +sight promised nothing less. We detect gentleness, which had escaped +us, lurking about an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a +service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand, +and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that +individual face. Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good +face if it was not marked by the small pox--a compliment which is +always more admissive than excusatory--for either Mrs. Conrady never +had the small pox; or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon +its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that +which she is known by. + + +XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH + +Nor a lady's age in the parish register. We hope we have more delicacy +than to do either: but some faces spare us the trouble of these +_dental_ inquiries. And what if the beast, which my friend would force +upon my acceptance, prove, upon the face of it, a sorry Rozinante, a +lean, ill-favoured jade, whom no gentleman could think of setting up +in his stables? Must I, rather than not be obliged to my friend, make +her a companion to Eclipse or Lightfoot? A horse-giver, no more than +a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for +good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own +good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my +money. Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real +value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for +nothing. Our friend Mitis carries this humour of never refusing a +present, to the very point of absurdity--if it were possible to couple +the ridiculous with so much mistaken delicacy, and real good-nature. +Not an apartment in his fine house (and he has a true taste in +household decorations), but is stuffed up with some preposterous print +or mirror--the worst adapted to his pannels that may be--the presents +of his friends that know his weakness; while his noble Vandykes are +displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched +artist of his acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his +hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here +gratis. The good creature has not the heart to mortify the painter +at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not +vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour, +surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God knows whom, while +the true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys of his own honourable family, in +favour to these adopted frights, are consigned to the staircase and +the lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one by one +stript of his favourite old authors, to give place to a collection +of presentation copies--the flower and bran of modern poetry. A +presentation copy, reader--if haply you are yet innocent of such +favours--is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the +author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, +if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, +he expects from you a book of yours which does sell, in return. We +can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these +gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death--we are willing to +acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a +friend's library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author) is +intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary--a thing not +fit to be hinted at among gentlemen--which confer as much grace upon +the acceptor as the offerer: the kind, we confess, which is most to +our palate, is of those little conciliatory missives, which for their +vehicle generally choose a hamper--little odd presents of game, fruit, +perhaps wine--though it is essential to the delicacy of the latter +that it be home-made. We love to have our friend in the country +sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though +a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect +reflects to us his "plump corpusculum;" to taste him in grouse or +woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the +latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is +indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately: such +participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it. +For these considerations we should be sorry if certain restrictive +regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the peasantry of this +country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands, +makes many friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his _goût_) with +a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them) +passes them to Lucius; who in his turn, preferring his friend's relish +to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever widening +progress, and round of unconscious circum-migration, they distribute +the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to +this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken +by those little airy tokens--inpalpable to the palate--which, under +the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy +mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They +are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship. + + +XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY + +Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes: the home of the very +poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded +places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of ale-houses, if they +could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the +very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he cannot find +at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough +to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering +children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a +blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead +of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with +a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can +afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the +very poor man has no visiters. He can look into the goings on of the +world, and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics +stirring, but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all +topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a +sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing +consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price +of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no +larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks +his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches +his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, +in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of +the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family. He +takes an interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in +removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing +as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to forget at home. All +this while he deserts his wife and children. But what wife, and what +children? Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to +themselves some clean contented family like that which they go home +to. But look at the countenance of the poor wives who follow and +persecute their good man to the door of the public house, which he +is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if +stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, +ground by want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament +has been long effaced by misery,--is that a face to stay at home with? +is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife +of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What +comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine +thing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be +no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes +out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor +do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that +condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor +people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their +children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the +wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a +premature reflecting person. No one has time to dandle it, no one +thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and +down, to humour it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, +it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said that "a babe is fed +with milk and praise." But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, +unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to +engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a toy, +or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses, +it was a stranger to the patient fondle, the hushing caress, the +attracting novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand +contrivance to divert the child; the prattled nonsense (best sense +to it), the wise impertinences, the wholesome lies, the apt story +interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the +passion of young wonder. It was never sung to--no one ever told to +it a tale of the nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die as +it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke at once into the iron +realities of life. A child exists not for the very poor as any object +of dalliance; it is only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little +hands to be betimes inured to labour. It is the rival, till it can be +the co-operator, for food with the parent. It is never his mirth, his +diversion, his solace; it never makes him young again, with recalling +his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. +It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk +between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort +of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid beings which we have +been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer +holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of +praised sufficiency at school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, +of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, +that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are +marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has come to be +a woman, before it was a child. It has learned to go to market; it +chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, +sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say, that the home +of the very poor is no home? + +There is yet another home, which we are constrained to deny to be one. +It has a larder, which the home of the poor man wants; its fireside +conveniences, of which the poor dream not. But with all this, it is no +home. It is--the house of the man that is infested with many visiters. +May we be branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our heart to the +many noble-hearted friends that at times exchange their dwelling for +our poor roof! It is not of guests that we complain, but of endless, +purposeless visitants; droppers in, as they are called. We sometimes +wonder from what sky they fall. It is the very error of the position +of our lodging; its horoscopy was ill calculated, being just situate +in a medium--a plaguy suburban mid-space--fitted to catch idlers from +town or country. We are older than we were, and age is easily put out +of its way. We have fewer sands in our glass to reckon upon, and we +cannot brook to see them drop in endlessly succeeding impertinences. +At our time of life, to be alone sometimes is as needful as sleep. It +is the refreshing sleep of the day. The growing infirmities of age +manifest themselves in nothing more strongly, than in an inveterate +dislike of interruption. The thing which we are doing, we wish to be +permitted to do. We have neither much knowledge nor devices; but there +are fewer in the place to which we hasten. We are not willingly put +out of our way, even at a game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had +vast reversions in time future; we are reduced to a present pittance, +and obliged to economise in that article. We bleed away our moments +now as hardly as our ducats. We cannot bear to have our thin wardrobe +eaten and fretted into by moths. We are willing to barter our good +time with a friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the +distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter +takes your good time, and gives you his bad in exchange. The guest +is domestic to you as your good cat, or household bird; the visitant +is your fly, that flaps in at your window, and out again, leaving +nothing but a sense of disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior +functions of life begin to move heavily. We cannot concoct our food +with interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be solitary. +With difficulty we can eat before a guest; and never understood +what the relish of public feasting meant. Meats have no sapor, nor +digestion fair play, in a crowd. The unexpected coming in of a +visitant stops the machine. There is a punctual generation who time +their calls to the precise commencement of your dining-hour--not to +eat--but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively, and we +feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel. Others again show their +genius, as we have said, in knocking the moment you have just sat down +to a book. They have a peculiar compassionating sneer, with which they +"hope that they do not interrupt your studies." Though they flutter +off the next moment, to carry their impertinences to the nearest +student that they can call their friend, the tone of the book is +spoiled; we shut the leaves, and, with Dante's lovers, read no +more that day. It were well if the effect of intrusion were simply +co-extensive with its presence; but it mars all the good hours +afterwards. These scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes +not hastily. "It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship," says +worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent people, who are, +it may be, loads to their families, but can never ease my loads." This +is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, and morning calls. They +too have homes, which are--no homes. + + +XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG + +"Good sir, or madam, as it may be--we most willingly embrace the offer +of your friendship. We long have known your excellent qualities. We +have wished to have you nearer to us; to hold you within the very +innermost fold of our heart. We can have no reserve towards a person +of your open and noble nature. The frankness of your humour suits +us exactly. We have been long looking for such a friend. Quick--let +us disburthen our troubles into each other's bosom--let us make our +single joys shine by reduplication--But _yap, yap, yap!_--what is +this confounded cur? he has fastened his tooth, which is none of the +bluntest, just in the fleshy part of my leg." + +"It is my dog, sir. You must love him for my sake. Here, +Test--Test--Test!" + +"But he has bitten me." + +"Ay, that he is apt to do, till you are better acquainted with him. I +have had him three years. He never bites me." + +_Yap, yap, yap!_--"He is at it again." + +"Oh, sir, you must not kick him. He does not like to be kicked. I +expect my dog to be treated with all the respect due to myself." + +"But do you always take him out with you, when you go a +friendship-hunting?" + +"Invariably. 'Tis the sweetest, prettiest, best-conditioned animal. I +call him my _test_--the touchstone by which I try a friend. No one can +properly be said to love me, who does not love him." + +"Excuse us, dear sir--or madam aforesaid--if upon further +consideration we are obliged to decline the otherwise invaluable offer +of your friendship. We do not like dogs." + +"Mighty well, sir--you know the conditions--you may have worse offers. +Come along, Test." + +The above dialogue is not so imaginary, but that, in the intercourse +of life, we have had frequent occasions of breaking off an agreeable +intimacy by reason of these canine appendages. They do not always +come in the shape of dogs; they sometimes wear the more plausible and +human character of kinsfolk, near acquaintances, my friend's friend, +his partner, his wife, or his children. We could never yet form a +friendship--not to speak of more delicate correspondences--however +much to our taste, without the intervention of some third anomaly, +some impertinent clog affixed to the relation--the understood _dog_ +in the proverb. The good things of life are not to be had singly, but +come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy's holiday, with a task +affixed to the tail of it. What a delightful companion is ****, if he +did not always bring his tall cousin with him! He seems to grow with +him; like some of those double births, which we remember to have read +of with such wonder and delight in the old "Athenian Oracle," where +Swift commenced author by writing Pindaric Odes (what a beginning for +him!) upon Sir William Temple. There is the picture of the brother, +with the little brother peeping out at his shoulder; a species of +fraternity, which we have no name of kin close enough to comprehend. +When **** comes, poking in his head and shoulders into your room, +as if to feel his entry, you think, surely you have now got him to +yourself--what a three hours' chat we shall have!--but, ever in the +haunch of him, and before his diffident body is well disclosed in your +apartment, appears the haunting shadow of the cousin, over-peering his +modest kinsman, and sure to over-lay the expected good talk with his +insufferable procerity of stature, and uncorresponding dwarfishness of +observation. Misfortunes seldom come alone. 'Tis hard when a blessing +comes accompanied. Cannot we like Sempronia, without sitting down to +chess with her eternal brother? or know Sulpicia, without knowing all +the round of her card-playing relations? must my friend's brethren +of necessity be mine also? must we be hand and glove with Dick Selby +the parson, or Jack Selby the calico printer, because W.S., who is +neither, but a ripe wit and a critic, has the misfortune to claim a +common parentage with them? Let him lay down his brothers; and 'tis +odds but we will cast him in a pair of ours (we have a superflux) to +balance the concession. Let F.H. lay down his garrulous uncle; and +Honorius dismiss his vapid wife, and superfluous establishment of six +boys--things between boy and manhood--too ripe for play, too raw for +conversation--that come in, impudently staring their father's old +friend out of countenance; and will neither aid, nor let alone, the +conference: that we may once more meet upon equal terms, as we were +wont to do in the disengaged state of bachelorhood. + +It is well if your friend, or mistress, be content with these +canicular probations. Few young ladies but in this sense keep a dog. +But when Rutilia hounds at you her tiger aunt; or Ruspina expects you +to cherish and fondle her viper sister, whom she has preposterously +taken into her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your constancy; +they must not complain if the house be rather thin of suitors. Scylla +must have broken off many excellent matches in her time, if she +insisted upon all, that loved her, loving her dogs also. + +An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of Della Cruscan +memory. In tender youth, he loved and courted a modest appanage to +the Opera, in truth a dancer, who had won him by the artless contrast +between her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native violet, +that had been transplanted by some rude accident into that exotic and +artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was she less genuine and sincere +than she appeared to him. He wooed and won this flower. Only for +appearance' sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she +craved that she might have the attendance of her friends and kindred +at the approaching solemnity. The request was too amiable not to be +conceded; and in this solicitude for conciliating the good will of +mere relations, he found a presage of her superior attentions to +himself, when the golden shaft should have "killed the flock of all +affections else." The morning came; and at the Star and Garter, +Richmond--the place appointed for the breakfasting--accompanied with +one English friend, he impatiently awaited what reinforcements the +bride should bring to grace the ceremony. A rich muster she had made. +They came in six coaches--the whole corps du ballet--French, Italian, +men and women. Monsieur de B., the famous _pirouetter_ of the day, led +his fair spouse, but craggy, from the banks of the Seine. The Prima +Donna had sent her excuse. But the first and second Buffa were there; +and Signor Sc----, and Signora Ch----, and Madame V----, with a +countless cavalcade besides of chorusers, figurantes, at the sight +of whom Merry afterwards declared, that "then for the first time it +struck him seriously, that he was about to marry--a dancer." But there +was no help for it. Besides, it was her day; these were, in fact, her +friends and kinsfolk. The assemblage, though whimsical, was all very +natural. But when the bride--handing out of the last coach a still +more extraordinary figure than the rest--presented to him as her +_father_--the gentleman that was to _give her away_--no less a person +than Signor Delpini himself--with a sort of pride, as much as to +say, See what I have brought to do us honour!--the thought of so +extraordinary a paternity quite overcame him; and slipping away under +some pretence from the bride and her motley adherents, poor Merry +took horse from the back yard to the nearest sea-coast, from which, +shipping himself to America, he shortly after consoled himself with a +more congenial match in the person of Miss Brunton; relieved from his +intended clown father, and a bevy of painted Buffas for bridemaids. + + +XIV.--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 not +naturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman--that +has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such +preposterous exercises--We take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of +course, during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest hour, +at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow. To think of +it, we say; for to do it in earnest, requires another half hour's good +consideration. 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, +as they say, only for getting up. But, having been tempted once or +twice, in earlier life, to assist at those ceremonies, we confess +our curiosity abated. We are no longer ambitious of being the sun's +courtiers, to attend at his morning levees. We hold the good hours of +the dawn too sacred to waste them upon such observances; which have +in them, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we never +anticipated 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 we +suffered for it all the long hours after in listlessness and headachs; +Nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption, +in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of +that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny not that there is +something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially, in these +break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start of a lazy +world; to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds of sleep +and mortality are in us; and we pay usually in strange qualms, before +night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion. Therefore, while +the busy part of mankind are fast huddling on their clothes, are +already up and about their occupations, content to have swallowed +their sleep by wholesale; we chose to linger a-bed, and digest our +dreams. It is the very time to recombine the wandering images, which +night 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 them +curiously. We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision: to collect +the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with +firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies; to drag into day-light +a struggling and half-vanishing night-mare; to handle and examine +the terrors, or the airy solaces. We have too much respect for these +spiritual communications, to let them go so lightly. We are not so +stupid, or so careless, as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, that +we should need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem to +us to have as much significance as our waking concerns; or rather to +import us more nearly, as more nearly we approach by years to the +shadowy world, whither we are hastening. We have shaken hands with the +world's business; we have done with it; we have discharged ourself +of it. Why should we get up? we have neither suit to solicit, nor +affairs to manage. The drama has shut in upon us at the fourth act. +We have nothing here to expect, but in a short time a sick bed, and +a dismissal. We delight to anticipate death by such shadows as night +affords. We are already half acquainted with ghosts. We were never +much in the world. Disappointment early struck a dark veil between us +and its dazzling illusions. Our spirits showed grey before our hairs. +The mighty changes of the world already appear as but the vain stuff +out of which dramas are composed. We have asked no more of life than +what the mimic images in play-houses present us with. Even those +types have waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We are +SUPERANNUATED. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction, we contract +politic alliances with shadows. It is good to have friends at court. +The abstracted media of dreams seem no ill introduction to that +spiritual presence, upon which, in no long time, we expect to be +thrown. 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 we +may be the less awkward at our first coming among them. We willingly +call a phantom our fellow, as knowing we shall soon be of their dark +companionship. Therefore, we cherish dreams. We try to spell in them +the alphabet of the invisible world; and think we know already, how it +shall be with us. Those uncouth shapes, which, while we clung to flesh +and blood, affrighted us, have become familiar. We feel attenuated +into their meagre essences, and have given the hand of half-way +approach to incorporeal being. We once thought life to be something; +but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. Therefore we +choose to dally with visions. The sun has no purposes of ours to light +us to. Why should we get up? + + +XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB + +We could never quite understand the philosophy of this arrangement, +or the wisdom of our ancestors in sending us for instruction to +these woolly bedfellows. A sheep, when it is dark, has nothing to do +but to shut his silly eyes, and sleep if he can. Man found out long +sixes.--Hail candle-light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the +kindliest luminary of the three--if we may not rather style thee their +radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon!--We love to read, talk, sit +silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They are every body's sun +and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what +savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in +caves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and +grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, +when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's +cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the +seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or +Ossian), derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights. Jokes +came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to pick up a pin, if they +had any. How did they sup? what a melange of chance carving they must +have made of it!--here one had got a leg of a goat, when he wanted +a horse's shoulder--there another had dipt his scooped palm in a +kid-skin of wild honey, when he meditated right mare's milk. There +is neither good eating nor drinking in fresco. Who, even in these +civilised times, has never experienced this, when at some economic +table he has commenced dining after dusk, and waited for the +flavour till the lights came? The senses absolutely give and take +reciprocally. Can you tell pork from veal in the dark? or distinguish +Sherris from pure Malaga? Take away the candle from the smoking +man; by the glimmering of the left ashes, he knows that he is still +smoking, but he knows it only by an inference; till the restored +light, coming in aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the +full aroma. Then how he redoubles his puffs! how he burnishes!--There +is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have +tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry +arbours; but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam +come about you, hovering and teazing, like so many coquets, that will +have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By +the midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same +light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, +the odour. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential +Phoebus. No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are +abstracted works-- + + "Things that were born, when none but the still night, + And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes." + +Marry, daylight--daylight might furnish the images, the crude +material; but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing (as +mine author hath it), they must be content to hold their inspiration +of the candle. The mild internal light, that reveals them, like fires +on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and silence +call out the starry fancies, Milton's Morning Hymn on Paradise, we +would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's richer +description of a sun-rise smells decidedly of the taper. Even ourself, +in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences +(Prose has her cadences) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsier +watchman, "blessing the doors;" or the wild sweep of winds at +midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted, +courts our endeavours. We would indite something about the Solar +System.--_Betty, bring the candles_. + + +XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE + +We grant that it is, and a very serious one--to a man's friends, and +to all that have to do with him; but whether the condition of the man +himself is so much to be deplored, may admit of a question. We can +speak a little to it, being ourself but lately recovered--we whisper +it in confidence, reader--out of a long and desperate fit of the +sullens. Was the cure a blessing? The conviction which wrought it, +came too clearly to leave a scruple of the fanciful injuries--for +they were mere fancies--which had provoked the humour. But the humour +itself was too self-pleasing, while it lasted--we know how bare we +lay ourself in the confession--to be abandoned all at once with the +grounds of it. We still brood over wrongs which we know to have been +imaginary; and for our old acquaintance, N----, whom we find to +have been a truer friend than we took him for, we substitute some +phantom--a Caius or a Titius--as like him as we dare to form it, to +wreak our yet unsatisfied resentments on. It is mortifying to fall at +once from the pinnacle of neglect; to forego the idea of having been +ill-used and contumaciously treated by an old friend. The first thing +to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as +neglected. There let him fix if he can. To undeceive him is to deprive +him of the most tickling morsel within the range of self-complacency. +No flattery can come near it. Happy is he who suspects his friend of +an injustice; but supremely blest, who thinks all his friends in a +conspiracy to depress and undervalue him. There is a pleasure (we +sing not to the profane) far beyond the reach of all that the world +counts joy--a deep, enduring satisfaction in the depths, where the +superficial seek it not, of discontent. Were we to recite one half of +this mystery, which we were let into by our late dissatisfaction, all +the world would be in love with disrespect; we should wear a slight +for a bracelet, and neglects and contumacies would be the only matter +for courtship. Unlike to that mysterious book in the Apocalypse, the +study of this mystery is unpalatable only in the commencement. The +first sting of a suspicion is grievous; but wait--out of that wound, +which to flesh and blood seemed so difficult, there is balm and honey +to be extracted. Your friend passed you on such or such a day,--having +in his company one that you conceived worse than ambiguously disposed +towards you,--passed you in the street without notice. To be sure he +is something shortsighted; and it was in your power to have accosted +_him_. But facts and sane inferences are trifles to a true adept in +the science of dissatisfaction. He must have seen you; and S----, +who was with him, must have been the cause of the contempt. It galls +you, and well it may. But have patience. Go home, and make the worst +of it, and you are a made man from this time. Shut yourself up, +and--rejecting, as an enemy to your peace, every whispering suggestion +that but insinuates there may be a mistake--reflect seriously upon the +many lesser instances which you had begun to perceive, in proof of +your friend's disaffection towards you. None of them singly was much +to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and you have +this last affront to clench them. Thus far the process is any thing +but agreeable. But now to your relief comes in the comparative +faculty. You conjure up all the kind feelings you have had for your +friend; what you have been to him, and what you would have been to +him, if he would have suffered you; how you defended him in this +or that place; and his good name--his literary reputation, and so +forth, was always dearer to you than your own! Your heart, spite of +itself, yearns towards him. You could weep tears of blood but for a +restraining pride. How say you? do you not yet begin to apprehend a +comfort? some allay of sweetness in the bitter waters? Stop not here, +nor penuriously cheat yourself of your reversions. You are on vantage +ground. Enlarge your speculations, and take in the rest of your +friends, as a spark kindles more sparks. Was there one among them, who +has not to you proved hollow, false, slippery as water? Begin to think +that the relation itself is inconsistent with mortality. That the very +idea of friendship, with its component parts, as honour, fidelity, +steadiness, exists but in your single bosom. Image yourself to +yourself, as the only possible friend in a world incapable of that +communion. Now the gloom thickens. The little star of self-love +twinkles, that is to encourage you through deeper glooms than this. +You are not yet at the half point of your elevation. You are not yet, +believe me, half sulky enough. Adverting to the world in general, (as +these circles in the mind will spread to infinity) reflect with what +strange injustice you have been treated in quarters where, (setting +gratitude and the expectation of friendly returns aside as chimeras,) +you pretended no claim beyond justice, the naked due of all men. Think +the very idea of right and fit fled from the earth, or your breast +the solitary receptacle of it, till you have swelled yourself into at +least one hemisphere; the other being the vast Arabia Stony of your +friends and the world aforesaid. To grow bigger every moment in your +own conceit, and the world to lessen: to deify yourself at the expense +of your species; to judge the world--this is the acme and supreme +point of your mystery--these the true PLEASURES of SULKINESS. We +profess no more of this grand secret than what ourself experimented +on one rainy afternoon in the last week, sulking in our study. We had +proceeded to the penultimate point, at which the true adept seldom +stops, where the consideration of benefit forgot is about to merge +in the meditation of general injustice--when a knock at the door was +followed by the entrance of the very friend, whose not seeing of us in +the morning, (for we will now confess the case our own), an accidental +oversight, had given rise to so much agreeable generalization! +To mortify us still more, and take down the whole flattering +superstructure which pride had piled upon neglect, he had brought in +his hand the identical S----, in whose favour we had suspected him of +the contumacy. Asseverations were needless, where the frank manner of +them both was convictive of the injurious nature of the suspicion. We +fancied that they perceived our embarrassment; but were too proud, or +something else, to confess to the secret of it. We had been but too +lately in the condition of the noble patient in Argos: + + Qui se credebat miros audire tragoedos. + In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro-- + +and could have exclaimed with equal reason against the friendly hands +that cured us-- + + Pol me occidistis, amici, + Non servâstis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, + Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error. + + + + +APPENDIX + +LAMB'S ESSAYS ON "THE OLD ACTORS" AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE _LONDON +MAGAZINE_. (SEE NOTE ON PAGE 444.) + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) + + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which +he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports +of the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city.[1] His +voice had the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of +the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed +by affectation; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in +every movement. He seized the moment of passion with the greatest +truth; like a faithful clock never striking before the time; never +anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He was totally destitute +of trick and artifice. He seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's +message simply, and he did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios +in Homer deliver the errands of the gods. He let the passion or the +sentiment do its own work without prop or bolstering. He would have +scorned to mountebank it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which +is the bane of serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only +endurable one which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his +action could divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to +do. His confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the +mystery. There were no bye-intimations to make the audience fancy +their own discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who +commonly stands like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, +and a quantity of barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago +of Bensley did not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone +about the character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but +none of that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself +upon any little successful stroke of its knavery--which is common with +your small villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not +clap or crow before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a +child, and winking all the while at other children who are mightily +pleased at being let into the secret; but a consummate villain +entrapping a noble nature into toils, against which no discernment was +available, where the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed +dark, and without motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, +was performed by Bensley, with a richness and a dignity of which (to +judge from some recent castings of that character) the very tradition +must be worn out from the stage. No manager in those days would have +dreamed of giving it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley +was occasionally absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it +no derogation to succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially +ludicrous. He becomes comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, +repelling; but dignified, consistent, and, for what appears, rather of +an over-stretched morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; +and he might have worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old +round-head families, in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. +But his morality and his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is +opposed to the proper _levities_ of the piece, and falls in the +unequal contest. Still his pride, or his gravity, (call it which you +will) is inherent, and native to the man, not mock or affected, which +latter only are the fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at +the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing +is lofty, a little above his station, but probably not much above +his deserts. We see no reason why he should not have been brave, +honourable, accomplished. His careless committal of the ring to the +ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a +generosity of birth and feeling.[2] His dialect on all occasions is +that of a gentleman, and a man of education. We must not confound him +with the eternal low steward of comedy. He is master of the household +to a great Princess, a dignity probably conferred upon him for other +respects than age or length of service.[3] Olivia, at the first +indication of his supposed madness, declares that she "would not +have him miscarry for half of her dowry." Does this look as if +the character was meant to appear little or insignificant? Once, +indeed, she accuses him to his face--of what?--of being "sick of +self-love,"--but with a gentleness and considerateness which could +not have been, if she had not thought that this particular infirmity +shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the knight, and his sottish +revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when we take into +consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, and the +strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled mourning +would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, Malvolio +might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his keeping, as +it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or kinsmen, to look +to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice respects at the buttery +hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be represented as possessing some +estimable qualities, the expression of the Duke in his anxiety to +have him reconciled, almost infers: "Pursue him, and intreat him to +a peace." Even in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of +greatness seems never to desert him. He argues highly and well with +the supposed Sir Topas,[4] and philosophizes gallantly upon his straw. +There must have been some shadow of worth about the man; he must have +been something more than a mere vapour--a thing of straw, or Jack in +office--before Fabian and Maria could have ventured sending him upon a +courting errand to Olivia. There was some consonancy (as he would say) +in the undertaking, or the jest would have been too bold even for that +house of misrule. There was "example for it," said Malvolio; "the lady +of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe." Possibly too he +might remember--for it must have happened about his time--an instance +of a Duchess of Malfy (a countrywoman of Olivia's, and her equal at +least) descending from her state to court her steward-- + + The misery of them that are born great! + They are forced to woo, because none dare woo them. + +To be sure the lady was not very tenderly handled for it by her +brothers in the sequel, but their vengeance appears to have been +whetted rather by her presumption in re-marrying at all, (when they +had meditated the keeping of her fortune in their family) than by her +choice of an inferior, of Antonio's noble merits especially, for her +husband; and, besides, Olivia's brother was just dead. Malvolio was a +man of reading, and possibly reflected upon these lines, or something +like them in his own country poetry-- + + --Ceremony has made many fools. + It is as easy way unto a duchess + As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: + But that by timorous honours, pale respects, + Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways + Hard of themselves. + +"'Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect +me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, +it should be one of my complexion." If here was no encouragement, the +devil is in it. I wish we could get at the private history of all +this. Between the Countess herself, serious or dissembling--for one +hardly knows how to apprehend this fantastical great lady--and the +practices of that delicious little piece of mischief, Maria-- + + The lime twigs laid + By Machiavel the waiting maid-- + +the man might well be rapt into a fool's paradise. + +Bensley threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. He looked, +spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, spruce, +opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed upon a +sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was +big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. You +might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love in his conceit of the Countess's affection gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season, bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character while Bensley played it +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, +who came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few +seasons ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, +as it came out of nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in +puris naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom from +his grave air and deportment I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe nine times out of ten rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning full +upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon close +inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognized but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[5] + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[6] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied the +handsome fellow in his top-knot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personæ were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson_. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben_. Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all--Well father, and +how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson_. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben_. Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gave us--but a piece of a satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it +as a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to +it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personæ, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain, but in the first or second gallery. + +(_To be resumed occasionally_.) + +ELIA. + +[Footnote 1: + How lovelily the Adriatic whore + Dress'd in her flames will shine--devouring flames-- + Such as will burn her to her wat'ry bottom, + And hiss in her foundation. + + _Pierre, in Venice Preserved._] + +[Footnote 2: _Viola_. She took the ring from me; I'll none of it. + +_Mal_. Come, Sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it +should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in +your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Inchbald seems to have fallen into the common +mistake of the character in some sensible observations, otherwise, +upon this Comedy. "It might be asked," she says, "whether this +credulous steward was much deceived in imputing a degraded taste, in +the sentiments of love, to his fair lady Olivia, as she actually did +fall in love with a domestic; and one, who from his extreme youth, +was perhaps a greater reproach to her discretion, than had she cast a +tender regard upon her old and faithful servant." But where does she +gather the fact of his age? Neither Maria nor Fabian ever cast that +reproach upon him.] + +[Footnote 4: _Clown._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning +wild fowl? + +_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. + +_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion? + +_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 5: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognizing Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 6: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, April, 1822) + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years only +to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is +it for a few wild speeches, an occasional licence of dialogue? I think +not altogether. The business of their dramatic characters will not +stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to that. Idle gallantry +in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an evening, startles us +in the same way as the alarming indications of profligacy in a son or +ward in real life should startle a parent or guardian. We have no such +middle emotions as dramatic interests left. We see a stage libertine +playing his loose pranks of two hours' duration, and of no after +consequence, with the severe eyes which inspect real vices with their +bearings upon two worlds. We are spectators to a plot or intrigue (not +reducible in life to the point of strict morality) and take it all +for truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him +accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is no appeal +to the _dramatis personæ_, his peers. We have been spoiled with--not +sentimental comedy--but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures +which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of +common life; where the moral point is everything; where, instead of +the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of +old comedy) we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, +allies, patrons, enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in +what is going on so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our +moral judgment, in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise +or slumber for a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no +modification is made to affect us in any other manner than the same +events or characters would do in our relationships of life. We carry +our fire-side concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, +like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as +to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a +bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was +the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All +that neutral ground of character which stood between vice and virtue; +or which, in fact, was indifferent to neither, where neither properly +was called in question--that happy breathing-place from the burden +of a perpetual moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia +of hunted casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised as injurious to +the interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images or names of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) +I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the +strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the law +courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world +with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired the +breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as a fairyland. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of right and wrong, and the standard of _police_ is +the measure of _poetical justice_. The atmosphere will blight it. +It cannot thrive here. It is got into a moral world where it has +no business; from which it must needs fall head-long; as dizzy and +incapable of keeping its stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares within the sphere of one of his good men or angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad? + +The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants, and Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere do not offend my moral sense--or, in fact, appeal +to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break +through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They +have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call it?--of +cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the +manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of +things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No good +person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person +suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in these +plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike essentially +vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is especially shown in +this, that he has entirely excluded from his scenes,--some little +generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps excepted,--not only any +thing like a faultless character, but any pretensions to goodness +or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did this designedly, or +instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the design (if design) was +bold. I used to wonder at the strange power which his Way of the World +in particular possesses of interesting you all along in the pursuits +of characters, for whom you absolutely care nothing--for you neither +hate nor love his personages--and I think it is owing to this very +indifference for any, that you endure the whole. He has spread a +privation of moral light, I will call it, rather than by the ugly name +of palpable darkness, over his creations; and his shadows flit before +you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced a good +character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment +to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have +only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now are none, +because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which universally acted upon must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children? + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite as +impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out of +which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that +it should be now acted, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +playgoers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did +not believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed +in Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities; the gaity +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealize, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other, as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to see have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Churchyard memory--(an exhibition as +venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has passed from +the stage--in good time, that he did not live to this our age of +seriousness. The fidgety pleasant old Teazle _King_ too is gone in +good time. His manner would scarce have passed current in our day. +We must love or hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our +detestable coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph +Surface, to go down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no +compromise--his first appearance must shock and give horror--his +specious plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our +fathers welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm +(dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must +inspire a cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person +of the scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate +ends, but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in +down-right self-satisfaction) must be _loved_, and Joseph _hated_. To +balance one disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must +be no longer the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, +whose teazings (while King acted it) were evidently as much played off +at you, as they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must +be a real person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person +towards whom duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con +antagonist of the villainous seducer, Joseph. To realize him more, +his sufferings under his unfortunate match must have the downright +pungency of life--must (or should) make you not mirthful but +uncomfortable, just as the same predicament would move you in a +neighbour or old friend. The delicious scenes which give the play its +name and zest, must affect you in the same serious manner as if you +heard the reputation of a dear female friend attacked in your real +presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin--those poor snakes that lived +but in the sunshine of your mirth--must be ripened by this hot-bed +process of realization into asps or amphisbænas; and Mrs. Candour--O +frightful! become a hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and +Dodd--the wasp and butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two +characters; and charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as +distinguished from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would +forego the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But as far as I could judge, +the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal incapacity than +he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part came steeped +and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a grace. His exact +declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served to convey the points +of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed to head the shafts to +carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling sentences was lost. I +remember minutely how he delivered each in succession, and cannot by +any effort imagine how any of them could be altered for the better. No +man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the dialogue of Congreve or of +Wycherley--because none understood it--half so well as John Kemble. +His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my recollection, faultless. +He flagged sometimes in the intervals of tragic passion. He would +slumber over the level parts of an heroic character. His Macbeth has +been known to nod. But he always seemed to me to be particularly alive +to pointed and witty dialogue. The relaxing levities of tragedy have +not been touched by any since him--the playful court-bred spirit in +which he condescended to the players in Hamlet--the sportive relief, +which he threw into the darker shades of Richard--disappeared with +him. Tragedy is become a uniform dead weight. They have fastened lead +to her buskins. She never pulls them off for the ease of a moment. +To invert a commonplace from Niobe, she never forgets herself to +liquefaction. John had his sluggish moods, his torpors--but they were +the halting stones and resting places of his tragedy--politic savings, +and fetches of the breath--husbandry of the lungs, where nature +pointed him to be an economist--rather, I think, than errors of +the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful than the eternal +tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless dragon eyes," of +present fashionable tragedy. The story of his swallowing opium pills +to keep him lively upon the first night of a certain tragedy, we may +presume to be a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the +suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a +complacent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel with) +over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. +John Kemble had made up his mind early, that all the good tragedies, +which could be written, had been written; and he resented any new +attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards were scope enough +for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute--and "fair in Otway, full +in Shakspeare shone." He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, and did +not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any +casual speculator that offered. I remember, too acutely for my peace, +the deadly extinguisher which he put upon my friend G.'s "Antonio." +G., satiate with visions of political justice (possibly not to be +realized in our time), or willing to let the sceptical worldlings see, +that his anticipations of the future did not preclude a warm sympathy +for men as they are and have been--wrote a tragedy. He chose a +story, affecting, romantic, Spanish--the plot simple, without being +naked--the incidents uncommon, without being overstrained. Antonio, +who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive young Castilian, who, +in a fit of his country honour, immolates his sister-- + +But I must not anticipate the catastrophe--the play, reader, is +extant in choice English--and you will employ a spare half crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it. + +The conception was bold, and the dénouement--the time and place in +which the hero of it existed, considered--not much out of keeping; yet +it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both +from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the +prejudices of a modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done +his part. + +John, who was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken +to play Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first +play was a new era. The night arrived. I was favoured with a seat in +an advantageous box, between the author and his friend M----. G. sate +cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the +manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio in the person of John Philip +Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could +dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed +most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept +by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as +the opening act of a piece--the protasis--should do. The cue of +the spectators was to be mute. The characters were but in their +introduction. The passions and the incidents would be developed +hereafter. Applause hitherto would be impertinent. Silent attention +was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. acquiesced--but in his honest +friendly face I could discern a working which told how much more +acceptable the plaudit of a single hand (however misplaced) would +have been than all this reasoning. The second act (as in duty bound) +rose a little in interest; but still John kept his forces under--in +policy, as G. would have it--and the audience were most complacently +attentive. The protasis, in fact, was scarcely unfolded. The +interest would warm in the next act, against which a special +incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a friendly +perspiration--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal--"from every pore of +him a perfume falls--." I honour it above Alexander's. He had once or +twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavour to elicit +a sound--they emitted a solitary noise without an echo--there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. +The third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the +piece progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G. as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, +and there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to +make a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning +the tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman (who by the way should +have had his sister) baulks his humour, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the +new philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught--their courage was up, and on the alert--a few blows, _ding +dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might +have done the business--when their most exquisite moral sense was +suddenly called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own +pleasure. They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would +not condemn, for morality's sake. The interest stood stone still; +and John's manner was not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It +was Christmas time, and the atmosphere furnished some pretext for +asthmatic affections. One began to cough--his neighbour sympathised +with him--till a cough became epidemical. But when, from being +half-artificial in the pit, the cough got frightfully naturalised +among the fictitious persons of the drama; and Antonio himself (albeit +it was not set down in the stage directions) seemed more intent +upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of the author and +his friends,--then G. "first knew fear;" and mildly turning to M., +intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. K. laboured under a +cold; and that the performance might possibly have been postponed +with advantage for some nights further--still keeping the same serene +countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. It would be invidious to +pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. In vain did the plot +thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the dialogue wax more +passionate and stirring, and the progress of the sentiment point more +and more clearly to the arduous developement which impended. In vain +the action was accelerated, while the acting stood still. From the +beginning, John had taken his stand; had wound himself up to an even +tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or +person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising +with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level +to the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would +receive it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence +against decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an +irreverent symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of +verbiage stalked on through four and five acts, no one venturing to +predict what would come of it, when towards the winding up of the +latter, Antonio, with an irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira +herself--for she had been coolly arguing the point of honour with +him--suddenly whips out a poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. +The effect was, as if a murder had been committed in cold blood. The +whole house rose up in clamorous indignation demanding justice. The +feeling rose far above hisses. I believe at that instant, if they +could have got him, they would have torn the unfortunate author to +pieces. Not that the act itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion +different from what they themselves would have applauded upon another +occasion in a Brutus, or an Appius--but for want of attending to +Antonio's _words_, which palpably led to the expectation of no less +dire an event, instead of being seduced by his _manner_, which +seemed to promise a sleep of a less alarming nature than it was his +cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found themselves betrayed into an +accompliceship of murder, a perfect misprision of parricide, while +they dreamed of nothing less. M., I believe, was the only person +who suffered acutely from the failure; for G. thenceforward, with +a serenity unattainable but by the true philosophy, abandoning a +precarious popularity, retired into his fast hold of speculation,--the +drama in which the world was to be his tiring room, and remote +posterity his applauding spectators at once, and actors. + +ELIA. + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, October, 1822) + + +I do not know a more mortifying thing than to be conscious of a +foregone delight, with a total oblivion of the person and manner +which conveyed it. In dreams I often stretch and strain after the +countenance of Edwin, whom I once saw in Peeping Tom. I cannot catch a +feature of him. He is no more to me than Nokes or Pinkethman. Parsons, +and still more Dodd, were near being lost to me, till I was refreshed +with their portraits (fine treat) the other day at Mr. Mathews's +gallery at Highgate; which, with the exception of the Hogarth +pictures, a few years since exhibited in Pall Mall, was the most +delightful collection I ever gained admission to. There hang the +players, in their single persons, and in grouped scenes, from the +Restoration--Bettertons, Booths, Garricks, justifying the prejudices +which we entertain for them--the Bracegirdles, the Mountforts, and the +Oldfields, fresh as Cibber has described them--the Woffington (a true +Hogarth) upon a couch, dallying and dangerous--the Screen Scene in +Brinsley's famous comedy, with Smith and Mrs. Abingdon, whom I have +not seen, and the rest, whom having seen, I see still there. There is +Henderson, unrivalled in Comus, whom I saw at second hand in the elder +Harley--Harley, the rival of Holman, in Horatio--Holman, with the +bright glittering teeth in Lothario, and the deep paviour's sighs in +Romeo--the jolliest person ("our son is fat") of any Hamlet I have +yet seen, with the most laudable attempts (for a personable man) at +looking melancholy--and Pope, the abdicated monarch of tragedy and +comedy, in Harry the Eighth and Lord Townley. There hang the two +Aickins, brethren in mediocrity--Wroughton, who in Kitely seemed to +have forgotten that in prouder days he had personated Alexander--the +specious form of John Palmer, with the special effrontery of +Bobby--Bensley, with the trumpet-tongue, and little Quick (the retired +Dioclesian of Islington) with his squeak like a Bart'lemew fiddle. +There are fixed, cold as in life, the immovable features of Moody, +who, afraid of o'erstepping nature, sometimes stopped short of +her--and the restless fidgetiness of Lewis, who, with no such fears, +not seldom leaped o' the other side. There hang Farren and Whitfield, +and Burton and Phillimore, names of small account in those times, but +which, remembered now, or casually recalled by the sight of an old +play-bill, with their associated recordations, can "drown an eye +unused to flow." There too hangs (not far removed from them in death) +the graceful plainness of the first Mrs. Pope, with a voice unstrung +by age, but which, in her better days, must have competed with the +silver tones of Barry himself, so enchanting in decay do I remember +it--of all her lady parts exceeding herself in the Lady Quakeress +(there earth touched heaven!) of O'Keefe, when she played it to +the "merry cousin" of Lewis--and Mrs. Mattocks, the sensiblest +of viragos--and Miss Pope, a gentlewoman ever, to the verge of +ungentility, with Churchill's compliment still burnishing upon her gay +Honeycomb lips. There are the two Bannisters, and Sedgwick, and Kelly, +and Dignum (Diggy), and the bygone features of Mrs. Ward, matchless in +Lady Loverule; and the collective majesty of the whole Kemble family, +and (Shakspeare's woman) Dora Jordan; and, by her, _two Antics_, who +in former and in latter days have chiefly beguiled us of our griefs; +whose portraits we shall strive to recall, for the sympathy of those +who may not have had the benefit of viewing the matchless Highgate +Collection. + + +MR. SUETT + +O for a "slip-shod muse," to celebrate in numbers, loose and shambling +as himself, the merits and the person of Mr. Richard Suett, comedian! + +Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in his lifetime he was best +pleased to be called, and time hath ratified the appellation--lieth +buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy Paul, to whose +service his nonage and tender years were set apart and dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable +to an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I +could never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one of +us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype, of--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt or +a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose gait, a slippery tongue, this +last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; in words +light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest rhymes +tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, or Sir +Toby at the buttery hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral, pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--how dearly beautiful it was!--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as +Shakspeare says of Love, too young to know what conscience is. He put +us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before him--not as from Jack, as from +an antagonist,--but because it could not touch him, any more than a +cannon-ball a fly. He was delivered from the burthen of that death; +and, when Death came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is +recorded of him by Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he +received the last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, +nor tune, with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in +his epitaph--_O La!--O La! Bobby!_ + + +MR. MUNDEN + +Not many nights ago we had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when we retired to our pillow, his +whimsical image still stuck by us, in a manner as to threaten sleep. +In vain we tried to divest ourselves of it by conjuring up the most +opposite associations. We resolved to be serious. We raised up the +gravest topics of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not +do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But we were not to escape so easily. No sooner did we fall into +slumbers, than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed us in +the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing +before us, like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when +you have been taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this +strangest of all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance +into, from the day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the +town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power +of the pencil to have fixed them when we awoke! A season or two since +there was exhibited a Hogarth gallery. We do not see why there should +not be a Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not +fall far short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one face (but what a +one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin +down, and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of +looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts +out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but +legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be +multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and +he alone, literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the +phrase is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human +countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his +friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. We should +not be surprised to see him some day put out the head of a +river horse; or come forth a pewit, or lapwing, some feathered +metamorphosis. + +We have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. We have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in what has been truly denominated "the sublime of farce," Munden +stands out as single and unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to +tell, had no followers. The school of Munden began, and must end, with +himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--sessa--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him, or as if Thalaba +were no tale! Who like him can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a +supernatural interest over the commonest daily-life objects? A table, +or a joint stool, in his conception, rises into a dignity equivalent +to Cassiopeia's chair. It is invested with constellatory importance. +You could not speak of it with more deference, if it were mounted into +the firmament. A beggar in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, +rose the Patriarch of Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and +ennobles what it touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and +primal as the seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. +A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He +understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid +the commonplace materials of life, like primæval man, with the sun and +stars about him. + +ELIA. + + + + +NOTES + +ELIA + + +Lamb took the name of Elia, which should, he said, be pronounced +Ellia, from an old clerk, an Italian, at the South-Sea House in Lamb's +time: that is, in 1791-1792. Writing to John Taylor in July, 1821, +just after he had taken over the magazine (see below), Lamb says, +referring to the South-Sea House essay, "having a brother now there, +and doubting how he might relish certain descriptions in it, I clapt +down the name of Elia to it, which passed off pretty well, for Elia +himself added the function of an author to that of a scrivener, like +myself. I went the other day (not having seen him [Elia] for a year) +to laugh over with him at my usurpation of his name, and found him, +alas! no more than a name, for he died of consumption eleven months +ago, and I knew not of it. So the name has fairly devolved to me, I +think; and 'tis all he has left me." + +In the library at Welbeck is a copy of a pamphlet, in French, entitled +_Considérations sur l'état actuel de la France au mois de Juin 1815, +par un Anglais_, which was presented to the Duke of Portland by the +author, F.A. Elia. This was probably Lamb's Elia. The pamphlet is +reprinted, together with other interesting matter remotely connected +with Lamb, in _Letters from the Originals at Welbeck Abbey_, privately +printed, 1909. + +_Elia. Essays which have appeared under that signature in the London +Magazine_, was published early in 1823. Lamb's original intention was +to furnish the book with a whimsical preface, as we learn from the +following letter to John Taylor, dated December 7, 1822:-- + + "DEAR SIR,--I should like the enclosed Dedication to be printed, + unless you dislike it. I like it. It is in the olden style. But if + you object to it, put forth the book as it is; only pray don't let + the printer mistake the word _curt_ for _curst_. + + "C.L. + + "DEDICATION. + + "TO THE FRIENDLY AND JUDICIOUS READER, + who will take these Papers, as they were meant; not understanding + every thing perversely in its absolute and literal sense, but + giving fair construction, as to an after-dinner conversation; + allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first + thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, + words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass, the Author + wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to + stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all + his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most + hasty words and actions. The other sort (and he hopes many of them + will purchase his book too) he greets with the curt invitation of + Timon, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap:' or he dismisses them with the + confident security of the philosopher,--'you beat but on the case + of Elia.' + + "On better consideration, pray omit that Dedication. The Essays + want no Preface: they are _all Preface_. A Preface is nothing but + a talk with the reader; and they do nothing else. Pray omit it. + + "There will be a sort of Preface in the next Magazine, which may + act as an advertisement, but not proper for the volume. + + "Let ELIA come forth bare as he was born. + + "C.L. + + "N.B.--_No_ Preface." + +The "sort of Preface in the next number" was the character sketch of +the late Elia on page 171. + +_Elia_ did not reach a second edition in Lamb's lifetime--that is to +say, during a period of twelve years--although the editions into which +it has passed between his death and the present day are legion. Why, +considering the popularity of the essays as they appeared in the +_London Magazine_, the book should have found so few purchasers is a +problem difficult of solution. Lamb himself seems to have attributed +some of the cause to Southey's objection, in the _Quarterly Review_, +that _Elia_ "wanted a sounder religious feeling;" but more probably +the book was too dear: it was published at 9s. 6d. + +Ordinary reviewers do not seem to have perceived at all that a rare +humorist, humanist and master of prose had arisen, although among the +finer intellects who had any inclination to search for excellence for +excellence's sake Lamb made his way. William Hazlitt, for example, +drew attention to the rich quality of _Elia_; as also did Leigh Hunt; +and William Hone, who cannot, however, as a critic be mentioned with +these, was tireless in advocating the book. Among strangers to Lamb +who from the first extolled his genius was Miss Mitford. But _Elia_ +did not sell. + +Ten years passed before Lamb collected his essays again, and then +in 1833 was published _The Last Essays of Elia_, with Edward +Moxon's imprint. The mass of minor essays in the _London Magazine_ +and elsewhere, which Lamb disregarded when he compiled his two +collections, will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition. _The +Last Essays of Elia_ had little, if any, better reception than the +first; and Lamb had the mortification of being asked by the Norris +family to suppress the exquisite and kindly little memoir of Randal +Norris, entitled "A Death-Bed" (see page 279), which was held to be +too personal. When, in 1835, after Lamb's death, a new edition of +_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_ was issued, the "Confessions of +a Drunkard" took its place (see Vol. I.). + +Meanwhile a Philadelphian firm had been beforehand with Lamb, and +had issued in 1828 a second series of _Elia_. The American edition +of _Elia_ had been the same as the English except for a slightly +different arrangement of the essays. But when in 1828 the American +second series was issued, it was found to contain three pieces not +by Lamb at all. A trick of writing superficially like Lamb had been +growing in the _London Magazine_ ever since the beginning; hence the +confusion of the American editor. The three articles not by Lamb, as +he pointed out to N.P. Willis (see _Pencillings by the Way_), are +"Twelfth Night," "The Nuns and Ale of Caverswell," and "Valentine's +Day." Of these Allan Cunningham wrote the second, and B.W. Procter +(Barry Cornwall) the other two. The volume contained only eleven +essays which Lamb himself selected for _The Last Essays of Elia_: it +was eked out with the three spurious pieces above referred to, with +several pieces never collected by Lamb, and with four of the humorous +articles in the _Works_, 1818. Bernard Barton's sonnet "To Elia" stood +as introduction. Altogether it was a very interesting book, as books +lacking authority often are. + +In the notes that follow reference is often made to Lamb's Key. This +is a paper explaining certain initials and blanks in _Elia_, which +Lamb drew up for R.B. Pitman, a fellow clerk at the East India House. +I give it here in full, merely remarking that the first numerals refer +to the pages of the original edition of _Elia_ and those in brackets +to the present volume:-- + + M. . . . Page 13 [7] Maynard, hang'd himself. + + G.D. . . " 21 [11] George Dyer, Poet. + + H. . . . " 32 [16] Hodges. + + W. . . . " 45 [23] + + Dr. T----e . " 46 [24] Dr. Trollope. + + Th. . . " 47 [24] Thornton. + + S. . . " 47 [24] Scott, died in Bedlam. + + M. . . " 47 [24] Maunde, dismiss'd school. + + C.V. le G. . " 48 [25] Chs. Valentine le Grice. + + F. . . . " 49 [25] Favell; left Camb'rg because he was + asham'd of his father, who was a + house-painter there. + + Fr. . . " 50 [26] Franklin, Gramr. Mast., Hertford. + + T. . . " 50 [26] Marmaduke Thompson. + + K. . . " 59 [30] Kenney, Dramatist. Author of + _Raising Wind_, &c. + + S.T.C. . . " 60 [31] Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [Not in + Lamb's autograph.] + + Alice W----n . " 63 [32] Feigned (Winterton). + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + **** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + Mrs. S. . . " 87 [44] Mrs. Spinkes. + + R. . . . " 98 [50] Ramsay, London Library, Ludg. St.; + now extinct. + + Granville S. . " 98 [50] Granville Sharp. [Not in Lamb's + autograph.] + + E.B. . . " 130 [65] Edward Burney, half-brother of Miss + Burney. + + B. . . . " 141 [71] Braham, now a Xtian. + + *********** . " 170 [85] Distrest Sailors. + + J----ll. . " 195 [97] Jekyll. + + Susan P. . " 198 [99] Susan Peirson. + + R.N. . . " 206 [103] Randal Norris, Subtreasr, Inner Temple. + + C. . . . " 216 [108] Coleridge. + + F. . . . " 222 [111] Field. + + B.F. . . " 238 [118] Baron Field, brother of Frank. + + Lord C. . " 243 [121] Lord Camelford. + + Sally W----r . " 248 [123] Sally Winter. + + J.W. . . " 248 [123] Jas. White, author of _Falstaff's + Letters_. + + St. L. . . " 268 [133] No meaning. + + B., Rector of ---- " 268 [133] No meaning. + +The _London Magazine_, with John Scott (1783-1821) as its editor was +founded in 1820 by Baldwin, Cradock & Joy. Its first number was dated +January, 1820, and Lamb's first contribution was in the number for +August, 1820. Lamb had known Scott as editor of _The Champion_ in +1814, but, according to Talfourd, it was Hazlitt who introduced Lamb +to the _London Magazine_. + +John Scott, who was the author of two interesting books of travel, +_A Visit to Paris in 1814_ and _Paris Re-visited_ in 1815, was an +admirable editor, and all was going exceedingly well until he plunged +into a feud with _Blackwood's Magazine_ in general, and John Gibson +Lockhart in particular, the story of which in full may be read in +Mr. Lang's _Life and Letters of Lockhart_, 1896. In the duel which +resulted Scott was shot above the hip. The wound was at first thought +lightly of, but Scott died on February 27, 1821--an able man much +regretted. + +The magazine did not at first show signs of Scott's loss; it continued +to bear the imprint of its original publishers and its quality +remained very high. With Lamb and Hazlitt writing regularly this +could hardly be otherwise. But four months after the death of Scott +and eighteen months after its establishment the _London Magazine_ +passed into the hands of the publishers Taylor & Hessey, the first +number with their imprint being dated August, 1821. Although for a +while no diminution of merit was perceptible and rather an access +of gaiety--for Taylor brought Hood with him and John Hamilton +Reynolds--yet the high editorial standards of Scott ceased to be +applied. Thenceforward the decline of the magazine was steady. + +John Taylor (1781-1864), senior partner in the firm of Taylor & +Hessey, was known as the identifier of Sir Philip Francis with the +author of "Junius," on which subject he had issued three books. +Although unfitted for the post, he acted as editor of the _London +Magazine_ until it was again sold in 1825. + +With the beginning of 1825 Taylor made a change in the magazine. He +started a new series, and increased the size and the price. But the +experiment did not answer; the spirit had evaporated; and in the +autumn he sold it to Henry Southern (1799-1853), who had founded +the _Retrospective Review_ in 1820. The last number of the _London +Magazine_ to bear Taylor & Hessey's name, and (in my opinion) to +contain anything by Lamb, was August, 1825. We have no definite +information on the matter, but there is every indication in Lamb's +_Letters_ that Taylor was penurious and not clever in his relations +with contributors. Scott Lamb seems to have admired and liked; but +even in Scott's day payment does not seem to have been prompt. Lamb +was paid, according to Barry Cornwall, two or three times the amount +of other writers, who received for prose a pound a page. But Lamb +himself says that the rate for him was twenty guineas a sheet, a sheet +being sixteen pages; and he told Moore that he had received £170 for +two years' Elia. In a letter to Barton in January, 1823, Lamb remarks: +"B---- [Baldwin] who first engaged me as 'Elia' has not paid me up yet +(nor any of us without repeated mortifying appeals)." + +The following references to the _London_ in Lamb's letters to Barton +tell the story of its decadence quite clearly enough. In May, +1823:--"I cannot but think _the London_ drags heavily. I miss Janus +[Wainewright]. And O how it misses Hazlitt--Procter, too, is affronted +(as Janus has been) with their abominable curtailment of his things." + +Again, a little later, in September:--"The 'London' I fear falls +off.--I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat. It will +topple down, if they don't get some Buttresses. They have pulled down +three, W. Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind light-hearted +Wainwright, their Janus." + +In January, 1824, at the beginning of his eight months' silence:--"The +London must do without me for a time, a time, and half a time, for I +have lost all interest about it." + +Again, in December, 1824:--"Taylor & Hessey finding their magazine +goes off very heavily at 2s. 6d., are prudently going to raise their +price another shilling; and having already more authors than they +want, intend to increase the number of them. If they set up against +the New Monthly, they must change their present hands. It is not tying +the dead carcase of a Review to a half-dead Magazine will do their +business." + +In January, 1825 (to Sarah Hutchinson):--"You ask about the editor of +the Lond. I know of none. This first specimen [of a new series] is +flat and pert enough to justify subscribers, who grudge at t'other +shilling." + +Next month Lamb writes, again to Barton:--"Our second Number [of the +new series] is all trash. What are T. & H. about? It is whip syllabub, +'thin sown with aught of profit or delight'. Thin sown! not a germ of +fruit or corn. Why did poor Scott die! There was comfort in writing +with such associates as were his little band of scribblers, some gone +away, some affronted away, and I am left as the solitary widow [in one +of Barton's poems] looking for watercresses." + +Finally, in August, 1825:--"Taylor has dropt the 'London'. It was +indeed a dead weight. It was Job in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle +off my part of the pack, and stand like Christian with light and merry +shoulders." + +In addition to Lamb and Hazlitt the _London Magazine_ had more or +less regular contributions, in its best days, from De Quincey, Allan +Cunningham (Nalla), T.G. Wainewright, afterwards the poisoner, but +in those days an amusing weaver of gay artificial prose, John Clare, +Bernard Barton, H.F. Cary, Richard Ayton, George Darley, Thomas Hood, +John Hamilton Reynolds, Sir John Bowring, John Poole, B.W. Procter; +while among occasional writers for it were Thomas Carlyle, Landor and +Julius Hare. + +The essay, "Stage Illusion," in the number for August, 1825, was, +I believe, the last that Lamb contributed. (In this connection see +Mr. Bertram Dobell's _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903.) Lamb then +passed over to Colburn's _New Monthly Magazine_, where the "Popular +Fallacies" appeared, together with certain other of his later essays. +His last contribution to that magazine was dated September, 1826. In +1827 he was chiefly occupied in selecting Garrick play extracts for +Hone's _Table Book_, at the British Museum, and for a while after that +he seems to have been more interested in writing acrostics and album +verses than prose. In 1831, however, Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_ +offered harbourage for anything Lamb cared to give it, and a brief +revival of Elia (under the name of Peter) resulted. With its death in +October, 1831, Lamb's writing career practically ceased. + + * * * * * + +Page 1. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1820. + +Although the "Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married +People," "Valentine's Day," and "On the Acting of Munden," were all +written before this essay, it is none the less the first of the +essays of Elia. I have remarked, in the notes to a small edition of +_Elia_, that it is probably unique in literature for an author to +find himself, as Lamb did, in his forty-fourth year, by recording +impressions gathered in his seventeenth; but I think now that Lamb +probably visited his brother at the South-Sea House from time to time +in later years, and gathered other impressions then. I am led to this +conclusion partly by the fact that Thomas Tame was not appointed +Deputy-Accountant until four or five years after Lamb had left. + +We do not know exactly what Lamb's duties were at the South-Sea +House or how long he was there: probably only for the twenty-three +weeks--from September, 1791--mentioned in the receipt below, +discovered by Mr. J.A. Rutter in a little exhibition of documents +illustrative of the South Sea Bubble in the Albert Museum at Exeter:-- + + Rec'd 8th feby 1792 of the Honble South Sea Company by the hands + of their Secretary Twelve pounds 1s. 6d. for 23 weeks attendance + in the Examiners Office. + + £12 1 6. CHAS. LAMB. + +This shows that Lamb's salary was half a guinea weekly, paid +half-yearly. His brother John was already in the service of the +Company, where he remained till his death, rising to Accountant. It +has been conjectured that it was through his influence that Charles +was admitted, with the view of picking up book-keeping; but the real +patron and introducer was Joseph Pake, one of the directors, whom we +meet on page 92. Whether Lamb had ideas of remaining, or whether he +merely filled a temporary gap in the Examiners' Office, we cannot +tell. He passed to the East India House in the spring of 1792. + +The South Sea Company was incorporated in 1710. The year of the Bubble +was 1720. The South-Sea House, remodelled, is now a congeries of +offices. + +Page 2, line 11. _Forty years ago_. To be accurate, twenty-eight to +thirty. + +Page 3, line 1. _Accounts ... puzzle me_. Here Elia begins his +"matter-of-lie" career. Lamb was at this time in the Accountants' +Office of the India House, living among figures all day. + +Page 3, line 7 from foot. _Evans_. William Evans. The Directories of +those days printed lists of the chief officials in some of the public +offices, and it is possible to trace the careers of the clerks whom +Lamb names. All are genuine. Evans, whose name is given one year as +Evan Evans, was appointed cashier (or deputy-cashier) in 1792. + +Page 4, line 4. _Ready to imagine himself one_. Lamb was fond of this +conceit. See his little essay "The Last Peach" (Vol. I.), and the +mischievous letter to Bernard Barton, after Fauntleroy's trial, +warning him against peculation. + +Page 4, line 7. _Anderton's_. Either the coffee-shop in Fleet Street, +now Anderton's Hotel, or a city offshoot of it. The portrait, if it +ever was in existence, is no longer known there. + +Page 5, line 17. _John Tipp_. John Lamb succeeded Tipp as Accountant +somewhen about 1806. + +Page 5, line 27. _I know not, etc._ This parenthesis was not in the +_London Magazine_, but the following footnote was appended to the +sentence:-- + + "I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is + a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some + choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which + I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same + time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. + Lamb has the character of a right courteous and communicative + collector." + +Mr. Lamb was, of course, John Lamb, or James Elia (see the essay "My +Relations"), then (in 1820) Accountant of the South-Sea House. He left +the Milton to his brother. It is now in America. + +Page 6, line 5 from foot. _Henry Man_. This was Henry Man (1747-1790), +deputy-secretary of the South-Sea House from 1776, and an author +of light trifles in the papers, and of one or two books. The +_Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose of the late Henry Man_ was +published in 1802, among the subscribers being three of the officials +named in this essay--John Evans, R. Plumer, and Mr. Tipp, and also +Thomas Maynard, who, though assigned to the Stock Exchange, is +probably the "childlike, pastoral M----" of a later paragraph. Small +politics are for the most part kept out of Man's volumes, which are +high-spirited rather than witty, but this punning epigram (of which +Lamb was an admirer) on Lord Spencer and Lord Sandwich may be +quoted:-- + + Two Lords whose names if I should quote, + Some folks might call me sinner: + The one invented _half a coat_, + The other _half a dinner_. + + Such lords as these are useful men, + Heaven sends them to console one; + Because there's now not one in ten, + That can procure a _whole one_. + +Page 7, line 13. _Plumer_. Richard Plumer (spelled Plomer in the +directories), deputy-secretary after Man. Lamb was peculiarly +interested in the Plumers from the fact that his grandmother, Mrs. +Field, had been housekeeper of their mansion at Blakesware, near Ware +(see notes to "Dream-Children" and "Blakesmoor in H----shire"). The +fine old Whig was William Plumer, who had been her employer, and was +now living at Gilston. He died in 1821. + +The following passage from the memoir of Edward Cave (1691-1754), +which Dr. Johnson wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (which Cave +established) in 1754, shows that Lamb was mistaken about Plumer:-- + + He [Cave] was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the + franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and + often stopped franks which were given by members of parliament to + their friends; because he thought such extension of a peculiar + right illegal. This raised many complaints, and having stopped, + among others, a frank given to the old dutchess of _Marlborough_ + by Mr. _Walter Plummer_, he was cited before the house, as for + breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, + of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great + harshness and severity, but declining their questions by pleading + his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And it must be + recorded to his honour, that when he was ejected from his office, + he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but continued + to refuse to his nearest friends any information about the + management of the office. + +I borrow from Canon Ainger an interesting note on Walter Plumer, +written in the eighteen-eighties, showing that Lamb was mistaken on +other matters too:-- + + The present Mr. Plumer, of Allerton, Totness, a grandson of + Richard Plumer of the South-Sea House, by no means acquiesces in + the tradition here recorded as to his grandfather's origin. He + believes that though the links are missing, Richard Plumer was + descended in regular line from the Baronet, Sir Walter Plumer, + who died at the end of the seventeenth century. Lamb's memory + has failed him here in one respect. The "Bachelor Uncle," Walter + Plumer, uncle of William Plumer of Blakesware, was most certainly + not a bachelor (see the pedigree of the family in Cussans' + _Hertfordshire_). + +Page 7, line 10 from foot. M----. According to the Key to the initials +and blanks in some of the essays, which Lamb filled in for a curious +correspondent, M---- stood for one Maynard. "Maynard, hang'd himself" +is Lamb's entry. He was chief clerk in the Old Annuities and Three Per +Cents, 1788-1793. + + * * * * * + +Page 8. OXFORD IN THE VACATION. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1820, where it is dated at the end, +"August 5, 1820. From my rooms facing the Bodleian." My own belief +is that Lamb wrote the essay at Cambridge, under the influence of +Cambridge, where he spent a few weeks in the summers of 1819 and 1820, +and transferred the scene to Oxford by way of mystification. He knew +Oxford, of course, but he had not been there for some years, and it +was at Cambridge that he met Dyer and saw the Milton MSS. + +Concerning a visit to Oxford (in 1810), Hazlitt had written, in his +_Table Talk_ essay "On the Conversation of Authors," in the preceding +(the September) number of the _London Magazine_:-- + + L---- [that is, Lamb] once came down into the country to see us. + He was "like the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." The + country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his + jokes. It would be strange if they had; for he did not make any + while he staid. But when we crossed the country to Oxford, then he + spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well-met; + and in the quadrangles, he "walked gowned." + +The quotation is a reference to Lamb's sonnet, "I was not Trained in +Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in 1819:-- + + Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, + Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap; + My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, + And I walk _gownèd_. + +Page 8, line 6 from foot. _Agnize_. Lamb was fond of this word. I +have seen it stated ingeniously that it was of his own coinage--from +_agnus_, a lamb--but the derivation is _ad gnoscere_, to acknowledge, +to recognise, and the word is to be found in other places--in +"Othello," for example (Act I., Scene 3, line 232):-- + + I do agnise + A natural and prompt alacrity. + +Page 9, middle. _Red-letter days_. See note on page 351. The holidays +at the India House, which are given in the London directories of +Lamb's early time there, make a considerable list. But in 1820 the +Accountants' Office, where Lamb was, kept only five days in the year. + +Page 10, line 11. _I can here ... enact the student._ Lamb had +distilled the matter of this paragraph into his sonnet, "I was not +Trained in Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in August of the +preceding year (see above and Vol. IV.). + +Page 11, line 12 from foot. _Unsettle my faith._ At this point, in the +_London Magazine_, Lamb appended the footnote:-- + + "There is something to me repugnant, at any time, in written hand. + The text never seems determinate. Print settles it. I had thought + of the Lycidas as of a full-grown beauty--as springing up with all + its parts absolute--till, in evil hour, I was shown the original + written copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its + author, in the Library of Trinity, kept like some treasure to be + proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, + after the latter cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How + it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore! interlined, + corrected! as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable + at pleasure! as if they might have been otherwise, and just + as good! as if inspirations were made up of parts, and those + fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the + work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his + picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were + to be alive again, and painting another Galatea." + +In the Appendix to Vol. I., page 428, I have printed a passage from +the original MS. of _Comus_, which there is reason to believe was +contributed to the _London Magazine_ by Lamb. + +Page 11, line 9 from foot. _G.D._ George Dyer (1755-1841), Lamb's +friend for many years. This is the first mention of him in the essays; +but we shall meet him again, particularly in "Amicus Redivivus." +George Dyer was educated at Christ's Hospital long before Lamb's +time there, and, becoming a Grecian, had entered Emmanuel College, +Cambridge. He became at first an usher in Essex, then a private tutor +to the children of Robert Robinson, the Unitarian, whose life he +afterwards excellently wrote, then an usher again, at Northampton, one +of his colleagues being John Clarke, father of Lamb's friend, Charles +Cowden Clarke. In 1792 he settled in Clifford's Inn as a hack; wrote +poems, made indexes, examined libraries for a great bibliographical +work (never published), and contributed "all that was original" to +Valpy's classics in 141 volumes. Under this work his sight gave way; +and he once showed Hazlitt two fingers the use of which he had lost +in copying out MSS. of Procrus and Plotinus in a fine Greek hand. +Fortunately a good woman took him under her wing; they were married in +1825; and Dyer's last days were happy. His best books were his _Life +of Robert Robinson_ and his _History of the University and Colleges +of Cambridge_. Lamb and his friends laughed at him and loved him. In +addition to the stories told by Lamb in his letters and essays, there +are amusing characteristics of Dyer in Crabb Robinson's diary, in +Leigh Hunt, in Hazlitt, in Talfourd, and in other places. All bear +upon his gentleness, his untidiness and his want of humour. One of +the most famous stories tells of Dyer's criticism of Williams, the +terrible Ratcliffe Highway murderer. Dyer, who would never say an ill +word of any one, was asked his opinion of this cold-blooded assassin +of two families. "He must," he replied after due thought, "be rather +an eccentric character." + +Page 12, line 10. _Injustice to him._ In the _London Magazine_ the +following footnote came here, almost certainly by Lamb:-- + + "Violence or injustice certainly none, Mr. Elia. But you will + acknowledge that the charming unsuspectingness of our friend has + sometimes laid him open to attacks, which, though savouring (we + hope) more of waggery than malice--such is our unfeigned respect + for G.D.--might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such was + that silly joke of L[amb], who, at the time the question of the + Scotch Novels was first agitated, gravely assured our friend--who + as gravely went about repeating it in all companies--that Lord + Castlereagh had acknowledged himself to be the author of Waverly! + _Note--not by Elia."_ + +Page 12, line 11. _"Strike an abstract idea."_ I do not find this +quotation--if it be one; but when John Lamb once knocked Hazlitt down, +during an argument on pigments, Hazlitt refrained from striking back, +remarking that he was a metaphysician and dealt not in blows but in +ideas. Lamb may be slyly remembering this. + +Page 12, line 15. C----. Cambridge. Dyer added a work on _Privileges +of the University if Cambridge_ to his _History_. + +Page 12, line 8 from foot. _Our friend M.'s._ Basil Montagu, Q.C. +(1770-1851), legal writer, philanthropist, editor of Bacon, and the +friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge. The Mrs. M. here referred to was +Montagu's third wife, a Mrs. Skepper. It was she who was called by +Edward Irving "the noble lady," and to whom Carlyle addressed some +early letters. A.S. was Anne Skepper, afterwards Mrs. Bryan Waller +Procter, a fascinating lady who lived to a great age and died as +recently as 1888. The Montagus then lived at 25 Bedford Square. + +Page 13, line 17. _Starts like a thing surprised._ Here we have an +interesting example of Lamb's gift of fused quotation. Wordsworth's +line in the "Ode on Intimations of Immortality," + + Tremble like a guilty thing surprised, + +and Shakespeare's phrase in "Hamlet" (Act I., Scene 1, line 148), + + Started like a guilty thing, + +were probably both in his mind as he wrote. + +Page 13, line 24. _Obtruded personal presence._ In the _London +Magazine_ the following passage came here:-- + + "D. commenced life, after a course of hard study in the 'House of + pure Emanuel,' as usher to a knavish fanatic schoolmaster at ***, + at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. + Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the + laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, + that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes + compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at + arrears, Dr. *** would take no immediate notice, but, after + supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would + never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, + and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire + of them--ending with 'Lord, keep thy servants, above all things + from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, + us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish,'--and the + like;--which to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine + full of Christian prudence and simplicity,--but to poor D. was a + receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least. + + "And D. has been under-working for himself ever since;--drudging + at low rates for unappreciating booksellers,--wasting his fine + erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those + unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall + to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell + themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which + do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his + own,--and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient + literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he + could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what + he terms them, _crotchets;_ voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and + Spring; effusions; little tributes, and offerings, left behind + him, upon tables and window-seats, at parting from friends' + houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been + courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his + muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion + in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the + sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own + healthy natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation." + +The foregoing passage called forth a protest from one W.K. +necessitating the following reply from Lamb, which was printed in the +_London Magazine_, under the "Lion's Head," for December, 1820:-- + + "Elia requests the Editor to inform W.K. that in his article on + Oxford, under the initials G.D., it is his ambition to make more + familiar to the public, a character, which, for integrity and + single-heartedness, he has long been accustomed to rank among the + best patterns of his species. That, if he has failed in the end + which he proposed, it was an error of judgment merely. That, if + in pursuance of his purpose, he has drawn forth some personal + peculiarities of his friend into notice, it was only from the + conviction that the public, in living subjects especially, do not + endure pure panegyric. That the anecdotes, which he produced, + were no more than he conceived necessary to awaken attention to + character, and were meant solely to illustrate it. That it is an + entire mistake to suppose, that he undertook the character to + set off his own wit or ingenuity. That, he conceives, a candid + interpreter might find something intended, beyond a heartless + jest. That G.D., however, having thought it necessary to disclaim + the anecdote respecting Dr. ----, it becomes him, who never for + a moment can doubt the veracity of his friend, to account for + it from an imperfect remembrance of some story he heard long + ago, and which, happening to tally with his argument, he set + too hastily to the account of G.D. That, from G.D.'s strong + affirmations and proofs to the contrary, he is bound to believe + it belongs to no part of G.D.'s biography. That the transaction, + supposing it true, must have taken place more than forty years + ago. That, in consequence, it is not likely to 'meet the eye of + many who might be justly offended.' + + "Finally, that what he has said of the Booksellers, referred to a + period of many years, in which he has had the happiness of G.D.'s + acquaintance; and can have nothing to do with any present or + prospective engagements of G.D., with those gentlemen, to the + nature of which he professes himself an entire stranger." + +The result of the protest was that Lamb omitted the passage objected +to when he collected _Elia_ in 1823. It might well be restored now; +but I have preferred to print everything in the body of this edition +as Lamb arranged it for press. + + * * * * * + +Page 14. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1820. + +This essay, which is based upon the "Recollections of Christ's +Hospital" in Vol. I., is a curious blend of Lamb's own experiences at +school with those of Coleridge. Both boys entered at the same time--on +July 17, 1782: Coleridge was then nearly ten, Lamb was seven and a +half. Coleridge was "clothed" on July 18 and went to Hertford for +a while; Lamb was clothed on October 9. Lamb left the school in +November, 1789, Coleridge in September, 1791. + +The school which Lamb knew is now no more. The boys are now all in new +buildings in the midst of green fields near Horsham, many miles from +Lamb's city and its roar. + +Page 14, line 15. _The worthy sub-treasurer._ Randal Norris (see note +to "A Death-Bed"). I have not been able to discover the cause of his +influence. + +Page 14, lines 18, 19. _Crug ... piggins._ Crug is still current +slang. In the school museum one of these piggins is preserved. + +Page 14, line 25. _Three banyan days._ Three vegetarian days. +Coleridge complains (in a letter to Poole) that he was never +sufficiently fed except on Wednesdays. He gives the following table of +food:-- + + Our diet was very scanty. Every morning a bit of dry bread and + some bad small beer. Every evening a larger piece of bread, and + cheese or butter, whichever we liked. For dinner,--on Sunday, + boiled beef and broth; Monday, bread and butter, and milk and + water; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, bread and butter, and + rice milk; Thursday, boiled beef and broth; Friday, boiled mutton + and broth; Saturday, bread and butter, and pease-porridge. Our + food was portioned; and, excepting on Wednesdays, I never had a + bellyfull. Our appetites were damped, never satisfied; and we had + no vegetables. + +Page 14, line 8 from foot. _Caro equina._ Horseflesh. Mr. Pearce's +chapter on food at the school in his excellent _Annals of Christ's +Hospital_ is very interesting, and records great changes. +Rotten-roasted or rare, _i.e._, over-roasted or under-done. + +Page 15, line 3. _The good old relative._ Aunt Hetty, or more +properly, Sarah Lamb. Compare the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral," Vol. IV.:-- + + I have not forgot + How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet + A prating schoolboy: I have not forgot + The busy joy on that important day, + When, childlike, the poor wanderer was content + To leave the bosom of parental love, + His childhood's play-place, and his early home, + For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand, + Hard, uncouth tasks, and schoolboys' scanty fare. + How did thine eyes peruse him round and round + And hardly knew him in his yellow coats, + Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue. + +Page 15, line 13. _I was a poor friendless boy._ Here Lamb speaks as +Coleridge, who came all the way from Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire +(not Calne, in Wiltshire), and had no London friends. In _John +Woodvil_ Lamb borrowed St. Mary Ottery again (see Vol. IV.). Coleridge +has recorded how unhappy he was in his early days at school. + +Page 15, line 12 from foot. _Whole-day-leaves._ In this connection +the following passage from Trollope's _History of Christ's Hospital_, +1834, is interesting:-- + +Those days, on which _leave_ is given to be absent from the Hospital +during the whole day, are called _whole-day leaves_.... A _ticket_ is +a small oval medal attached to the button-hole, without which, except +on leaves, no boy is allowed to pass the gates. Subjoined is a list of +the holidays, which have been hitherto kept at Christ's Hospital; but +it is in contemplation to abridge them materially. Of the policy of +such a measure great doubts may fairly be entertained, inasmuch as the +vacations are so short as to give sufficient respite neither to master +nor scholar; and these occasional breaks, in the arduous duties of the +former more especially, enable him to repair the exhausted energies of +body and mind by necessary relaxation. If those days, which are marked +with an asterisk, fall on a Sunday, they are kept on the Monday +following; and likewise the state holidays. + +HOLIDAYS KEPT AT CHRIST'S HOSPITAL + +Jan. 25. St. Paul's conversion. + *30. King Charles's martyrdom. +Feb. 2. Candlemas Day. + 24. St. Matthias. + Shrove Tuesday. + Ash Wednesday. +March 25. Lady Day. +April 23. St. George. + 25. St. Mark. +May 1. St. Philip and St. James. + *29. Restoration of King + Charles II. + Ascension Day. + Whit Monday. + Whit Tuesday. +June 11. St. Barnabas. + 24. St. John Baptist. + 29. St. Peter. +July 25. St. James. + Thursday after St. + James. (Nurses' Holiday.) +Aug. 24. St. Bartholomew. +Sept. *2. London burnt. + *21. St. Matthew. + 29. St. Michael. +Oct. 18. St. Luke. + *23. King Edward VI. born. + 28. St. Simon and St. Jude. +Nov. 1. All Saints. + *5. Gunpowder Plot. + *9. Lord Mayor's Day. + *17. Queen Elizabeth's birthday. + 30. St. Andrew. +Dec. 21. St. Thomas. + +Also the birthdays of the King and Queen, and the Prince and Princess +of Wales: and the King's accession, proclamation, and coronation. + +In addition to the generous allowance of holidays above given the boys +had every alternate Wednesday for a whole day; eleven days at Easter, +four weeks in the summer, and fifteen days at Christmas. In 1837 the +holiday system was remodelled. Compare Lamb's other remarks on his +whole-day rambles in "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" (Vol. I.) +and in the essays in the present volume entitled "Amicus Redivivus" +and "Newspapers." + +Page 16, line 14. _The Tower_. Blue-coat boys still have this right +of free entrance to the Tower; but the lions are no more. They were +transferred to the Zoological Gardens in 1831. + +Page 16, line 16. _L.'s governor_. Meaning Samuel Salt, M.P.; but it +was actually his friend Mr. Timothy Yeats who signed Lamb's paper. +More accurately, Lamb's father lived under Salt's roof. + +Page 16, line 7 from foot. _H----_. According to Lamb's Key this was +Hodges; but in the British Museum copy of _Elia_, first edition, some +one has written Huggins. It is immaterial. Nevis and St. Kitt's (St. +Christopher's) are islands in the British West Indies. Tobin would +be James Webbe Tobin, of Nevis, who died in 1814, the brother of the +playwright John Tobin, author of "The Honeymoon." + +Page 17, line 2. _A young ass_. The general opinion at Christ's +Hospital is that Lamb invented this incident; and yet it has the air +of being true. + +Page 17, line 18. _L.'s admired Perry_. John Perry, steward from 1761 +to 1785, mentioned in Lamb's earlier essay. + +Page 17, foot. _Gags_. Still current slang. + +Page 17, foot. ----. No name in the Key. The quotation is an +adaptation of:-- + + It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh + Which some did die to look on. + + "Antony and Cleopatra," Act I., Scene 4, lines 67-68. + +It is perhaps worth remarking that in _David Copperfield_ Dickens has +a school incident of a similar character. + +Page 18, line 14 from foot. _Mr. Hathaway_. Matthias Hathaway, steward +from 1790 to 1813. + +Page 19, line 8. _I was a hypochondriac lad_. Here Lamb drops the +Coleridge mask and speaks as himself. + +Page 20, line 15. _Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert_. Bamber +Gascoigne, M.P. (1725-1791), of Bifrons, in Essex. Of Peter Aubert +I can find nothing, except that the assistant secretary of the East +India Company at the time Lamb wrote this essay was Peter Auber, +afterwards full secretary. His name here may be a joke. + +Page 20, line 6 from foot. _Matthew Field_. The Rev. Matthew Feilde, +also vicar of Ugley and curate of Berden. For the Rev. James Boyer see +below. + +Page 21, line 18. _"Peter Wilkins," etc. The Adventures of Peter +Wilkins_, by Robert Paltock, 1751, is still read; but _The Voyages and +Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle_, 1736, has had its day. It was a +blend of unconvincing travel and some rather free narrative: a piece +of sheer hackwork to meet a certain market. See Lamb's sonnet to +Stothard, Vol. IV. _The Fortunate Blue-Coat Boy_ I have not seen. +Canon Ainger describes it as a rather foolish romance, showing how a +Blue-coat boy marries a rich lady of rank. The sub-title is "Memoirs +of the Life and Happy Adventures of Mr. Benjamin Templeman; formerly a +Scholar in Christ's Hospital. By an Orphanotropian," 1770. + +Page 22, footnote. I have not discovered a copy of Matthew Feilde's +play. + +Page 23, line 17 from foot. _Squinting W----_. Not identifiable. + +Page 23, line 7 from foot. _Coleridge, in his literary life_. +Coleridge speaks in the _Biographia Literaria_ of having had the +"inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a +very severe master, the Reverend James Bowyer [Boyer]," and goes on to +attribute to that master's discrimination and thoroughness much of his +own classical knowledge and early interest in poetry and criticism. +Coleridge gives this example of Boyer's impatient humour:-- + + In our own English compositions (at least for the last three years + of our school education), he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, + or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense + might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer + words. _Lute, harp_ and _lyre, Muse, Muses_ and _inspirations, + Pegasus, Parnassus_ and _Hippocrene_, were all an abomination to + him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? + Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, muse? Your nurse's + daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh, aye! the cloister pump, I + suppose!" + +Touching Boyer's cruelty, Coleridge adds that his "severities, even +now, not seldom furnish the dreams by which the blind fancy would fain +interpret to the mind the painful sensations of distempered sleep." + +In _Table Talk_ Coleridge tells another story of Boyer. "The +discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time," he says, "was +ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. 'Boy!' I +remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of +my return after the holidays, 'Boy! the school is your father! Boy! +the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school +is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second +cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more +crying!'" + +Leigh Hunt in his autobiography also has reminiscences of Boyer and +Feilde. + +James Boyer or Bowyer was born in 1736, was admitted to the school in +1744, and passed to Balliol. He resigned his Upper Grammar Mastership +in 1799, and probably retired to the rectory of Gainscolne to which +he had been appointed by the school committee six years earlier. They +also gave him £500 and a staff. + +Page 23, line 6 from foot. _Author of the Country Spectator_. Thomas +Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822), afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who was +at school with Lamb and Coleridge. In the little statuette group which +is called the Coleridge Memorial, subscribed for in 1872, on the +centenary of Coleridge's birth, and held in rotation by the ward in +which most prizes have been gained in the year, Middleton is the +tallest figure. It is reproduced in my large edition. The story which +it celebrates is to the effect that Middleton found Coleridge reading +Virgil in the playground and asked him if he were learning a lesson. +Coleridge replied that he was "reading for pleasure," an answer which +Middleton reported to Boyer, and which led to Boyer taking special +notice of him. The _Country Spectator_ was a magazine conducted by +Middleton in 1792-1793. + +Page 23, line 3 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge again. + +Page 24, line 4. _Lancelot Pepys Stevens_. Rightly spelled Stephens, +afterwards Under Grammar Master at the school. + +Page 24, line 6. _Dr. T----e_. Arthur William Trollope (1768-1827), +who succeeded Boyer as Upper Grammar Master. He resigned in 1826. + +Page 24, line 21. _Th----_. Sir Edward Thornton (1766-1852), +diplomatist, who was sent as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister +Plenipotentiary to Lower Saxony, to Sweden, to Denmark and other +courts, afterwards becoming minister to Portugal. + +Page 24, line 23. _Middleton_. See note above. The treatise was _The +Doctrine of the Greek Article as applied to the Criticism and the +Illustration of the New Testament_, 1808. It was directed chiefly +against Granville Sharpe. Middleton was the first Bishop of Calcutta. + +Page 24, line 8 from foot. _Richards_. This was George Richards +(1767-1837). His poem on "Aboriginal Britons," which won a prize +given in 1791 by Earl Harcourt, is mentioned favourably in Byron's +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Richards became vicar of St. +Martin's-in-the-Fields and a Governor of Christ's Hospital. He founded +a gold medal for Latin hexameters. + +Page 24, foot. _S---- ... M----_. According to the Key "Scott, died in +Bedlam," and "Maunde, dismiss'd school." + +Page 24, foot. "_Finding some of Edward's race._" From Prior's Carmen +Seculare for 1700:-- + + Finding some of Stuart's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Lamb alters Stuart to Edward because Edward VI. founded Christ's +Hospital. + +Page 25, line 12. _C.V. Le G----_. Charles Valentine Le Grice +(1773-1858), whom we meet also in the essay on "Grace Before Meat." +Le Grice, in his description of Lamb as a schoolboy in Talfourd's +_Memorials_, remarked: "I never heard his name mentioned without +the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the +name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there was an implied +kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle manners excited +that kindness." + +Page 25, line 20. _Allen_. Robert Allen, whom we meet again in the +essay on "Newspapers." After a varied and not fortunate career he died +of apoplexy in 1805. + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _The junior Le G----_. Samuel Le Grice +became a soldier and died in the West Indies. Lamb wrote of him to +Coleridge in 1796, after the tragedy at his home, at a time when +friends were badly needed, "Sam Le Grice who was then in town was with +me the first 3 or 4 days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every +hour of his time to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in +constant attendance and humouring my poor father." + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _F----_. Joseph Favell, afterwards Captain, +who had a commission from the Duke of York--as had Sam Le Grice--and +was killed in the Peninsula, at Salamanca, 1812. Lamb states in the +essay on "Poor Relations," where Favell figures as "W.," that he met +his death at St. Sebastian. Both Sam Le Grice and Favell were to have +accompanied Coleridge and Southey to the Susquehanna as Pantisocrats. + +Page 26, line 1. _Fr----_. Frederick William Franklin, master of the +Hertford branch of the school from 1801 to 1827. He died in 1836. + +Page 26, line 2. _Marmaduke T----_. Marmaduke Thompson, to whom Lamb +dedicated _Rosamund Gray_ in 1798. + +Page 26, line 3. _Catalogue of Grecians_. Lamb was at Christ's +Hospital from 1782 to 1789, and his list is not quite complete. +He himself never was a Grecian; that is to say, one of the picked +scholars on the grammar side of the school, two of whom were sent +up to Cambridge with a hospital exhibition every year, on the +understanding that they should take orders. Lamb was one of the +Deputy-Grecians from whom the Grecians were chosen, but his stammer +standing in his way and a Church career being out of the question, he +never became a full Grecian. Writing to George Dyer, who had been a +Grecian, in 1831, Lamb says: "I don't know how it is, but I keep my +rank in fancy still since school days. I can never forget I was a +deputy Grecian!... Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk, or +India pensioner, to a deputy Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!" + +Lamb's memory is preserved at Christ's Hospital by a medal which is +given for the best English essays. It was first struck in 1875, the +centenary of his birth. + + * * * * * + +Page 26. THE TWO RACES OF MEN. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1820. + +Writing to Wordsworth in April of 1816, Lamb says:--"I have not bound +the poems yet. I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think +I shall get a chain and chain them to my shelves, _more Bodleiano_, +and people may come and read them at chain's length. For of those who +borrow, some read slow; some mean to read but don't read; and some +neither read nor meant to read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of +their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends the justice to +say that there is nothing of this caprice or wantonness of alienation +in them. When they borrow my money they never fail to make use of it." + +Probably the germ of the essay is to be found in this passage, as Lamb +never forgot his thoughts. + +Page 26, line 17 of essay. _Brinsley_. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the +dramatist and a great spendthrift. He died in 1816. Lamb knew him +slightly. + +Page 26, line 9 from foot. _Beyond Tooke_. That is, beyond the +philological theories of _The Diversions of Purley_ by John Home Tooke +(1736-1812). + +Page 27, line 22. _Ralph Bigod_. John Fenwick, an unlucky friend of +the Lambs, an anticipatory Micawber, of whom we know too little, +and seem likely to find out little more. Lamb mentions him again in +the essay on "Chimney Sweepers," and in that on "Newspapers," in +his capacity as editor of _The Albion_, for which Lamb wrote its +extinguishing epigram in the summer of 1801. There are references to +the Fenwicks in Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart and in Lamb's +letters; but nothing very informing. After financial embarrassments in +England they emigrated to America. + +Page 29, line 12. _Comberbatch_. Coleridge, who had enlisted as a +young man in the 15th Light Dragoons as Silas Titus Comberback. + +Page 29, line 16. _Bloomsbury_. Lamb was then in rooms at 20 Great +Russell Street (now Russell Street), Covent Garden, which is not in +Bloomsbury. + +Page 29, line 27. _Should he go on acting_. The _Letters_ contain +references to this habit of Coleridge's. Writing to him in 1809 Lamb +says, referring among other loans to the volume of Dodsley with +Vittoria Corombona ("The White Devil," by John Webster) in it:--"While +I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books which you had at the +_Courier_ Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, +containing the 'White Devil, 'Green's 'Tu Quoque,' and the 'Honest +Whore,' perhaps the most valuable volume of them all--_that_ I could +not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where +you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word, for, to use +the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had +three), the _Arcadia_ and _Daniel_, enriched with manuscript notes. I +wish every book I have were so noted. They have thoroughly converted +me to relish _Daniel_, or to say I relish him, for after all, I +believe I did relish him." + +And several years later (probably in 1820) we find him addressing +Coleridge with reference to Luther's _Table Talk:_--"Why will you make +your visits, which should give pleasure, matter of regret to your +friends? You never come but you take away some folio, that is part of +my existence. With a great deal of difficulty I was made to comprehend +the extent of my loss. My maid, Becky, brought me a dirty bit of +paper, which contained her description of some book which Mr. +Coleridge had taken away. It was _Luster's Tables_, which, for some +time, I could not make out. 'What! has he carried away any of the +_tables_, Becky?' 'No, it wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he +called _Luster's Tables_.' I was obliged to search personally among my +shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the true nature +of the damage I had sustained." + +Allsop tells us that Lamb once said of Coleridge: "He sets his mark +upon whatever he reads; it is henceforth sacred. His spirit seems to +have breathed upon it; and, if not for its author, yet for his sake, +we admire it." + +Page 30, line 1. _John Buncle_. Most of Lamb's books are in America; +Lamb's copy of _John Buncle_, with an introductory note written in by +Coleridge, was sold, with other books from his library, in New York +in 1848. _The Life of John Buncle, Esq_., a book highly praised by +Hazlitt, was by Thomas Amory (1691?-1788), published, Part I. in 1756 +and Part II. in 1766. A condensed reprint was issued in 1823 entitled +_The Spirit of Buncle_, in which, Mr. W.C. Hazlitt suggests, Lamb may +have had a hand with William Hazlitt. + +Page 30, line 19. _Spiteful K._ James Kenney (1780-1849), the +dramatist, then resident at Versailles, where Lamb and his sister +visited him in 1822. He married Louisa Mercier, daughter of Louis +Sebastian Mercier, the French critic, and widow of Lamb's earlier +friend, Thomas Holcroft. One of their two sons was named Charles Lamb +Kenney (1821-1881). Lamb recovered Margaret of Newcastle's _Letters_ +(folio, 1664), which is among the books in America, as is also the +Fulke Greville (small folio, 1633). + +Page 31, line 4. _S.T.C.... annotations_. Lamb's copy of Daniel's +_Poetical Works_, two volumes, 1718, and of Browne's _Enquiries +into Vulgar and Common Errors_, folio, 1658, both with marginalia +by himself and Coleridge, are in existence, but I cannot say where: +probably in America. Lamb's copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, with +Coleridge's notes (see "Old China"), is, however, safe in the British +Museum. His Fulke Greville, as I have said, is in America, but I +fancy it has nothing of Coleridge in it, nor has his Burton--quarto, +1621--which still exists. + +Coleridge's notes in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio are not numerous, +but usually ample and seriously critical. At the foot of a page of the +"Siege of Corinth," on which he had written two notes (one, "O flat! +flat! flat! Sole! Flounder! Place! all stinking! stinkingly flat!"), +he added:-- + + _N.B._--I shall not be long here, Charles!--I gone, you will not + mind my having spoiled a book in order to leave a Relic. + + S.T.C. + + Octr. 1811. + +Underneath the initials S.T.C. are the initials W.W. which suggest +that Wordsworth was present. + +The Museum also has Lamb's Milton, with annotations by himself and +Coleridge. + +In the _Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Charles Lamb_, +privately issued by the New York Dibdin Club in 1897, is a list +of five of Lamb's books now in America containing valuable and +unpublished marginalia by Coleridge: _The Life of John Buncle_, +Donne's _Poems_ ("I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you +will not be vexed that I have scribbled your book. S.T.C., 2d May, +1811"), Reynolds' _God's Revenge against ... Murder_, 1651 ("O what +a beautiful _concordia discordantium_ is an unthinking good man's +soul!"), _The History of Philip de Commines_ in English, and Petwin's +_Letters Concerning the Mind_. + + * * * * * + +Page 31. NEW YEAR'S EVE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1821. + +The melancholy pessimism of this essay led to some remonstrance from +robuster readers of the _London Magazine_. In addition to the letter +from "A Father" referred to below, the essay produced, seven months +later, in the August number of the _London Magazine_, a long poetical +"Epistle to Elia," signed "Olen," in which very simply and touchingly +Lamb was reminded that the grave is not the end, was asked to consider +the promises of the Christian faith, and finally was offered a glimpse +of some of the friends he would meet in heaven--among them Ulysses, +Shakespeare and Alice W----n. Taylor, the publisher and editor of the +magazine, sent Lamb a copy. He replied, acknowledging the kindness of +the author, and adding:--"Poor Elia ... does not pretend to so very +clear revelations of a future state of being as 'Olen' seems gifted +with. He stumbles about dark mountains at best; but he knows at least +how to be thankful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for +certain relationships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible +resumption of the gift. He is too apt to express himself lightly, and +cannot be sorry for the present occasion, as it has called forth a +reproof so Christian-like." + +Lamb thought the poet to be James Montgomery, but it was in reality +Charles Abraham Elton. The poem was reprinted in a volume entitled +_Boyhood and other Poems_, in 1835. + +It is conceivable that Lamb was reasoned with privately upon the +sentiments expressed in this essay; and perhaps we may take the +following sonnet which he contributed over his own name to, the +_London Magazine_ for April, 1821, as a kind of defiant postscript +thereto, a further challenge to those who reproached him for his +remarks concerning death, and who suggested that he did not really +mean them:-- + + They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, + That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, + Which only works and business can redress: + Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, + Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. + But might I, fed with silent meditation, + Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-- + _Improbus labor_, which my spirits hath broke-- + I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit-- + Fling in more days than went to make the gem + That crowned the white top of Methusalem-- + Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, + Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, + The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity. + +It was also probably the present essay which led to Lamb's difference +with Southey and the famous letter of remonstrance. Southey accused +_Elia_ of wanting "a sounder religious feeling," and Lamb suggests in +his reply that "New Year's Eve" was the chief offender. See Vol. I. +for Lamb's amplification of one of its passages. + +It may be interesting here to quote Coleridge's description of Lamb +as "one hovering between heaven and earth, neither hoping much nor +fearing anything." + +Page 31, line 10 from foot. _Bells_. The music of bells seems always +to have exerted fascination over Lamb. See the reference in the story +of the "First Going to Church," in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, Vol. +III.; in his poem "Sabbath Bells," Vol. IV.; and his "John Woodvil," +Vol. IV. + +Page 31, foot. "_I saw the skirts of the departing Year_." From +Coleridge's "Ode to the Departing Year," as printed in 1796 and +1797. Lamb was greatly taken by this line. He wrote to Coleridge on +January 2, 1797, in a letter of which only a small portion has been +printed:--"The opening [of the Ode] is in the spirit of the sublimest +allegory. The idea of the 'skirts of the departing year, seen far +onwards, waving in the wind,' is one of those noble Hints at which +the Reader's imagination is apt to kindle into grand conceptions." +Afterwards Coleridge altered "skirts" to "train." + +Page 32, line 21. _Seven.... years_. See note to "Dream-Children." +Alice W--n is identified with Ann Simmons, who lived near Blakesware +when Lamb was a youth, and of whom he wrote his love sonnets. +According to the Key the name is "feigned." + +Page 32, line 25. _Old Dorrell_. See the poem "Going or Gone," +Vol. IV. There seems really to have been such an enemy of the Lamb +fortunes. He was one of the witnesses to the will of John Lamb, the +father--William Dorrell. + +Page 33, line 5. _Small-pox at five_. There is no other evidence than +this casual mention that Lamb ever suffered from this complaint. +Possibly he did not. He went to Christ's Hospital at the age of seven. + +Page 33, line 13. _From what have I not fallen_. Lamb had had this +idea many years before. In 1796 he wrote this sonnet (text of 1818):-- + + We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, + The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, + And Innocence her name. The time has been + We two did love each other's company; + Time was, we two had wept to have been apart: + But when by show of seeming good beguil'd, + I left the garb and manners of a child, + And my first love for man's society, + Defiling with the world my virgin heart-- + My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled, + And hid in deepest shades her awful head. + Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-- + In what delicious Eden to be found-- + That I may seek thee the wide world around? + +Page 33, line 27. _Phantom cloud of Elia_. The speculations in the +paragraph that ends with these words were fantastical at any rate to +one reader, who, under the signature "A Father," contributed to the +March number of the _London Magazine_ a eulogy of paternity, in which +Elia was reasoned with and rebuked. "Ah! Elia! hadst thou possessed +'offspring of thine own to dally with,' thou wouldst never have made +the melancholy avowal that thou hast 'almost ceased to hope!'" Lamb +did not reply. + +Page 33, line 7 from foot. _Not childhood alone ..._ The passage +between these words and "freezing days of December" was taken by +Charles Lloyd, Lamb's early friend, as the motto of a poem, in his +_Poems_, 1823, entitled "Stanzas on the Difficulty with which, in +Youth, we Bring Home to our Habitual Consciousness the Idea of Death." + +Page 34, line 15 from foot. _Midnight darlings_. Leigh Hunt +records, in his essay "My Books," that he once saw Lamb kiss an old +folio--Chapman's _Homer_. + +Page 34, line 8 from foot. "_Sweet assurance of a look_." A favourite +quotation of Lamb's (here adapted) from Matthew Roydon's elegy on Sir +Philip Sidney:-- + + A sweet attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks. + +A portion of the poem is quoted in the Elia essay on "Some Sonnets of +Sir Philip Sidney." + + * * * * * + +Page 37. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. + +_London Magazine_, February, 1821. + +Mrs. Battle was probably, in real life, to a large extent Sarah +Burney, the wife of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's friend, and the +centre of the whist-playing set to which he belonged. The theory that +Lamb's grandmother, Mrs. Field, was the original Mrs. Battle, does +not, I think, commend itself, although that lady may have lent a trait +or two. It has possibly arisen from the relation of the passage in the +essay on Blakesware, where Mrs. Battle is said to have died in the +haunted room, to that in "Dream-Children," where Lamb says that Mrs. +Field occupied this room. + +The fact that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were both Sarahs is a small +piece of evidence towards their fusion, but there is something more +conclusive in the correspondence. Writing in March, 1830, concerning +the old whist days, to William Ayrton, one of the old whist-playing +company, and the neighbour of the Burneys in Little James Street, +Pimlico, Lamb makes use of an elision which, I think, may be taken as +more than support of the theory that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were +largely the same--practically proof. "Your letter, which was only +not so pleasant as your appearance would have been, has revived some +old images; Phillips (not the Colonel), with his few hairs bristling +up at the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible; the old +Captain's significant nod over the right shoulder (was it not?); +Mrs. B----'s determined questioning of the score, after the game was +absolutely gone to the d----l." Lamb, I think, would have written out +Mrs. Burney in full had he not wished to suggest Mrs. Battle too. + +This conjecture is borne out by the testimony of the late Mrs. +Lefroy, in her youth a friend of the Burneys and the Lambs, who +told Canon Ainger that though Mrs. Battle had many differing points +she was undoubtedly Mrs. Burney. But of course there are the usual +cross-trails--the reference to the pictures at Sandham; to Walter +Plumer; to the legacy to Lamb; and so forth. Perhaps among the +Blakesware portraits was one which Lamb chose as Mrs. Battle's +presentment; perhaps Mrs. Field had told him of an ancient dame who +had certain of Mrs. Battle's characteristics, and he superimposed Mrs. +Burney upon this foundation. + +For further particulars concerning the Burney whist parties see the +notes to the "Letter to Southey," Vol. I. + +Admiral Burney (1750-1821), a son of Dr. Burney, the historian of +music, and friend of Johnson and Reynolds, was the brother of Fanny +Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay. See also "The Wedding," page 275 +of this volume, for another glimpse of Lamb's old friend. Admiral +Burney wrote _An Essay on the Game of Whist_, which was published in +1821. As he lived until November, 1821, he probably read the present +essay. Writing to Wordsworth, March 20, 1822, Lamb says: "There's +Capt. Burney gone!--what fun has whist now; what matters it what you +lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking over you?" + +Page 37, line 1 of essay. "_A clean hearth_." To this, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put the footnote:-- + +"This was before the introduction of rugs, reader. You must remember +the intolerable crash of the unswept cinder, betwixt your foot and the +marble." + +Page 37, line 8 of essay. _Win one game, and lose another_. To this, +in the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the note:-- + + "As if a sportsman should tell you he liked to kill a fox one day, + and lose him the next." + +Page 38, line 26. _Mr. Bowles_. The Rev. William Lisle Bowles +(1762-1850), whose sonnets had so influenced Coleridge's early +poetical career. His edition of Pope was published in 1806. I have +tried in vain to discover if Mr. Bowles' MS. and notes for this +edition are still in existence. If so, they might contain Lamb's +contribution. But it is rather more likely, I fear, that Lamb invented +the story. The game of ombre is in Canto III. of _The Rape of the +Lock_. + +The only writing on cards which we know Lamb to have done, apart from +this essay, is the elementary rules of whist which he made out for +Mrs. Badams quite late in his life as a kind of introduction to the +reading of Admiral Burney's treatise. This letter is in America and +has never been printed except privately; nor, if its owner can help +it, will it. + +Page 40, line 26. _Old Walter Plumer_. See the essay on "The South-Sea +House." + +Page 42, line 18 from foot. _Bad passions_. Here came in the _London +Magazine_, in parenthesis, "(dropping for a while the speaking mask of +old Sarah Battle)." + +Page 43, line 2. _Bridget Elia_. This is Lamb's first reference in +the essays to Mary Lamb under this name. See "Mackery End" and "Old +China." + +A little essay on card playing in the _Every-Day Book_, the authorship +of which is unknown, but which may be Hone's, ends with the following +pleasant passage:-- + + Cousin Bridget and the gentle Elia seem beings of that age wherein + lived Pamela, whom, with "old Sarah Battle," we may imagine + entering their room, and sitting down with them to a _square_ + game. Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times: she, full of + kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;--he, no less + kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse + with the world, and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu + and De Foe would admire, and portraits that Deuner and Hogarth + would rise from their graves to paint. + + * * * * * + +Page 43. A CHAPTER ON EARS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1821. + +Lamb was not so utterly without ear as he states. Crabb Robinson in +his diary records more than once that Lamb hummed tunes, and Barron +Field, in the memoir of Lamb contributed by him to the _Annual +Biography and Obituary_ for 1836, mentions his love for certain +beautiful airs, among them Kent's "O that I had wings like a dove" +(mentioned in this essay), and Handel's "From mighty kings." Lamb says +that it was Braham who awakened a love of music in him. Compare Lamb's +lines to Clara Novello, Vol. IV., page 101, and also Mary Lamb's +postscript to his "Free Thoughts on Eminent Composers," same volume. + +Page 43, foot. _I was never ... in the pillory_. This sentence led +to an amusing article in the _London Magazine_ for the next month, +April, 1821, entitled "The Confessions of H.F.V.H. Delamore, Esq.," +unmistakably, I think, by Lamb, which will be found in Vol. I. of this +edition, wherein Lamb confesses to a brief sojourn in the stocks at +Barnet for brawling on Sunday, an incident for the broad truth of +which we have the testimony of his friend Brook Pulham. + +Page 44, lines 6 and 7. "_Water parted from the sea_," "_In Infancy_." +Songs by Arne in "Artaxerxes," Lamb's "First Play" (see page 113). + +Page 44, line 11. _Mrs. S----_. The Key gives "Mrs. Spinkes." We meet +a Will Weatherall in "Distant Correspondents," page 120; but I have +not been able to discover more concerning either. + +Page 44, line 17. _Alice W----n_. See note to "Dream Children." + +Page 44, line 26. _My friend A._ Probably William Ayrton (1777-1818), +the musical critic, one of the Burneys' whist-playing set, and a +friend and correspondent of Lamb's. See the musical rhyming letter to +him from Lamb, May 17, 1817. + +Page 47, line 5. _My friend, Nov----_. Vincent Novello (1781-1861), +the organist, the father of Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and a great friend of +Lamb. + +Page 47, footnote. Another friend of Vincent Novello's uses the same +couplet (from Watt's _Divine Songs for Children_, Song XXVIII., +"For the Lord's Day, Evening") in the description of glees by the +old cricketers at the Bat and Ball on Broad Halfpenny Down, near +Hambledon--I refer to John Nyren, author of _The Young Cricketer's +Tutor_, 1833. There is no evidence that Lamb and Nyren ever met, but +one feels that they ought to have done so, in Novello's hospitable +rooms. + +Page 48, line 3. _Lutheran beer_. Edmund Ollier, the son of Charles +Ollier, the publisher of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, in his reminiscences of +Lamb, prefixed to one edition of _Elia_, tells this story: "Once at a +musical party at Leigh Hunt's, being oppressed with what to him was +nothing but a prolonged noise ... he said--'If one only had a pot of +porter, one might get through this.' It was procured for him and he +weathered the Mozartian storm." + +In the _London Magazine_ this essay had the following postscript:-- + + "P.S.--A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who + has been entertaining the town for the last twelve months, with + some very pleasant lucubrations, under the assumed signature of + _Leigh Hunt_[1], in his Indicator, of the 31st January last, has + thought fit to insinuate, that I _Elia_ do not write the little + sketches which bear my signature, in this Magazine; but that the + true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe the critical period + at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on the very + eve of the publication of our last number--affording no scope + for explanation for a full month--during which time, I must + needs lie writhing and tossing, under the cruel imputation of + nonentity.--Good heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed + _to be_-- + + "They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of + anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. + + "Take away my moral reputation: I may live to discredit that + calumny. + + "Injure my literary fame,--I may write that up again-- + + "But when a gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he? + + "Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing + trifle at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very + essence; who not only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have + been_ at all. Let our ancestors look to it-- + + "Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes-street, + Cavendish-square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years + ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we + flourished four centuries back, before the barbarous name of + Boldero[2] was known to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly + scion of our name, transplanted into England, in the reign of the + seventh Henry, nothing? Are the archives of the steel yard, in + succeeding reigns (if haply they survive the fury of our envious + enemies) showing that we flourished in prime repute, as merchants, + down to the period of the commonwealth, nothing? + + "Why then the world, and all that's in't is nothing-- + The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia is nothing.-- + + "I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move + me so." + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Indicator_, January 31 and February 7, 1821, had +reprinted from _The Examiner_ a review of Lamb's _Works_, with a few +prefatory remarks in which it was stated: "We believe we are taking no +greater liberty with him [Charles Lamb] than our motives will warrant, +when we add that he sometimes writes in the _London Magazine_ under +the signature of Elia." + +In _The Indicator_ of March 7, 1821, Leigh Hunt replied to Elia. Leigh +Hunt was no match for Lamb in this kind of raillery, and the first +portion of the reply is rather cumbersome. At the end, however, he +says: "There _was_, by the bye, a family of the name of Elia who came +from Italy,--Jews; which may account for this boast about Genoa. See +also in his last article in the London Magazine [the essay on "Ears"] +some remarkable fancies of conscience in reference to the Papal +religion. They further corroborate what we have heard; _viz._ that the +family were obliged to fly from Genoa for saying that the Pope was +the author of Rabelais; and that Elia is not an anagram, as some have +thought it, but the Judaico-Christian name of the writer before us, +whose surname, we find, is not Lamb, but Lomb;--Elia Lomb! What a +name! He told a friend of ours so in company, and would have palmed +himself upon him for a Scotchman, but that his countenance betrayed +him." + +It is amusing to note that Maginn, writing the text to accompany the +Maclise portrait of Lamb in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1835, gravely +states that Lamb's name was really Lomb, and that he was of Jewish +extraction. + +The subject of Lamb's birth reopened a little while later. In +the "Lion's Head," which was the title of the pages given to +correspondence in the _London Magazine_, in the number for November, +1821, was the following short article from Lamb's pen:-- + + "ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS.--A Correspondent, who writes himself + Peter Ball, or Bell,--for his hand-writing is as ragged as his + manners--admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under + a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had + need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' + I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamours + upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems that + in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had + called my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on + Ears,') I profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish + Square, deducing my remoter origin from Italy. But who does not + see, except this tinkling cymbal, that in that idle fiction + of Genoese ancestry I was answering a fool according to his + folly--that Elia there expresseth himself ironically, as to an + approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and can be + no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to his + delusions; or, leading him from error still to contradictory + error, to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give + him line till he suspend himself. No understanding reader could + be imposed upon by such obvious rhodomontade to suspect me + for an alien, or believe me other than English.--To a second + Correspondent, who signs himself 'a Wiltshire man,' and claims me + for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in my + 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over + the Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely + detects a more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to + strike upon. Referring to the passage (in page 484 of our second + volume[3]), I must confess, that the term 'native town,' applied + to Calne, _primâ facie_ seems to bear out the construction which + my friendly Correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context + too, I am afraid, a little favours it. But where the words of + an author, taken literally, compared with some other passage + in his writings, admitted to be authentic, involve a palpable + contradiction, it hath been the custom of the ingenuous + commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition, that + in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly + intended. So by the word 'native,' I may be supposed to mean a + town where I might have been born; or where it might be desirable + that I should have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, + upon a dry chalky soil, in which I delight; or a town, with the + inhabitants of which I passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, + so agreeably, that they and it became in a manner native to me. + Without some such latitude of interpretation in the present case, + I see not how we can avoid falling into a gross error in physics, + as to conceive that a gentleman may be born in two places, from + which all modern and ancient testimony is alike abhorrent. Bacchus + cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to have honoured + with the epithet 'Twice born.'[4] But not to mention that he is so + called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather + than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth + he may probably be challenged for a Theban--in a strict way of + speaking, he was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense + as he had been before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but + a secondary and tralatitious way of being born, and he but a + denizen of the second house of his geniture. Thus much by way of + explanation was thought due to the courteous 'Wiltshire man.'--To + 'Indagator,' 'Investigator,' 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, + that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth--as + if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his + parish--to all such churchwarden critics he answereth, that, any + explanation here given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his + nativity (like a rusty vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he + seeth occasion, or the argument shall demand it, he will be born + again, in future papers, in whatever place, and at whatever + period, shall seem good unto him. + + "Modò me Thebis--modò Athenis. + + "ELIA." + +[Footnote 1: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."] + +[Footnote 2: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."] + +[Footnote 3: See page 15 of this volume.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo + Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum est) + Insuitur femori-- + Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi. + + "_Metamorph._ lib. iii., 310."] + + * * * * * + +Page 48. ALL FOOLS' DAY. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Page 49, line 1. _Empedocles_. Lamb appended this footnote in the +_London Magazine_:-- + + He who, to be deem'd + A god, leap'd fondly into Etna's flames. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 470-471 [should be 469-470]. + +Page 49, line 5. _Cleombrotus_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ footnote:-- + + He who, to enjoy + Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the sea. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 471-472. + +Page 49, line 8. _Plasterers at Babel_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ +note:-- + + The builders next of Babel on the plain + Of Sennaar. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 466-467. + +Page 49, line 10. _My right hand_. Lamb, it is probably unnecessary to +remind the reader, stammered too. + +Page 49, line 13 from foot. _Duns_, Duns Scotus (1265?-1308?), +metaphysician, author of _De modis significandi sive Grammatica +Speculativa_ and other philosophic works. Known as Doctor Subtilis. +There was nothing of Duns in the _London Magazine_; the sentence ran: +"Mr. Hazlitt, I cannot indulge you in your definitions." This was at a +time when Lamb and Hazlitt were not on good terms. + +Page 49, last line. _Honest R----_. Lamb's Key gives "Ramsay, London +Library, Ludgate Street; now extinct." I have tried in vain to find +out more about Ramsay. The London Library was established at 5 Ludgate +Street in 1785. Later, the books were lodged at Charles Taylor's house +in Hatton Garden, and were finally removed to the present London +Institute in Finsbury Circus. + +Page 50, line 6. _Good Granville S----_. Lamb's Key gives Granville +Sharp. This was the eccentric Granville Sharp, the Quaker abolitionist +(1735-1813). + + * * * * * + +Page 51. A QUAKER'S MEETING. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with Quakers was somewhat intimate throughout +his life. In early days he was friendly with the Birmingham +Lloyds--Charles, Robert and Priscilla, of the younger generation, +and their father, Charles Lloyd, the banker and translator of Horace +and Homer (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, 1898); and later with +Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet of Woodbridge. Also he had loved from +afar Hester Savory, the subject of his poem "Hester" (see Vol. IV.). A +passage from a letter written in February, 1797, to Coleridge, bears +upon this essay:--"Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning Quaker, +and have been reading, or am rather just beginning to read, a most +capital book, good thoughts in good language, William Penn's 'No +Cross, No Crown,' I like it immensely. Unluckily I went to one of his +meetings, tell him, in St. John Street [Clerkenwell] yesterday, and +saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some 'inevitable presence.' +This cured me of Quakerism; I love it in the books of Penn and +Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the +Spirit...." + +Both Forster and Hood tell us that Lamb in outward appearance +resembled a Quaker. + +Page 52, line 13. _The uncommunicating muteness of fishes_. Lamb had +in mind this thought on the silence of fishes when he was at work on +_John Woodvil_. Simon remarks, in the exquisite passage (Vol. IV.) in +reply to the question, "What is it you love?" + + The fish in th' other element + That knows no touch of eloquence. + +Page 53, second quotation. "_How reverend ..._" An adaptation of +Congreve's description of York Minster in "The Mourning Bride" (Mary +Lamb's "first play"), Act I., Scene 1:-- + + How reverend is the face of this tall pile ... + Looking tranquillity! + +Page 53, middle. _Fox and Dewesbury_. George Fox (1624-1691) founded +the Society of Friends. William Dewesbury was one of Fox's first +colleagues, and a famous preacher. William Penn (1644-1718), the +founder of Pennsylvania, was the most illustrious of the early +converts to Quakerism. Lamb refers to him again, before his judges, in +the essay on "Imperfect Sympathies," page 73. George Fox's _Journal_ +was lent to Lamb by a friend of Bernard Barton's in 1823. On returning +it, Lamb remarked (February 17, 1823):--"I have quoted G.F. in my +'Quaker's Meeting' as having said he was 'lifted up in spirit' (which +I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase),' and the Judge and Jury +were as dead men under his feet.' I find no such words in his Journal, +and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure +I did not mean to invent. I must have put some other Quaker's words +into his mouth." + +Sewel was a Dutchman--William Sewel (1654-1720). His title runs: +_History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the Christian People +called Quakers, written originally in Low Dutch by W. Sewel, and by +himself translated into English_, 1722. James Naylor (1617-1660) was +one of the early Quaker martyrs--"my favourite" Lamb calls him in a +letter. John Woolman (1720-1772) was an American Friend. His principal +writings are to be found in _A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, +and Christian Experiences of that faithful minister of Jesus Christ, +John Woolman, late of Mount Holly in the Province of Jersey, North +America_, 1795. Modern editions are obtainable. + + * * * * * + +Page 56. THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1821. + +Page 56, line 9. _Ortelius ... Arrowsmith_. Abraham Ortellius +(1527-1598), the Dutch geographer and the author of _Theatrum +Orbis Terræ_, 1570. Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) was a well-known +cartographer at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lamb would +perhaps have known something of his _Atlas of Southern India_, a very +useful work at the East India House. + +Page 56, line 13. _A very dear friend_. Barren Field (see the essay on +"Distant Correspondents"). + +Page 56, line 10 from foot. _My friend M_. Thomas Manning (1772-1840), +the mathematician and traveller, and Lamb's correspondent. + +Page 56, last line. "_On Devon's leafy shores_." From Wordsworth's +_Excursion_, III. + +Page 57, line 16. _Daily jaunts_. Though Lamb was then (1821) living +at 20 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, he rented rooms at 14 +Kingsland Row, Dalston, in which to take holidays and do his literary +work undisturbed. At that time Dalston, which adjoins Shackleton, was +the country and Kingsland Green an open space opposite Lamb's lodging. + +Page 58, line 23. _The North Pole Expedition_. This would probably +be Sir John Franklin's expedition which set out in 1819 and ended in +disaster, the subject of Franklin's book, _Narrative of a Journey to +the Shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, 22_ (1823). Sir +John Ross made an expedition in 1818, and Sir William Edward Parry in +1819, and again in 1821-1823 with Lyon. The panorama was possibly +at Burford's Panorama in the Strand, afterwards moved to Leicester +Square. + +Page 60, line 17. _Tractate on Education_. Milton's _Tractate on +Education_, addressed to his friend, Samuel Hartlib, was published in +1644. The quotation above is from that work. This paragraph of Lamb's +essay was afterwards humorously expanded in his "Letter to an Old +Gentleman whose Education has been Neglected" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 60, last line. _Mr. Bartley's Orrery._ George Bartley +(1782?-1858), the comedian, lectured on astronomy and poetry at the +Lyceum during Lent at this time. An orrery is a working model of the +solar system. The Panopticon was, I assume, a forerunner of the famous +Panopticon in Leicester Square. + +Page 61, line 8. "_Plaything for an hour_." A quotation, from Charles +and Mary Lamb's _Poetry for Children_--"Parental Recollections":-- + + A child's a plaything for an hour. + +Page 63, end of essay. "_Can I reproach her for it_." After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + + "These kind of complaints are not often drawn from me. I am aware + that I am a fortunate, I mean a prosperous man. My feelings + prevent me from transcribing any further." + + * * * * * + +Page 63. VALENTINE'S DAY. + +This essay first appeared in _The Examiner_, February 14 and 15, 1819, +and again in _The Indicator_, February 14, 1821. Signed *** + +Page 64, line 18. _Twopenny postman._ Hone computed, in his _Every-Day +Book_, Vol. I., 1825, that "two hundred thousand letters beyond the +usual daily average annually pass through the two-penny post-office in +London on Valentine's Day." The Bishop's vogue is now (1911) almost +over. + +Page 65, line 15 from foot. E.B. Lamb's Key gives "Edward Burney, half +brother of Miss Burney." This was Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848), +who illustrated many old authors, among them Richardson. + + * * * * * + +Page 66. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1821, where the title ran: "Jews, Quakers, +Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies." + +Page 69, line 18 from foot. _A print ... after Leonardo._ The Virgin +of the Rocks. See Vol. IV. for Lamb's and his sister's verses on this +picture. Crabb Robinson's MS. diary tells us that the Scotchman was +one Smith, a friend of Godwin. His exact reply to Lamb's remark about +"my beauty" was: "Why, sir, from all I have heard of you, as well +as from what I have myself seen, I certainly entertain a very high +opinion of your abilities, but I confess that I have not formed any +opinion concerning your personal pretensions." + +Page 70, line 10. _The poetry of Burns._ "Burns was the god of my +idolatry," Lamb wrote to Coleridge in 1796. Coleridge's lines on +Burns, "To a Friend who had declared his intention of writing no more +poetry," were addressed to Lamb. Barry Cornwall records seeing Lamb +kiss his copy of the poet. + +Page 70, line 17. _You can admire him_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added:-- + + "I have a great mind to give up Burns. There is certainly + a bragging spirit of generosity, a swaggering assertion of + independence, and _all that_, in his writings." + +Page 70, line 18. _Smollett_. Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), the +novelist, came of a Dumbartonshire family. Rory was Roderick Random's +schoolboy name. His companion was Strap. See _Roderick Random_, +Chapter XIII., for the passage in question. Smollett continued the +_History of England_ of David Hume (1711-1776), also a Scotchman, and +one of the authors whom Lamb could not read (see "Detached Thoughts on +Books and Reading," page 196). + +Lamb's criticism of Scotchmen did not pass without comment. The +pleasantest remark made upon it was that of Christopher North +(John Wilson) some dozen years later (after he had met Lamb), in a +_Blackwood_ paper entitled "Twaddle on Tweedside" (May, 1833), wherein +he wrote:-- + + Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant + way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield; for Scotland + loves Charles Lamb; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, + and conceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than + Christopher North. But what will not Christopher forgive to Genius + and Goodness? Even Lamb bleating libels on his native land. Nay, + he learns lessons of humanity, even from the mild malice of Elia, + and breathes a blessing on him and his household in their Bower of + Rest. + +Coleridge was much pleased by this little reference to his friend. He +described it as "very sweet indeed" (see his _Table Talk_, May 14, +1833). + +Page 70, line 14 from foot. _Hugh of Lincoln_. Hugh was a small +Lincoln boy who, tradition states, was tortured to death by the Jews. +His dead body being touched by a blind woman, she received sight. + +Many years earlier Lamb had spoken of the Jew in English society with +equal frankness (see his note to the "Jew of Malta" in the _Dramatic +Specimens_). + +Page 71, line 18. _B----_. John Braham, _née_ Abraham (1774?-1856), +the great tenor. Writing to Manning in 1808, Lamb says:--"Do you like +Braham's singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like +as the boys followed Tom the Piper. He cures me of melancholy as +David cured Saul.... I was insensible to music till he gave me a new +sense.... Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. +Siddons's or Mr. Kemble's acting! and when it is not impassioned it is +as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little +Jew!" + +Two years later Lamb tells Manning of Braham's absence from London, +adding: "He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the +angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could +not tell which preponderated." In this essay Lamb refers to Braham's +singing in Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt." Concerning Braham's +abandonment of the Jewish faith see Lamb's sarcastic essay "The +Religion of Actors," Vol. I., page 338. + +Page 73, line 17 from foot. _I was travelling_. Lamb did not really +take part in this story. It was told him by Sir Anthony Carlisle +(1768-1840), the surgeon, as he confessed to his Quaker friend, +Bernard Barton (March 11, 1823), who seemed to miss its point. Lamb +described Carlisle as "the best story-teller I ever heard." + + * * * * * + +Page 74. WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1821. + +Compare with this essay Maria Howe's story of "The Witch Aunt," in +_Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.), which Lamb had written +thirteen years earlier. + +Page 75, line 12 from foot. _History of the Bible, by Stackhouse_. +Thomas Stackhouse (1677-1752) was rector of Boldon, in Durham; his +_New History of the Holy Bible from the Beginning of the World to the +Establishment of Christianity_--the work in question--was published in +1737. + +Page 75, line 6 from foot. _The Witch raising up Samuel_. This +paragraph was the third place in which Lamb recorded his terror of +this picture of the Witch of Endor in Stackhouse's _Bible_, but the +first occasion in which he took it to himself. In one draft of _John +Woodvil_ (see Vol. IV.), the hero says:-- + + I can remember when a child the maids + Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me, + As silly women use, and tell me stories + Of Witches--make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft," + And in conclusion show me in the Bible, + The old Family Bible, with the pictures in it, + The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel, + Which so possest my fancy, being a child, + That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came + And sat upon my pillow. + +Then again, in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in the story of Maria Howe, +called "The Witch Aunt," one of the three stories in that book which +Lamb wrote, Stackhouse's _Bible_ is found once more. In my large +edition I give a reproduction of the terrible picture. Page 77, foot. +_Dear little T.H._ This was the unlucky passage which gave Southey his +chief text in his criticism of _Elia_ as a book wanting "a sounder +religious feeling," and which led to Lamb's expostulatory "Letter" +(see Vol. I.). Southey commented thus:-- + + This poor child, instead of being trained up in the way in which + he should go, had been bred in the ways of modern philosophy; he + had systematically been prevented from knowing anything of that + Saviour who said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and + forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven;" care had + been taken that he should not pray to God, nor lie down at night + in reliance upon His good Providence! + +T.H. was Thornton Hunt, Leigh Hunt's eldest son and Lamb's "favourite +child" (see verses to him in Vol. IV.). + +Page 79, line 18 from foot. _Barry Cornwall_. Bryan Waller Procter +(1787-1874), Lamb's friend. The reference is to "A Dream," a poem in +Barry Cornwall's _Dramatic Scenes_, 1819, which Lamb greatly admired. +See his sonnet to the poet in Vol. IV., where it is mentioned again. + +Page 80, last paragraph of essay. In the original MS. of this essay +(now in the Dyce and Forster collection at South Kensington) the last +paragraph ran thus:-- + + "When I awoke I came to a determination to write prose all the + rest of my life; and with submission to some of our young writers, + who are yet diffident of their powers, and balancing perhaps + between verse and prose, they might not do unwisely to decide the + preference by the texture of their natural dreams. If these are + prosaic, they may depend upon it they have not much to expect in + a creative way from their artificial ones. What dreams must not + Spenser have had!" + + * * * * * + +Page 80. MY RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1821. + +Page 80, beginning. _At that point of life_. Lamb was forty-six on +February 10, 1821. + +Page 80, line 12 of essay. _I had an aunt_. Aunt Hetty, who died in +1797 (see the essay on "Christ's Hospital"). + +Page 81, line 6. _The chapel in Essex-street_. The headquarters of +"that heresy," Unitarianism. Lamb was at first a Unitarian, but +afterwards dropped away from all sects. + +Page 81, line 23. _Brother, or sister, I never had any--to know them_. +Lamb is writing strictly as the imagined Elia, Elia being Lamb in mind +rather than Lamb in fact. It amused him to present his brother John +and his sister Mary as his cousins James and Bridget Elia. We have +here an excellent example of his whimsical blending of truth and +invention: brothers and sisters he denies, yet admits one sister, +Elizabeth, who died in both their infancies. Lamb had in reality two +sisters named Elizabeth, the former of whom he never knew. She was +born in 1762. The second Elizabeth, his parents' fifth child, was born +in 1768, seven years before Charles. Altogether the Lambs had seven +children, of whom only John (born 1763), Mary Anne (born 1764) and +Charles (born 1775) grew up. Again Lamb confesses to several cousins +in Hertfordshire, and to two others. The two others were fictitious, +but it was true that he had Hertfordshire relations (see the essay +"Mackery End, in Hertfordshire"). + +John Lamb's character is perhaps sufficiently described in this essay +and in "Dream-Children." He was a well-to-do official in the South-Sea +House, succeeding John Tipp as accountant. Crabb Robinson found him +too bluff and noisy to be bearable; and he once knocked Hazlitt down +in a dispute about painting. He died on October 26, 1821, to his +brother's great grief, leaving Charles everything. He married late in +life a Mrs. Dowden. Probably she had her own money and needed none of +her second husband's. Hence the peculiarity of the will. Mrs. John +Lamb died in 1826. + +John Lamb's sympathy with animals led him to write in 1810 a pamphlet +entitled _A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on his +opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals_--Mr. Windham having expressed it as his opinion that the +subject was not one for legislation. Lamb sent the pamphlet to Crabb +Robinson on February 7, 1810, saying:--"My Brother whom you have met +at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written +a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the +Publisher has put it in his head that you can get it Reviewed for him. +I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could +put it into any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted +Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with +chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a +moment's notice.--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw +at and would willingly consign them all to Hell flames and Megæra's +snaky locks. + +"But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember +she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are +directed against that very process." + +This is the passage--one red-hot sentence--concerning eels:-- + + "If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in + the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that + it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that + he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's + usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use + her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for + food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for + however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the + culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness + therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if + the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin + him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the + extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to + death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the + dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call + the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he + had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which + man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines + him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that + men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such + insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the + only sufferers; that lobsters and other shell fish were put into + cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of + the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities, + were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of + mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion + that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals + designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow + so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that + she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have + desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he + inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel + spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon + animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty + Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, + highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar + and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that + man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to + his use are imperfect obligations!" + +The poem "The Beggar-Man," in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. +III.), was also from John Lamb's pen. + +Page 85, asterisks. _Society for the Relief of_--Distrest Sailors, +says Lamb's Key. + +Page 86, last line of essay. "_Through the green plains of pleasant +Hertfordshire_." This line occurs in a sonnet of Lamb's written many +years before the essay (see Vol. IV.). Probably, however, Lamb did +not invent it, for (the late W.J. Craig pointed out) in Leland's +_Itinerary_, which Lamb must have known, if only on account of the +antiquary's remarks on Hertfordshire, is quoted a poem by William +Vallans (_fl._ 1578-1590), "The Tale of the Two Swans," containing +the line-- + + The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire-- + +which one can easily understand would have lingered in Lamb's mind +very graciously. + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay ended with the words, "Till then, +Farewell." + + * * * * * + +Page 86. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1821. Reprinted in _Elia_, 1823, as written, +save for the omission of italics from many passages. + +Bridget Elia, who is met also in "Mrs. Battle," in "My Relations," and +in "Old China," was, of course, Mary Lamb. + +Page 86, line 11 from foot. _She must have a story_. Thomas Westwood, +in his reminiscences of the Lambs in later years, printed in _Notes +and Queries_, speaks of Mary Lamb's passion for novel-reading in the +Enfield days, when he was a boy. + +Page 87, line 6. _Margaret Newcastle_. Lamb's devotion to this lady is +expressed again in the essay on "The Two Races of Men," in the essay +on Beggars, and in "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading." + +Page 87, line 8. _Free-thinkers_ ... William Godwin, perhaps alone +among Lamb's friends, quite answers to the description of leader +of novel philosophies and systems; but there had been also Thomas +Holcroft and John Thelwall among the Lambs' acquaintance. And Hazlitt +and Leigh Hunt would come within this description. + +Page 87, foot. _Good old English reading_. The reference is to Samuel +Salt's library in the Temple (see note to "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple"). + +Page 88, line 14. _Mackery End_. The farmhouse still stands, although +new front rooms have been added. At the end of the present hall, one +passes through what was in Lamb's time the front door, and thereafter +the house is exactly as it used to be save that its south windows have +been filled in. By kind invitation of Mr. Dolphin Smith, the farmer, +who had been there over forty years, I spent in 1902 some time in the +same parlour in which the Lambs had been entertained. Harpenden, on +the north-west, has grown immensely since Lamb's day, and the houses +at the Folly, between Wheathampstead and the Cherry Trees, are new; +but Mackery End, or Mackrye End as the farmer's waggons have it, +remains unencroached upon. Near by is the fine old mansion which is +Mackery End house proper; Lamb's Mackery End was the farm. + +Lamb's first visit there must have been when he was a very little +boy--somewhere about 1780. Probably we may see recollections of it in +Mary Lamb's story "The Farmhouse" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III. of this edition). + +Page 88, line 18. _A great-aunt_. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, was +Mary Bruton, whose sister married, as he says, a Gladman, and was the +great-aunt mentioned. The present occupier of the farm is neither +Gladman nor Bruton; but both names are still to be found in the +county. A Miss Sarah Bruton, a direct descendant of Lamb's great-aunt, +was living at Wheathampstead in 1902. She had on her walls two +charming oval portraits of ancestresses, possibly--for she was +uncertain as to their identity--two of the handsome sisters whom Lamb +extols. + +Writing to Manning, May 28, 1819, Lamb says:--"How are my cousins, +the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton is a +glorious woman. + + "Hail, Mackery End! + +"This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but +got no further." + +Page 89, verse. "_But thou, that didst appear so fair ..._" From +Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," Stanza 6. Writing to Wordsworth in +1815, Lamb said of this stanza that he thought "no lovelier" could be +found in "the wide world of poetry." From a letter to Taylor, of the +_London Magazine_, belonging to the summer of 1821, we gather that the +proof-reader had altered the last word of the third line to "air" to +make it rhyme to "fair." Lamb says: "_Day_ is the right reading, and +_I implore you to restore it_." + +Page 90, line 4. _B.F._ Barron Field (see note to "Distant +Correspondents"), then living in Sydney, where he composed, and had +printed for private circulation in 1819, a volume of poems reviewed by +Lamb (see Vol. I.), in 1819, one of which was entitled "The Kangaroo." +It was the first book printed in Australia. Field edited Heywood for +the old Shakespeare Society. Although a Field, he was no kinsman of +Lamb's. + + * * * * * + +Page 90. MODERN GALLANTRY. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1822. + +De Quincey writes in "London Reminiscences" concerning the present +essay:-- + + Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not how it is + that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis and depth of + his courtesy. This quality was in him a really chivalrous feeling, + springing from his heart, and cherished with the sanctity of a + duty. He says somewhere in speaking of himself[?] under the mask + of a third person, whose character he is describing, that, in + passing a servant girl, even at a street-crossing, he used to take + off his hat. Now, the _spirit_ of Lamb's gallantry would have + prompted some such expression of homage, though the customs of + the country would not allow it to be _literally_ fulfilled, for + the very reason that would prompt it--_viz_., in order to pay + respect--since the girl would, in such a case, suppose a man + laughing at her. But the instinct of his heart was to think + highly of female nature, and to pay a real homage (not the hollow + demonstration of outward honour which a Frenchman calls his + "homage," and which is really a mask for contempt) to the sacred + _idea_ of pure and virtuous womanhood. + +Barry Cornwall has the following story in his Memoir of Lamb:-- + + Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy + package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles + inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon + his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place + of destination. Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a + female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope + that she would intercede with the poor boy's master, in order to + prevent his being over-weighted in future. "Sir," said the dame, + after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, "I buy my sugar + and have nothing to do with the man's manner of sending it." Lamb + at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off + his hat, said, humbly, "Then I hope, ma'am, you'll give me a drink + of small beer." This was of course refused. He afterwards called + upon the grocer, on the boy's behalf. With what effect I do not + know. + +Page 90, line 2 of essay. _Upon the point of gallantry_. Here, in the +_London Magazine_, came the words:-- + + "as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old classic ages. + This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or + deferential respect, paid to females, as females." + +Page 92, line 3. _Joseph Paice_. Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out +to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that +Lamb records. According to Miss Anne Manning's _Family Pictures_, +1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb +into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 +to learn book-keeping and business habits. He passed thence to the +South-Sea House and thence to the East India House. Miss Manning (who +was the author of _Flemish Interiors_) helps to fill out Lamb's sketch +into a full-length portrait. She tells us that Mr. Paice's life was +one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities. + + Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a + market-woman's fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a + sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who + was requesting him to direct her on her way. These traits are + quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:--his + carrying presents of game _himself_, for instance, to humble + friends, who might ill have spared a shilling to a servant; and + his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, + draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy + day. Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial + companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad + weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the + hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his + fare. At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits + from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in + buying shares of an unlucky number. About the time the numbers + were being drawn, there would be a ring at the gate-bell, perhaps + at dinner time. His spectacles would be elevated, an anxious + expression would steal over his face, as he half raised himself + from his seat, to obtain a glance at the intruder--"Ah, I thought + so, I expected as much," he would gently say. "I expected I should + soon have a visit from poor Mrs. ---- or Mrs. ----. Will you + excuse me, my dear madam," (to my grandmother) "for a moment, + while I just tell her it is quite out of my power to help her?" + counting silver into his hand all the time. Then, a parley would + ensue at the hall-door--complainant telling her tale in a doleful + voice: "My good woman, I really cannot," etc.; and at last the + hall-door would be shut. "Well, sir," my grandmother used to say, + as Mr. Paice returned to his seat, "I do not think you have sent + Mrs. ---- away quite penniless." "Merely enough for a joint of + meat, my good madam--just a trifle to buy her a joint of meat." + +_Family Pictures_ should be consulted by any one who would know more +of this gentleman and of Susan Winstanly. + +Page 92, line 5. _Edwards_. Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of +_Canons of Criticism_, 1748. The sonnet in question, which was +modelled on that addressed by Milton to Cyriack Skinner, was addressed +to Paice, as the author's nephew, bidding him carry on the family +line. Paice, however, as Lamb tells us, did not marry. + + * * * * * + +Page 94. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with the Temple was fairly continuous until 1817, +when he was thirty-eight. He was born at No. 2 Crown Office Row in +1775, and he did not leave it, except for visits to Hertfordshire, +until 1782, when he entered Christ's Hospital. There he remained, save +for holidays, until 1789, returning then to Crown Office Row for the +brief period between leaving school and the death of Samuel Salt, +under whose roof the Lambs dwelt, in February, 1792. The 7 Little +Queen Street, the 45 and 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, and the first +34 Southampton Buildings (with Gutch) periods, followed; but in 1801 +Lamb and his sister were back in the Temple again, at 16 Mitre Court +Buildings, since rebuilt. They moved from there, after a brief return +to 34 Southampton Buildings, to 4 Inner Temple Lane (since rebuilt and +now called Johnson's Buildings) in 1809, where they remained until the +move to 20 Great Russell Street in 1817. With each change after that +(except for another and briefer sojourn in Southampton Buildings +in 1830), Lamb's home became less urban. His last link with the +Temple may be said to have snapped with the death of Randal Morris, +sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, in 1827 (see "A Death-Bed"), +although now and then he slept at Crabb Robinson's chambers. + +The Worshipful Masters of the Bench of the Hon. Society of the Inner +Temple--to give the Benchers their full title--have the government of +the Inner Temple in their hands. + +Page 97, line 12 from foot, _J----ll_. Joseph Jekyll, great-nephew of +Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, well known as a wit and diner-out. +He became a Bencher in 1795, and was made a Master in Chancery in +1815, through the influence of the Prince Regent. Under his direction +the hall of the Inner Temple and the Temple Church were restored, and +he compiled a little book entitled _Facts and Observations relating to +the Temple Church and the Monuments contained in it_, 1811. He became +a K.C. in 1805, and died in 1837, aged eighty-five. Jekyll was a +friend of George Dyer, and was interested in Lamb's other friends, the +Norrises. & letter from him, thanking Lamb for a copy of the _Last +Essays of Elia_, is printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _The Lambs_. He had +another link of a kind with Lamb in being M.P. for "sweet Calne in +Wiltshire." Jekyll's chambers were at 6 King's Bench Walk. On the same +staircase lived for a while George Colman the Younger. + +Page 97, line 9 from foot. _Thomas Coventry_. Thomas Coventry became a +Bencher in 1766. He was the nephew of William, fifth Earl of Coventry, +and resided at North Cray Place, near Bexley, in Kent, and in +Serjeant's Inn, where he died in 1797, in his eighty-fifth year. He +is buried in the Temple Church. Coventry was a sub-governor of the +South-Sea House, and it was he who presented Lamb's friend, James +White, to Christ's Hospital. He was M.P. for Bridport from 1754 to +1780. As an illustration of Coventry's larger benefactions it may +be remarked that he presented £10,000 worth of South Sea stock to +Christ's Hospital in 1782. + +Page 98, line 9. _Samuel Salt_. Samuel Salt was the son of the Rev. +John Salt, of Audley, in Staffordshire; and he married a daughter of +Lord Coventry, thus being connected with Thomas Coventry by marriage. +He was M.P. for Liskeard for some years, and a governor of the +South-Sea House. Samuel Salt, who became a Bencher in 1782, rented +at No. 2 Crown Office Row two sets of chambers, in one of which the +Lamb family dwelt. John Lamb, Lamb's father, who is described as a +scrivener in Charles's Christ's Hospital application form, was Salt's +right-hand man, not only in business, but privately, while Mrs. Lamb +acted as housekeeper and possibly as cook. Samuel Salt played the part +of tutelary genius to John Lamb's two sons. It was he who arranged +for Charles to be nominated for Christ's Hospital (by Timothy Yeats); +probably he was instrumental also in getting him into the East India +House; and in all likelihood it was he who paved the way for the +younger John Lamb's position in the South-Sea House. It was also +Samuel Salt who gave to Charles and Mary the freedom of his library +(see the reference in the essay on "Mackery End"): a privilege which, +to ourselves, is the most important of all. Salt died in February, +1792, and is buried in the vault of the Temple Church. He left to John +Lamb £500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth +Lamb £200 in money; but with his death the prosperity of the family +ceased. + +Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below. + +Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Blandy was the daughter +of Francis Blandy, a lawyer at Henley-on-Thames. The statement that +she was to inherit £10,000 induced an officer in the marines, named +Cranstoun, a son of Lord Cranstoun, to woo her, although he already +had a wife living. Her father proving hostile, Cranstoun supplied her +with arsenic to bring about his removal. Mr. Blandy died on August +14, 1751. Mary Blandy was arrested, and hanged on April 6 in the next +year, after a trial which caused immense excitement. The defence was +that Miss Blandy was ignorant of the nature of the powder, and thought +it a means of persuading her father to her point of view. In this +belief the father, who knew he was being tampered with, also shared. +Cranstoun avoided the law, but died in the same year. Lamb had made +use of Salt's _faux pas_, many years earlier, in "Mr. H." (see Vol. +IV.). + +Page 99, line 13. _His eye lacked lustre_. At these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "Lady Mary Wortley Montague was an exception to her sex: she says, + in one of her letters, 'I wonder what the women see in S. I do not + think him by any means handsome. To me he appears an extraordinary + dull fellow, and to want common sense. Yet the fools are all + sighing for him.'" + +I have not found the passage. + +Page 99, line 14. _Susan P----_. This is Susannah Peirson, sister of +the Peter Peirson to whom we shall come directly. Samuel Salt left her +a choice of books in his library, together with a money legacy and a +silver inkstand, hoping that reading and reflection would make her +life "more comfortable." B----d Row would be Bedford Row. + +Page 99, line 12 from foot, _F., the counsel_. I cannot be sure who +this was. The Law Directory of that day does not help. + +Page 99, foot. _Elwes_. John Elwes, the miser (1714-1789), whose +_Life_ was published in 1790 after running through _The World_--the +work of Topham, that paper's editor, who is mentioned in Lamb's essay +on "Newspapers." + +Page 100, line 15. _Lovel_. Lovel was the name by which Lamb refers to +his father, John Lamb. We know nothing of him in his prime beyond what +is told in this essay, but after the great tragedy, there are in the +_Letters_ glimpses of him as a broken, querulous old man. He died in +1799. Of John Lamb's early days all our information is contained in +this essay, in his own _Poetical Pieces_, where he describes his life +as a footman, and in the essay on "Poor Relations," where his boyish +memories of Lincoln are mentioned. Of his verses it was perhaps too +much (though prettily filial) to say they were "next to Swift and +Prior;" but they have much good humour and spirit. John Lamb's poems +were printed in a thin quarto under the title _Poetical Pieces on +Several Occasions_. The dedication was to "The Forty-Nine Members of +the Friendly Society for the Benefit of their Widows, of whom I have +the honour of making the Number Fifty," and in the dedicatory epistle +it is stated that the Society was in some degree the cause of Number +Fifty's commencing author, on account of its approving and printing +certain lines which were spoken by him at an annual meeting it the +Devil Tavern. The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage +and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn +from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the +Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description +of a lady's footman's daily life, from within, has a good deal of +sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic +couplet. The last poem is a long rhymed version of the story of +Joseph. With this exception, for which Lamb's character-sketch does +not quite prepare us, it is very natural to think of the author as +Lovel. One of the pieces, a familiar letter to a doctor, begins +thus:-- + + My good friend, + For favours to my son and wife, + I shall love you whilst I've life, + Your clysters, potions, help'd to save, + Our infant lambkin from the grave. + +The infant lambkin was probably John Lamb, but of course it might have +been Charles. The expression, however, proves that punning ran in the +family. Lamb's library contained his father's copy of _Hudibras_. + +Lamb's phrase, descriptive of his father's decline, is taken with a +variation from his own poems--from the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral" (_Blank Verse_, 1798):-- + + One parent yet is left,--a wretched thing, + A sad survivor of his buried wife + A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, + A semblance most forlorn of what he was-- + A merry cheerful man. + +Page 100, line 17. "_Flapper_." This is probably an allusion to the +flappers in _Gulliver's Travels_--the servants who, in Laputa, carried +bladders with which every now and then they flapped the mouths and +ears of their employers, to recall them to themselves and disperse +their meditations. + +Page 100, line 9 from foot. _Better was not concerned_. At these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + +"He pleaded the cause of a delinquent in the treasury of the Temple so +effectually with S. the then treasurer--that the man was allowed +to keep his place. L. had the offer to succeed him. It had been a +lucrative promotion. But L. chose to forego the advantage, because the +man had a wife and family." + +Page 101, line 10. _Bayes_. Mr. Bayes is the author and stage manager +in Buckingham's "Rehearsal." This phrase is not in the play and must +have been John Lamb's own, in reference to Garrick. + +Page 101, line 23. _Peter Pierson_. Peter Peirson (as his name was +rightly spelled) was the son of Peter Peirson of the parish of St. +Andrew's, Holborn, who lived probably in Bedford Row. He became a +Bencher in 1800, died in 1808, and is buried in the Temple Church. +When Charles Lamb entered the East India House in April, 1792, Peter +Peirson and his brother, John Lamb, were his sureties. + +Page 101, line 11 from foot. _Our great philanthropist_. Probably John +Howard, whom, as we have seen in the essay on "Christ's Hospital," +Lamb did not love. He was of singular sallowness. + +Page 101, line 9 from foot. _Daines Barrington_. Daines Barrington +(1727-1800), the correspondent of Gilbert White, many of whose letters +in _The Natural History of Selborne_ are addressed to him. Indeed it +was Barrington who inspired that work:--a circumstance which must +atone for his exterminatory raid on the Temple sparrows. His Chambers +were at 5 King's Bench Walk. Barrington became a Bencher in 1777 and +died in 1800. He is buried in the Temple Church. His Episcopal brother +was Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop successively of Llandaff, +Salisbury and Durham. + +Page 102, line 1. _Old Barton_. Thomas Barton, who became a Bencher in +1775 and died in 1791. His chambers were in King's Bench Walk. He is +buried in the vault of the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 6. _Read_. John Reade, who became a Bencher in 1792 and +died in 1804. His rooms were in Mitre Court Buildings. + +Page 102, line 6. _Twopenny_. Richard, Twopenny was not a Bencher, but +merely a resident in the Temple. He was strikingly thin. Twopenny was +stockbroker to the Bank of England, and died in 1809. + +Page 102, line 8. _Wharry_. John Wharry, who became a Bencher in 1801, +died in 1812, and was buried in the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 22. _Jackson_. This was Richard Jackson, some time M.P. +for New Romney, to whom Johnson, Boswell tells us, refused the epithet +"Omniscient" as blasphemous, changing it to "all knowing." He was made +a Bencher in 1770 and died in 1787. + +Page 102, foot. _Mingay_. James Mingay, who was made a Bencher in +1785, died in 1812. He was M.P. for Thetford and senior King's +Counsel. He was also Recorder of Aldborough, Crabbe's town. He lived +at 4 King's Bench Walk. + +Page 103, line 1. _Baron Maseres_. This was Francis Maseres +(1731-1824), mathematician, reformer and Cursiter Baron of the +Exchequer. He lived at 5 King's Bench Walk, and at Reigate, and wore a +three-cornered hat and ruffles to the end. In April, 1801, Lamb wrote +to Manning:--"I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot +off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we +should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for +convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He +keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, +not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the +higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the +belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a +harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together." + +Baron Maseres, who was made a Bencher in 1774, died in 1824. + +Page 104, line 13. _Hookers and Seldens_. Richard Hooker (1554?-1600), +the "judicious," was Master of the Temple. John Selden (1584-1654), +the jurist, who lived in Paper Buildings and practised law in the +Temple, was buried in the Temple Church with much pomp. + + * * * * * + +Page 104. GRACE BEFORE MEAT. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1821. + +This was the essay, Lamb suggested, which Southey may have had in mind +when in an article in the _Quarterly Review_ he condemned _Elia_ as +wanting "a sounder religious feeling." In his "Letter to Southey" +(Vol. I.), which contained Lamb's protest against Southey's +strictures, he wrote:--"I am at a loss what particular essay you had +in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you +were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, +foremost.--Perhaps the Paper on 'Saying Graces' was the obnoxious +feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty--good in +place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded--from the charge +of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not +against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the +carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of +it." + +Page 108, line 12 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge; but Lamb may really +have said it. + +Page 108, foot. _The author of the Rambler_. Veal pie with prunes in +it was perhaps Dr. Johnson's favourite dish. + +Page 109, line 10. _Dagon_. The fish god worshipped by the +Philistines. See Judges xvi. 23 and I Samuel v. for the full +significance of Lamb's reference. + +Page 110, line 16. _C.V.L._ Charles Valentine le Grice. Later in life, +in 1798, Le Grice himself became a clergyman. + +Page 110, line 19. _Our old form at school_. The Christ's Hospital +graces in Lamb's day were worded thus:-- + + GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + Give us thankful hearts, O Lord God, for the Table which thou hast + spread for us. Bless thy good Creatures to our use, and us to thy + service, for Jesus Christ his sake. _Amen_. + + GRACE AFTER MEAT + + Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our + Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou + hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our + Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and + Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And + preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. _Amen_. + + * * * * * + +Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1821. + +Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the "Table Talk" in Leigh +Hunt's _Examiner_, December 9, 1813, under the title "Playhouse +Memoranda" (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in _The Indicator_, +December 13, 1820. + +Page 111, line 1. _Garrick's Drury_. Garrick's Drury Lane was +condemned in 1791, and superseded in 1794 by the new theatre, the +burning of which in 1809 led to the _Rejected Addresses_. It has +recently come to light that Lamb was among the competitors who sent in +to the management the real addresses. The present Drury Lane Theatre +dates from 1812. + +Page 111, line 11. _My godfather F._ Lamb's godfather was Francis +Fielde. _The British Directory_ for 1793 gives him as Francis +Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn. Whether or no he played the part in +Sheridan's matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know +(Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an +invented story. Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the +oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, +in March, 1772, and placed her in France. They were married near +Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773. Sheridan became +manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first +performance under his control being on September 21. Lamb is supposed +to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan. Mary Lamb speaks +of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; +but of the work we know nothing definite. I do not consider the play +printed in part in the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb, on the +authority of P.G. Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to +Mary Lamb's description. + +Page 118, line 8. _His testamentary beneficence_. Lamb was not joking. +Writing to _The Athenæum_, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:-- + + Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb's + possession I am happy to tell the world--or that small portion of + it to whom any fact about his life is precious--exactly where and + what this landed property is. By indentures of lease and release + dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two + yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis + Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the county + of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of £20., all that + messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, + edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances + therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West + Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said + county of Hertford, etc. On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New + Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of + two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, + real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde. + + This will was proved on November 5, 1809. By indentures of lease + and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed + the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, + gentleman. By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, + made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said + Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, + of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was + conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for £50. + +The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said +property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West +Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 +conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford's +Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same +condition as it was in 1815. + +The evidence that the Charles Lamb who conveyed the property in 1815 +is Elia himself is overwhelming. + +1. The essay itself gives the locality correctly: it is about two and +a half miles from Puckeridge. + +2. The plot of land contains as near as possible three-quarters of an +acre, with an old thatched cottage and small barn standing upon it. +The barn, specially mentioned in all the deeds, is a most unusual +adjunct of so small a cottage. The property, the deeds of which go +back to 1708, appears to have been isolated and held by small men, and +consists of a long narrow tongue of land jutting into the property now +of the Savile family (Earls of Mexborough), but formerly of the Earls +of Hardwicke. + +3. The witness to Charles Lamb's signature on the deed of 1815 is +William Hazlitt, of 19, York Street, Westminster. + +4. Lamb was living in Inner Temple Lane in 1815, and did not leave the +Temple till 1817. + +5. The essay was printed in the _London Magazine_ for December, 1821, +six years after "the estate has passed into more prudent hands." + +6. And lastly, the following letter in Charles Lamb's own handwriting, +found with the deeds which are in my possession, clinches the +matter:-- + + "MR. SARGUS,--This is to give you notice that I have parted with + the Cottage to Mr. Grig Junr. to whom you will pay rent from + Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not + wish you to pay me. I forgive it you as you may have been at some + expences in repairs. + + "Yours + + "CH. LAMB. + + "Inner Temple Lane, London, + + "_23 Feb., 1815._" + +It is certainly not the fact that Lamb acquired the property, as he +states, by the will of his godfather, for it was conveyed to him +some three years after the latter's death by Mrs. Fielde. But strict +accuracy of fact in Lamb's '_Essays_' we neither look for nor desire. +In all probability Mrs. Fielde conveyed him the property in accordance +with an expressed wish of her husband in his lifetime. Reading also +between the lines of the essay, it is interesting to notice that +Francis Fielde, the Holborn oilman of 1779, in 1809 has become Francis +Fielde, Esq., of New Cavendish Street. In the letter quoted above +Lamb speaks of his purchaser as "Mr. Grig Junr.," more, I am inclined +to think, from his desire to have his little joke than from mere +inaccuracy, for he must have known the correct name of his purchaser. +But Mr. Greg, Jun., was only just twenty-one when he bought the +property, and the expression "as merry as a grig" running in Lamb's +mind might have proved irresistible to him. Lastly, the property is +now called, and has been so far back as I can trace, "Button Snap." No +such name is found in any of the title-deeds, and it was impossible +before to understand whence it arose. Now it is not: Lamb must have so +christened his little property in jest, and the name has stuck. + +THOMAS GREG. + +Page 113, line 1. _The maternal lap_. With the exception of a brief +mention on page 33--"the gentle posture of maternal tenderness"--this +is Lamb's only reference to his mother in all the essays--probably +from the wish not to wound his sister, who would naturally read all he +wrote; although we are told by Talfourd that she spoke of her mother +with composure. But it is possible to be more sensitive for others +than they are for themselves. + +Page 113, line 3. _The play was Artaxerxes_. The opera, by Thomas +Augustine Arne (1710-1778), produced in 1762, founded on Metastasio's +"Artaserse." The date of the performance was in all probability +December 1, 1780, although Lamb suggests that it was later; for that +was the only occasion in 1780-81-82 on which "Artaxerxes" was followed +by "Harlequin's Invasion," a pantomime dating from 1759, the work of +Garrick. It shows Harlequin invading the territory of Shakespeare; +Harlequin is defeated and Shakespeare restored. + +Page 113, line 20. _The Lady of the Manor_. Here Lamb's memory, I +fancy, betrayed him. This play (a comic opera by William Kenrick) was +not performed at Drury Lane or Covent Garden in the period mentioned. +Lamb's pen probably meant to write "The Lord of the Manor," General +Burgoyne's opera, with music by William Jackson, of Exeter, which was +produced in 1780. It was frequently followed in the bill by "Robinson +Crusoe," but never by "Lun's Ghost," whereas Wycherley's "Way of the +World" was followed by "Lun's Ghost" at Drury Lane on January 9, 1782. +We may therefore assume that Lamb's second visit to the theatre was to +see "The Lord of the Manor," followed by "Robinson Crusoe," some time +in 1781, and his third to see "The Way of the World," followed by +"Lun's Ghost" on January 9, 1782. "Lun's Ghost" was produced on +January 3, 1782. Lun was the name under which John Rich (1682?-1761), +the pantomimist and theatrical manager, had played in pantomime. + +Page 113, last line. _Round Church ... of the Templars_. This allusion +to the Temple Church and its Gothic heads was used before by Lamb in +his story "First Going to Church" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III.). In that volume Mary Lamb had told the story of what we +may take to be her first play (see "Visit to the Cousins"), the piece +being Congreve's "Mourning Bride." + +Page 114, line 1. _The season 1781-2_. Lamb was six on February 10, +1781. He says, in his "Play-house Memoranda," of the same occasion, +"Oh when shall I forget first seeing a play, at the age of five or +six?" + +Page 114, line 3. _At school_. Lamb was at Christ's Hospital from 1782 +to 1789. + +Page 114, end. _Mrs. Siddons in "Isabella."_ Mrs. Siddons first played +this part at Drury Lane on October 10, 1782. The play was "Isabella," +a version by Garrick of Southerne's "Fatal Marriage." Mrs. Siddons +also appeared frequently as Isabella in "Measure for Measure;" but +Lamb clearly says "in" Isabella, meaning the play. Lamb's sonnet, +in which he collaborated with Coleridge, on Mrs. Siddons, which was +printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ in December, 1794 (see Vol. IV.), +was written when he was nineteen. It runs (text of 1797):-- + + As when a child on some long winter's night + Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees + With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight + Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees + Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell; + Or of those hags, who at the witching time + Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, + And mingle foul embrace with fiends of Hell: + Cold Horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear + More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell + Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, + Murder'd by cruel Uncle's mandate fell: + Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, + Ev'n so thou, SIDDONS! meltest my sad heart! + + * * * * * + +Page 115. DREAM-CHILDREN. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1822. + +John Lamb died on October 26, 1821, leaving all his property to his +brother. Charles was greatly upset by his loss. Writing to Wordsworth +in March, 1822, he said: "We are pretty well save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to every thing, which I think I may +date from poor John's Loss.... Deaths over-set one, and put one out +long after the recent grief." (His friend Captain Burney died in the +same month.) Lamb probably began "Dream-Children,"--in some ways, +I think, his most perfect prose work--almost immediately upon his +brother's death. The essay "My Relations" may be taken in connection +with this as completing the picture of John Lamb. His lameness was +caused by the fall of a stone in 1796, but I doubt if the leg were +really amputated. + +The description in this essay of Blakesware, the seat of the Plumers, +is supplemented by the essay entitled "Blakesmoor in H----shire." +Except that Lamb substitutes Norfolk for the nearer county, the +description is accurate; it is even true that there is a legend in the +Plumer family concerning the mysterious death of two children and the +loss of the baronetcy thereby--Sir Walter Plumer, who died in the +seventeenth century, being the last to hold the title. In his poem +"The Grandame" (see Vol. IV.), Lamb refers to Mrs. Field's garrulous +tongue and her joy in recounting the oft-told tale; and it may be to +his early associations with the old story that his great affection +for Morton's play, "The Children in the Wood," which he so often +commended--particularly with Miss Kelly in the caste--was due. The +actual legend of the children in the wood belongs, however, to +Norfolk. + +William Plumer's newer and more fashionable mansion was at Gilston, +which is not in the adjoining county, but also in Hertfordshire, near +Harlow, only a few miles distant from Blakesware. Mrs. Field died +of cancer in the breast in August, 1792, and was buried in Widford +churchyard, hard by Blakesware. + +According to Lamb's Key the name Alice W----n was "feigned." If by +Alice W----n Lamb, as has been suggested, means Ann Simmons, of +Blenheims, near Blakesware, he was romancing when he said that he had +courted her for seven long years, although the same statement is made +in the essay on "New Year's Eve." We know that in 1796 he abandoned +all ideas of marriage. Writing to Coleridge in November of that year, +in reference to his love sonnets, he says: "It is a passion of which I +retain nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even +a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me." This was +1796. Therefore, as he was born in 1775, he must have begun the wooing +of Alice W----n when he was fourteen in order to complete the seven +long years of courtship. My own feeling, as I have stated in the notes +to the love sonnets in Vol. IV., is that Lamb was never a very serious +wooer, and that Alice W----n was more an abstraction around which now +and then to group tender imaginings of what might have been than any +tangible figure. + +A proof that Ann Simmons and Alice W----n are one has been found +in the circumstance that Miss Simmons did marry a Mr. Bartrum, or +Bartram, mentioned by Lamb in this essay as being the father of +Alice's real children. Bartrum was a pawnbroker in Princes Street, +Coventry Street. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that Hazlitt had seen Lamb +wandering up and down before the shop trying to get a glimpse of his +old friend. + + * * * * * + +Page 118. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1822. + +The germ of this essay will be found in a letter to Barron Field, to +whom the essay is addressed, of August 31, 1817. Barron Field was a +son of Henry Field, apothecary to Christ's Hospital. His brother, +Francis John Field, through whom Lamb probably came to know Barron, +was a clerk in the India House. + +Barron Field was associated with Lamb on Leigh Hunt's _Reflector_ in +1810-1812. He also was dramatic critic for _The Times_ for a while. In +1816 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, +where he remained until 1824. For other information see the note, in +Vol. I., to his _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_, reviewed by Lamb. +In the same number of the _London Magazine_ which included the present +essay was Field's account of his outward voyage to New South Wales. + +Page 119, line 24. _Our mutual friend P._ Not identifiable: probably +no one in particular. The Bench would be the King's Bench Prison. A +little later one of Lamb's friends, William Hone, was confined there +for three years. + +Page 121, line 8. _The late Lord C._ This was Thomas Pitt, second +Baron Camelford (1775-1804), who after a quarrelsome life, first in +the navy and afterwards as a man about town, was killed in a duel at +Kensington, just where Melbury Road now is. The spot chosen by him +for his grave was on the borders of the Lake of Lampierre, near three +trees; but there is a doubt if his body ever rested there, for it lay +for years in the crypt of St. Anne's, Soho. Its ultimate fate was the +subject of a story by Charles Reade. + +Page 123, line 11. _Bleach_. Illegitimacy, according to some old +authors, wears out in the third generation, enabling a natural son's +descendant to resume the ancient coat-of-arms. Lamb refers to this +sanction. + +Page 123, line 20. _Hare-court_. The Lambs lived at 4 Inner Temple +Lane (now rebuilt as Johnson's Buildings) from 1809 to 1817. Writing +to Coleridge in June, 1809, Lamb says:--"The rooms are delicious, and +the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always +going. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like +living in a garden." + +Barron Field was entered on the books of the Inner Temple in 1809 and +was called to the Bar in 1814. + +Page 123, last paragraph. _Sally W----r_. Lamb's Key gives "Sally +Winter;" but as to who she was we have no knowledge. + +Page 123, end. _J.W._ James White. See next essay. + + * * * * * + +Page 124. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1822, where it has a sub-title, "A May-Day +Effusion." + +This was not Lamb's only literary association with chimney-sweepers. +In Vol. I. of this edition will be found the description of a sweep +in the country which there is good reason to believe is Lamb's work. +Again, in 1824, James Montgomery, the poet, edited a book--_The +Chimney-Sweepers' Friend and Climbing Boys' Album_--with the +benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the +climbing boys' life and producing legislation to alleviate it. The +first half of the book is practical: reports of committees, and so +forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William +Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children +forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes. Among the +"favourite poets of the day" to whom Montgomery applied were Scott, +Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Joanna Baillie and Lamb. Lamb replied +by copying out (with the alteration of Toddy for Dacre) "The +Chimney-Sweeper" from Blake's _Songs of Innocence_, described by +Montgomery as "a very rare and curious little work." In that poem it +will be remembered the little sweep cries "weep, weep, weep." Lamb +compares the cry more prettily to the "peep, peep" of the sparrow. + +Page 125, line 6. _Shop ..._ Mr. Thomas Read's Saloop Coffee House was +at No. 102 Fleet Street. The following lines were painted on a board +in Read's establishment:-- + + Come, all degrees now passing by, + My charming liquor taste and try; + To Lockyer come, and drink your fill; + Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. + The fumes of wine, punch, drams and beer, + It will expell; your spirits cheer; + From drowsiness your spirits free. + Sweet as a rose your breath will be, + Come taste and try, and speak your mind; + Such rare ingredients here are joined, + Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind. + +Page 127, line 12 from foot. _The young Montagu_. Edward Wortley +Montagu (1713-1776), the traveller, ran away from Westminster School +more than once, becoming, among other things, a chimney-sweeper. + +Page 127, line 9 from foot. _Arundel Castle_. The Sussex seat of the +Dukes of Norfolk. The "late duke" was Charles Howard, eleventh duke, +who died in 1815, and who spent enormous sums of money on curiosities. +I can find no record of the story of the sweep. Perhaps Lamb invented +it, or applied it to Arundel. + +Page 128, line 14 from foot. _Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), +who was at Christ's Hospital with Lamb, and who wrote _Falstaff's +Letters_, 1796, in his company (see Vol. I.). "There never was his +like," Lamb told another old schoolfellow, Valentine Le Grice, in +1833; "we shall never see such days as those in which he flourished." +See the essay "On Some of the Old Actors," for an anecdote of White. + +Page 128, line 8 from foot. _The fair of St. Bartholomew_. Held +on September 3 at Smithfield, until 1855. George Daniel, in his +recollections of Lamb, records a visit they paid together to the Fair. +Lamb took Wordsworth through its noisy mazes in 1802. + +Page 129, line 14. _Bigod_. John Fenwick (see note to "The Two Races +of Men"). + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Examiner_ for May 5, 1822, quoted some of the best +sentences of this essay. On May 12 a correspondent (L.E.) wrote a very +agreeable letter supporting Lamb's plea for generosity to sweeps and +remarking thus upon Lamb himself:-- + + I read the modicum on "Chimney-Sweepers," which your last paper + contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that + sort of mind which you justly denominate "gifted;" but which is + greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because they have no + sympathies in common with it. Many who might partially appreciate + such a spirit, do nevertheless object to it, from the snap-dragon + nature of its coruscations, which shine themselves, but shew every + thing around them to disadvantage. Your deep philosophers also, + and all the laborious professors of the art of sinking, may + elevate their nasal projections, and demand "cui bono"? For my + part I prefer a little enjoyment to a great deal of philosophy. It + is these gifted minds that enliven our habitations, and contribute + so largely to those _every-day_ delights, which constitute, after + all, the chief part of mortal happiness. Such minds are ever + active--their light, like the vestal lamp, is ever burning--and in + my opinion the man who refines the common intercourse of life, and + wreaths the altars of our household gods with flowers, is more + deserving of respect and gratitude than all the sages who waste + their lives in elaborate speculations, which tend to nothing, and + which _we_ cannot comprehend--nor they neither. + +On June 2, however, "J.C.H." intervened to correct what he considered +the "dangerous spirit" of Lamb's essay, which said so little of the +hardships of the sweeps, but rather suggested that they were a happy +class. J.C.H. then put the case of the unhappy sweep with some +eloquence, urging upon all householders the claims of the mechanical +sweeping machine. + + * * * * * + +Page 130. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1822. + +The origin of this essay was the activity at that time of the Society +for the Suppression of Mendicity, founded in 1818, of which a Mr. W.H. +Bodkin was the Hon. Secretary. The Society's motto was "Benefacta male +collocata, malefacta existima;" and it attempted much the same work +now performed by the Charity Organisation Society. Perhaps the delight +expressed in its annual reports in the exposure of impostors was a +shade too hearty--at any rate one can see therein cause sufficient for +Lamb's counter-blast. Lamb was not the only critic of Mr. Bodkin's +zeal. Hood, in the _Odes and Addresses_, published in 1825, included a +remonstrance to Mr. Bodkin. + +The Society's activity led to a special commission of the House +of Commons in 1821 to inquire into the laws relating to vagrants, +concerning which Lamb speaks, the clergyman alluded to being Dr. +Henry Butts Owen, of Highgate. The result of the commission was an +additional stringency, brought about by Mr. George Chetwynd's bill. + +It was this essay, says Hood, which led to his acquaintance with +Charles Lamb. After its appearance in the _London Magazine_, of which +Hood was then sub-editor, he wrote Lamb a letter on coarse paper +purporting to come from a grateful beggar; Lamb did not admit the +discovery of the perpetrator of the joke, but soon afterwards Lamb +called on Hood when he was ill, and a friendship followed to which we +owe Hood's charming recollections of Lamb--among the best that were +written of him by any one. + +Page 131, line 14. _The Blind Beggar_. The reference is to the ballad +of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the _Percy +Reliques_ relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son +of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and +left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb had written "Earl of Flanders," which +he altered to "Earl of Cornwall" in _Elia_. The ballad says Earl of +Leicester. + +Page 131, line 28. _Dear Margaret Newcastle_. One of Lamb's recurring +themes of praise (see "The Two Races of Men," "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," and "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading"). +"Romancical," according to the _New English Dictionary_, is Lamb's own +word. This is the only reference given for it. + +Page 133, line 7. _Spital sermons_. On Monday of Easter week it was +the custom for the Christ's Hospital boys to walk in procession to the +Royal Exchange, and on Tuesday to the Mansion House; on each occasion +returning with the Lord Mayor to hear a special sermon--a spital +sermon, as it was called--and an anthem. The sermon is now preached +only on Easter Tuesday. + +Page 133, line 24. _Overseers of St. L----_. Lamb's Key states that +both the overseers and the mild rector were inventions. In the _London +Magazine_ the rector's parish is "P----." + +Page 133, line 27. _Vincent Bourne_. See Lamb's essay on Vincent +Bourne, Vol. I. This poem was translated by Lamb himself, and was +first published in _The Indicator_ for May 3, 1820. See Vol. IV. for +Lamb's other translations from Bourne. + +Page 135, line 2. _A well-known figure_. This beggar I take to be +Samuel Horsey. He is stated to have been known as the King of the +Beggars, and a very prominent figure in London. His mutilation is +ascribed to the falling of a piece of timber in Bow Lane, Cheapside, +some nineteen years before; but it may have been, as Lamb says, in the +Gordon Riots of 1780. + +There is the figure of Horsey on his little carriage, with several +other of the more notable beggars of the day plying their calling, +in an etching of old houses at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, made by J.T. Smith in 1789 for his _Ancient Topography of +London_, 1815. I give it in my large edition. + +Page 137, end of essay. _Feigned or not._ In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued thus:-- + + "'Pray God your honour relieve me,' said a poor beadswoman to my + friend L---- one day; 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I, my + good woman,' retorted he, looking up at the welkin which was just + then threatening a storm--and the jest (he will have it) was as + good to the beggar as a tester. + + "It was at all events kinder than consigning her to the stocks, or + the parish beadle-- + + "But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical light + on some occasions. + + "ELIA. + + "P.S.--My friend Hume (not MP.) has a curious manuscript in his + possession, the original draught of the celebrated 'Beggar's + Petition' (who cannot say by heart the 'Beggar's Petition?') as it + was written by some school usher (as I remember) with corrections + interlined from the pen of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the + doctor's improvement, I recollect one most judicious alteration-- + + "_A pamper'd menial drove me from the door._ + + "It stood originally-- + + "_A livery servant drove me, &c._ + + "Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly + substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against + Wordsworth. + + "I think I must get H. to send it to the LONDON, as a corollary to + the foregoing." + +The foregoing passage needs some commentary. Lamb's friend L---- was +Lamb himself. He tells the story to Manning in the letter of January +2,1810.--Lamb's friend Hume was Joseph Hume of the victualling office, +Somerset House, to whom letters from Lamb will be found in Mr. W.C. +Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900. Hume translated _The Inferno_ of +Dante into blank verse, 1812.--The "Beggar's Petition," a stock piece +for infant recitation a hundred years ago, was a poem beginning +thus:-- + + Pity the sorrows of a poor old man + Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, + Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; + Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. + +In the reference to Wordsworth Lamb pokes fun at the statement, in his +friend's preface to the second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, that +the purpose of that book was to relate or describe incidents and +situations from common life as far as possible in a selection of +language really used by men. + +Lamb's _P.S._ concerning the "Beggar's Petition" was followed in the +_London Magazine_ by this _N.B._:-- + + "N.B. I am glad to see JANUS veering about to the old quarter. I + feared he had been rust-bound. + + "C. being asked why he did not like Gold's 'London' as well as + ours--it was in poor S.'s time--replied-- + + "_--Because there is no WEATHERCOCK + And that's the reason why._" + +The explanation of this note is that "Janus Weathercock"--one of the +pseudonyms of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright--after a long absence from +its pages, had sent to the previous month's _London Magazine_, May, +1822, an amusing letter of criticism of that periodical, commenting on +some of its regular contributors. Therein he said: "Clap Elia on the +back for such a series of good behaviour."--Who C. is cannot be said; +possibly Lamb, as a joke, intends Coleridge to be indicated; but poor +S. would be John Scott, the first editor of the _London Magazine_, +who was killed in a duel. C.'s reply consisted of the last lines +of Wordsworth's "Anecdote for Fathers; or, Falsehood Corrected." +Accurately they run:-- + + At Kelve there was no weather-cock + And that's the reason why. + +The hero of this poem was a son of Lamb's friend Basil Montagu. + +Gold's _London Magazine_ was a contemporary of the better known London +magazine of the same name. In Vol. III. appeared an article entitled +"The Literary Ovation," describing an imaginary dinner-party given by +Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock & Joy in February, 1821, at which Lamb was +supposed to be present and to sing a song by Webster, one of his old +dramatists. Mr. Bertram Dobell conjectures that Wainewright may have +written this squib. + + * * * * * + +Page 137. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1822. + +There has been some discussion as to the origin of the central idea of +this essay. A resemblance is found in a passage in _The Turkish Spy_, +where, after describing the annual burnt-offering of a bull by the +Athenians, _The Spy_ continues:-- + + In process of time a certain priest, in the midst of his bloody + sacrifice, taking up a piece of the broiled flesh which had fallen + from the altar on the ground, and burning his fingers therewith, + suddenly clapt them to his mouth to mitigate the pain. But, when + he had once tasted the sweetness of the fat, not only longed for + more of it, but gave a piece to his assistant; and he to others; + who, all pleased with the new-found dainties, fell to eating of + flesh greedily. And hence this species of gluttony was taught to + other mortals. + + +"Este," a contributor to _Notes and Queries_, June 21, 1884, wrote:-- + + A quarto volume of forty-six pages, once in "Charles Lamb's + library" (according to a pencilled note in the volume) is before + me, entitled: _Gli Elogi del Porco, Capitoli Berneschi di Tigrinto + Bistonio P.A., E. Accademico Ducale de' Dissonanti di Modena. + In Modena per gli Eredi di Bartolmeo Soliani Stampatori Ducali + MDCCLXI. Con Licenza de' Superiori_, [wherein] some former owner + of the volume has copied out Lamb's prose with many exact verbal + resemblances from the poem. + +It has also been suggested that Porphyry's tract on _Abstinence from +Animal Food_, translated by William Taylor, bears a likeness to the +passage. Taylor's translation, however, was not published till 1823, +some time after Lamb's essay. + +These parallels merely go to show that the idea was a commonplace; at +the same time it is not Lamb, but Manning, who told him the story, +that must declare its origin. Not only in the essay, but in a letter +to Barton in March, 1823, does Lamb express his indebtedness to his +traveller friend. Allsop, indeed, in his _Letters of Coleridge_, +claims to give the Chinese story which Manning lent to Lamb and which +produced the "Dissertation." It runs thus:-- + + A child, in the early ages, was left alone by its mother in a + house in which was a pig. A fire took place; the child escaped, + the pig was burned. The child scratched and pottered among the + ashes for its pig, which at last it found. All the provisions + being burnt, the child was very hungry, and not yet having any + artificial aids, such as golden ewers and damask napkins, began to + lick or suck its fingers to free them from the ashes. A piece of + fat adhered to one of his thumbs, which, being very savoury alike + in taste and odour, he rightly judged to belong to the pig. Liking + it much, he took it to his mother, just then appearing, who also + tasted it, and both agreed that it was better than fruit or + vegetables. + + They rebuilt the house, and the woman, after the fashion of good + wives, who, says the chronicle, are now very scarce, put a pig + into it, and was about to set it on fire, when an old man, one + whom observation and reflection had made a philosopher, suggested + that a pile of wood would do as well. (This must have been the + father of economists.) The next pig was killed before it was + roasted, and thus + + "From low beginnings, + We date our winnings." + +Manning, by the way, contributed articles on Chinese jests to the _New +Monthly Magazine_ in 1826. + +A preliminary sketch of the second portion of this essay will be found +in the letter to Coleridge dated March 9, 1822. See also the letters +to Mr. and Mrs. Bruton, January 6, 1823, to Mrs. Collier, November 2, +1824, and to H. Dodwell, October 7, 1827, all in acknowledgment of +pigs sent to Lamb probably from an impulse found in this essay. + +Later, Lamb abandoned the extreme position here taken. In the little +essay entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," 1833 (see Vol. I.), he +says: "Time was, when Elia ... preferred to all a roasted pig. But he +disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future." + +Page 141, verse. "Ere sin could blight ..." From Coleridge's "Epitaph +on an Infant." + +Page 142, line 7 from foot. _My good old aunt_. Probably Aunt Hetty. +See the essay on "Christ's Hospital," for another story of her. The +phrase, "Over London Bridge," unless an invention, suggests that +before this aunt went to live with the Lambs--probably not until they +left the Temple in 1792--she was living on the Surrey side. But it was +possibly an Elian mystification. Lamb had another aunt, but of her we +know nothing. + +Page 143, line 11 from foot. _St. Omer's_. The French Jesuit College. +Lamb, it is unnecessary to say, was never there. + + * * * * * + +Page 144. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE. + +This is, by many years, the earliest of these essays. It was printed +first in _The Reflector_, No. IV., in 1811 or 1812. When Lamb brought +his _Works_ together, in 1818, he omitted it. In September, 1822, it +appeared in the _London Magazine_ as one of the reprints of Lamb's +earlier writings, of which the "Confessions of a Drunkard" (see Vol. +I.)was the first. In that number also appeared the "Dissertation upon +Roast Pig," thereby offering the reader an opportunity of comparing +Lamb's style in 1811 with his riper and richer style of 1822. The +germ of the essay must have been long in Lamb's mind, for we find him +writing to Hazlitt in 1805 concerning Mrs. Rickman: "A good-natured +woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, +whom you got acquainted with as a bachelor." + +Page 147, line 6. "_Love me, love my dog_." See "Popular Fallacies," +page 302, for an expansion of this paragraph. + + * * * * * + +Page 150. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS. + +In February, 1822, Lamb began a series of three articles in the +_London Magazine_ on "The Old Actors." The second was printed in April +and the third in October of the same year. Afterwards, in reprinting +them in _Elia_, he rearranged them into the essays, "On Some of the +Old Actors," "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "On +the Acting of Munden," omitting a considerable portion altogether. The +essay in its original tripart form will be found in the Appendix to +this volume. + +In one of his theatrical notices in _The Examiner_ (see Vol. I.) Lamb +remarks, "Defunct merit comes out upon us strangely," and certain +critics believe that he praised some of the old actors beyond their +deserts. But no one can regret any such excesses. + +Page 150, beginning. _Twelfth Night_. When recalling early playgoing +days in "Old China," Lamb refers again to this play--Viola in Illyria. + +Page 150, foot. _Whitfield, Packer, Benson, Burton, Phillimore_ and +_Barrymore_. Whitfield, who made his London début as Trueman in +"George Barnwell" about 1776, was a useful man at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--John Hayman Packer (1730-1806), known in Lamb's time for +his old men. He acted at Drury Lane until 1805.--Benson, who married a +sister of Mrs. Stephen Kemble, wrote one or two plays, and was a good +substitute in emergencies. He committed suicide during brain fever +in 1796.--Burton was a creditable utility actor at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--Phillimore filled small parts at Drury Lane.--Barrymore +was of higher quality, a favourite character actor both at Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. + +Page 151, line 6. _Mrs. Jordan_. Mrs. Jordan, born in 1762, ceased to +act in England in 1814 and died in 1816. Nell was her famous part, in +Coffey's "The Devil to Pay." Miss Hoyden is in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." +Lamb is referring to Viola in Act I., Scene 5, and Act II., Scene 4, +of "Twelfth Night." + +Page 151, line 8 from foot. _Mrs. Powel_. Mrs. Powel, previously known +as Mrs. Farmer, and afterwards Mrs. Renaud, was at Drury Lane from +1788 to 1811. She ended her London career in 1816 and died in 1829. + +Page 152, line 8. _Of all the actors_. The _London Magazine_ article +began at this point. Robert Bensley (1738?-1817?) was at Drury +Lane from 1775 to 1796, when he retired (alternating it with the +Haymarket). G.H. Boaden and George Colman both bear out Lamb's eulogy +of Bensley as Malvolio; but otherwise he is not the subject of much +praise. + +Page 152, line 15. _Venetian incendiary_. Pierre in Otway's "Venice +Preserved." Lamb appended the passage in a footnote in the _London +Magazine_. + +Page 153, line 12. _Baddeley ... Parsons ... John Kemble_. Robert +Baddeley (1733-1794), the husband of Mrs. Baddeley, and the original +Moses in the "School for Scandal." William Parsons (1736-1795), the +original Crabtree in the "School for Scandal," and a favourite actor +of Lamb's. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who managed Drury Lane from +1788 to 1801. + +Page 153, line 11 from foot. _Of birth and feeling_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 153, line 6 from foot. _Length of service_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 154, line 24. _House of misrule_. A long passage came here in the +_London Magazine_ (see page 317). + +Page 154, line 8 from foot. _Hero of La Mancha_. Compare a similar +analysis of Don Quixote's character on page 264. + +Page 155, line 23. _Dodd_. James William Dodd (1740?-1796). + +Page 155, line 24. _Lovegrove_. William Lovegrove (1778-1816), famous +in old comedy parts and as Peter Fidget in "The Boarding House." + +Page 155, foot. _The gardens of Gray's Inn._ These gardens are said to +have been laid out under the supervision of Bacon, who retained his +chambers in the Inn until his death. As Dodd died in 1796 and Lamb +wrote in 1822, it would be fully twenty-six years and perhaps more +since Lamb met him. + +Page 156, lines 26-29. _Foppington, etc._ Foppington in Vanbrugh's +"Relapse," Tattle in Congreve's "Love for Love," Backbite in +Sheridan's "School for Scandal," Acres in "The Rivals" by the same +author, and Fribble in Garrick's "Miss in her Teens." + +Page 157, line 13. _If few can remember._ The praise of Suett that +follows is interpolated here from the third part of Lamb's original +essay (see page 332). Richard Suett, who had been a Westminster +chorister (not St. Paul's), left the stage in June, 1805, and died in +July. + +Page 157, footnote, _Jem White_. See note above. + +Page 158, line 22. _His friend Mathews._ Charles Mathews (1776-1835), +whom Lamb knew. + +Page 159, line 1. _Jack Bannister._ John Bannister retired from the +stage in 1815. He died in 1836. + +Page 159, line 7. _Children in the Wood._ Morton's play, of which Lamb +was so fond. It is mentioned again in "Barbara S----" and "Old China." + +Page 159, line 19. _The elder Palmer._ The first part of the essay is +here resumed again. The elder Palmer was John Palmer, who died on the +stage, in 1798, when playing in "The Stranger." Lamb's remarks tend +to confuse him with Gentleman Palmer, who died before Lamb was born. +Robert Palmer, John's brother, died about 1805. + +Page 159, line 22. _Moody_. John Moody (1727?-1812), famous as Teague +in "The Committee." + +Page 159, lines 31 to 36. _The Duke's Servant, etc._ The Duke's +servant in Garrick's "High Life below Stairs," Captain Absolute in +Sheridan's "Rivals," Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's "Confederacy." + +Page 160, line 1. _Young Wilding ... Joseph Surface._ In Foote's +"Liar" and Sheridan's "School for Scandal." + + * * * * * + +Page 161. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors." + +See also "A Vision of Horns" (Vol. I.) for, as it seems to me, a +whimsical extension to the point of absurdity of the theory expressed +in this essay--a theory which Lord Macaulay, in his review of Leigh +Hunt's edition of the Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, etc., in +1840, opposed with characteristic vigour. + +Hartley Coleridge, in a letter to Edward Moxon concerning Leigh Hunt's +edition of Wycherley and Congreve, happily remarked: "Nothing more or +better can be said in defence of these writers than what Lamb has said +in his delightful essay ... which is, after all, rather an apology for +the audiences who applauded and himself who delighted in their plays, +than for the plays themselves.... But Lamb always took things by the +better handle." + +Page 163, line 16. _The Fainalls, etc_. Fainall in Congreve's "Way +of the World," Mirabel in Farquhar's "Inconstant," Dorimant in +Etheredge's "Man of Mode," and Lady Touchstone in Congreve's "Double +Dealer." + +Page 163, line 12 from foot. _Angelica_. In "Love for Love." + +Page 164, line 26, etc. _Sir Simon, etc_. All these characters are in +Wycherley's "Love in a Wood." + +Page 166, line 21. _King_. Thomas King (1730-1805), at one time +manager of Drury Lane, the original Sir Peter Teazle, on May 8, 1777, +the first night of the "School for Scandal," and the most famous actor +in the part until he retired in 1802. + +Page 167, line 14. _Miss Pope_. Jane Pope (1742-1818), the original +Mrs. Candour, left the stage in 1808. + +Page 167, line 15 from foot. _Manager's comedy_. Sheridan was manager +of Drury Lane when the "School for Scandal" was produced. + +Page 167, same line. _Miss Farren ... Mrs. Abingdon_. Elizabeth +Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, played Lady Teazle for the last +time in 1797. Mrs. Abingdon had retired from Drury Lane in 1782. + +Page 167, line 10 from foot. _Smith_. "Gentleman" Smith took his +farewell of the stage, as Charles Surface, in 1788. + +Page 168, end of essay. _Fashionable tragedy_. See page 328, line 21, +for the continuation of this essay in the _London Magazine_. + + * * * * * + +Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors" above. Lamb lifted +this essay into the _London Magazine_ from _The Examiner_, where it +had appeared on November 7 and 8, 1819, with slight changes. + +Page 168, title. _Munden_. Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832) acted at +Covent Garden practically continuously from 1790 to 1811. He moved +to Drury Lane in 1813, and remained there till the end. His farewell +performance was on May 31, 1824. We know Lamb to have met Munden from +Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_. + +Page 168, line 2 of essay. _Cockletop_. In O'Keeffe's farce "Modern +Antiques." This farce is no longer played, although a skilful hand +might, I think, make it attractive to our audiences. Barry Cornwall in +his memoir of Lamb has a passage concerning Munden as Cockletop, which +helps to support Lamb's praise. Support is not necessary, but useful; +it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live +only in the praise of his critics. + + In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed + him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of + the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor. + Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary + credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an + almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people + around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon. + What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial + visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true. + The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial + nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's + tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it. + "What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands + a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern + gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit + ditties of no tone;" and you imagine Æolian strains. At last, + William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat + him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the + scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of + acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap + of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and + solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning + himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and + enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he + tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and + finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly, + and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear + the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you + tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile, + and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint + in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several + times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of + Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that + archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the + son of Hagar, wandered about the Judæan deserts and became an + archer. + +Page 169, line 16. _Edwin_. This would probably be John Edwin the +Elder (1749-1790). But John Edwin the Younger (1768-1805) might have +been meant. He was well known in Nipperkin, one of Munden's parts. + +Page 169, line 21. _Farley...Knight...Liston_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), mainly known as the deviser of Covent Garden pantomimes; +Edward Knight (1774-1826), an eccentric little comedian; John Listen +(1776?-1846), whose mock biography Lamb wrote (see Vol. I.). + +Page 169, line 7 from foot. _Sir Christopher Curry...Old Dornton_. Sir +Christopher in "Inkle and Yarico," by the younger Colman; Old Dornton +in Holcroft's "Road to Ruin." + +Page 170, line 6. _The Cobbler of Preston_. A play, founded on "The +Taming of the Shrew," by Charles Johnson, written in 1716. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + + +Page 171. PREFACE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823, where it was entitled "A Character +of the late Elia. By a Friend." Signed Phil-Elia. Lamb did not reprint +it for ten years, and then with certain omissions. + +In the _London Magazine_ the "Character" began thus:-- + + "A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA + + "BY A FRIEND + + "This gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining + way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. He just + lived long enough (it was what he wished) to see his papers + collected into a volume. The pages of the LONDON MAGAZINE will + henceforth know him no more. + + "Exactly at twelve last night his queer spirit departed, and + the bells of Saint Bride's rang him out with the old year. The + mournful vibrations were caught in the dining-room of his friends + T. and H.; and the company, assembled there to welcome in another + First of January, checked their carousals in mid-mirth and were + silent. Janus wept. The gentle P----r, in a whisper, signified his + intention of devoting an Elegy; and Allan C----, nobly forgetful + of his countrymen's wrongs, vowed a Memoir to his _manes_, full + and friendly as a Tale of Lyddal-cross." + +_Elia_ had just been published when this paper appeared, and it was +probably Lamb's serious intention to stop the series. He was, however, +prevailed to continue. T. and H. were Taylor & Hessey, the owners of +the _London Magazine_. Janus was Janus Weathercock, Thomas Griffiths +Wainewright; P----r was Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, who +afterwards wrote Lamb's life, and Allan C---- was Allan Cunningham, +who called himself "Nalla" in the _London Magazine_. "The Twelve Tales +of Lyddal Cross" ran serially in the magazine in 1822. + +Page 171, line 9 from foot. _A former Essay_. In the _London Magazine_ +"his third essay," referring to "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty +Years Ago." + +Page 172, line 7. _My late friend_. The opening sentences of this +paragraph seem to have been deliberately modelled, as indeed is the +whole essay, upon Sterne's character of Yorick in _Tristram Shandy_, +Vol. I., Chapter XI. + +Page 172, line 12 from foot. _It was hit or miss with him_. Canon +Ainger has pointed out that Lamb's description of himself in +company is corroborated by Hazlitt in his essay "On Coffee-House +Politicians":-- + + I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in + the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company + he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom + it may be said, _Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your + manners_. He is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever + opinion you seem to entertain of him. He cannot outgo the + apprehensions of the circle; and invariably acts up or down to + the point of refinement or vulgarity at which they pitch him. He + appears to take a pleasure in exaggerating the prejudices of + strangers against him; a pride in confirming the prepossessions + of friends. In whatever scale of intellect he is placed, he is as + lively or as stupid as the rest can be for their lives. If you + think him odd and ridiculous, he becomes more and more so every + minute, _à la folie_, till he is a wonder gazed at by all--set him + against a good wit and a ready apprehension, and he brightens more + and more ... + +P.G. Patmore's testimony is also corroborative:-- + + To those who did not know him, or, knowing, did not or could + not appreciate him, Lamb often passed for something between an + imbecile, a brute, and a buffoon; and the first impression he made + on ordinary people was always unfavourable--sometimes to a violent + and repulsive degree. + +Page 174, line 3. _Some of his writings_. In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued:-- + + "He left property behind him. Of course, the little that is left + (chiefly in India bonds) devolves upon his cousin Bridget. A few + critical dissertations were found in his escritoire, which have + been handed over to the Editor of this Magazine, in which it is + to be hoped they will shortly appear, retaining his accustomed + signature. + + "He has himself not obscurely hinted that his employment lay in a + public office. The gentlemen in the Export department of the East + India House will forgive me, if I acknowledge the readiness with + which they assisted me in the retrieval of his few manuscripts. + They pointed out in a most obliging manner the desk at which he + had been planted for forty years; showed me ponderous tomes of + figures, in his own remarkably neat hand, which, more properly + than his few printed tracts, might be called his 'Works.' They + seemed affectionate to his memory, and universally commended his + expertness in book-keeping. It seems he was the inventor of some + ledger, which should combine the precision and certainty of the + Italian double entry (I think they called it) with the brevity + and facility of some newer German system--but I am not able to + appreciate the worth of the discovery. I have often heard him + express a warm regard for his associates in office, and how + fortunate he considered himself in having his lot thrown + in amongst them. There is more sense, more discourse, more + shrewdness, and even talent, among these clerks (he would say) + than in twice the number of authors by profession that I have + conversed with. He would brighten up sometimes upon the 'old + days of the India House,' when he consorted with Woodroffe, and + Wissett, and Peter Corbet (a descendant and worthy representative, + bating the point of sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet), and + Hoole who translated Tasso, and Bartlemy Brown whose father (God + assoil him therefore) modernised Walton--and sly warm-hearted old + Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those days), and Campe, + and Fombelle--and a world of choice spirits, more than I can + remember to name, who associated in those days with Jack Burrell + (the _bon vivant_ of the South Sea House), and little Eyton (said + to be a _facsimile_ of Pope--he was a miniature of a gentleman) + that was cashier under him, and Dan Voight of the Custom House + that left the famous library. + + "Well, Elia is gone--for aught I know, to be reunited with + them--and these poor traces of his pen are all we have to show for + it. How little survives of the wordiest authors! Of all they said + or did in their lifetime, a few glittering words only! His Essays + found some favourers, as they appeared separately; they shuffled + their way in the crowd well enough singly; how they will _read_, + now they are brought together, is a question for the publishers, + who have thus ventured to draw out into one piece his 'weaved-up + follies.' + + "PHIL-ELIA." + +This passage calls for some remark. Cousin Bridget was, of course, +Mary Lamb.--Lamb repeated the joke about his _Works_ in his +"Autobiography" (see Vol. I.) and in "The Superannuated Man."--Some +record of certain of the old clerks mentioned by Lamb still remains; +but I can find nothing of the others. Whether or not Peter Corbet +really derived from the Bishop we do not know, but the facetious +Bishop Corbet was Richard Corbet (1582-1635), Bishop of Oxford and +Norwich, whose conviviality was famous and who wrote the "Fairies' +Farewell." John Hoole (1727-1803), who translated Tasso and wrote the +life of Scott of Amwell and a number of other works, was principal +auditor at the end of his time at the India House. He retired about +1785, when Lamb was ten years old. Writing to Coleridge on January 5, +1797, Lamb speaks of Hoole as "the great boast and ornament of the +India House," and says that he found Tasso, in Hoole's translation, +"more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared." The moderniser +of Walton would be Moses Browne (1704-1787), whose edition of _The +Complete Angler_, 1750, was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. +Johnson. + + * * * * * + +Page 174. BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE + +_London Magazine_, September, 1824. + +With this essay Lamb made his reappearance in the magazine, after +eight months' absence. + +By Blakesmoor Lamb meant Blakesware, the manor-house near Widford, in +Hertfordshire, where his grandmother, Mary Field, had been housekeeper +for many years. Compare the essay "Dream-Children." + +Blakesware, which was built by Sir Francis Leventhorpe about 1640, +became the property of the Plumers in 1683, being then purchased by +John Plumer, of New Windsor, who died in 1718. It descended to William +Plumer, M.P. for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, and afterwards for +Hertfordshire, who died in 1767, and was presumably Mrs. Field's first +employer. His widow and the younger children remained at Blakesware +until Mrs. Plumer's death in 1778, but the eldest son, William Plumer, +moved at once to Gilston, a few miles east of Blakesware, a mansion +which for a long time was confused with Blakesware by commentators on +Lamb. This William Plumer, who was M.P. for Lewes, for Hertfordshire, +and finally for Higham Ferrers, and a governor of Christ's Hospital, +kept up Blakesware after his mother's death in 1778 (when Lamb was +three) exactly as before, but it remained empty save for Mrs. Field +and the servants under her. Mrs. Field became thus practically +mistress of it, as Lamb says in "Dream-Children." Hence the increased +happiness of her grandchildren when they visited her. Mrs. Field died +in 1792, when Lamb was seventeen. William Plumer died in 1822, aged +eighty-six, having apparently arranged with his widow, who continued +at Gilston, that Blakesware should be pulled down--a work of +demolition which at once was begun. This lady, _née_ Jane Hamilton, +afterwards married a Mr. Lewin, and then, in 1828, Robert Ward +(1765-1846), author of _Tremaine_ and other novels, who took the name +of Plumer-Ward, and may be read of, together with curious details of +Gilston House, in P.G. Patmore's _My Friends and Acquaintances_. + +Nothing now remains but a few mounds, beneath which are bricks and +rubble. The present house is a quarter of a mile behind the old +one, high on the hill. In Lamb's day this hillside was known as the +Wilderness, and where now is turf were formal walks with clipped yew +hedges and here and there a statue. The stream of which he speaks is +the Ashe, running close by the walls of the old house. Standing there +now, among the trees which mark its site, it is easy to reconstruct +the past as described in the essay. + +The Twelve Cæsars, the tapestry and other more notable possessions of +Blakesware, although moved to Gilston on the demolition of Blakesware, +are there no longer, and their present destination is a mystery. +Gilston was pulled down in 1853, following upon a sale by auction, +when all its treasures were dispersed. Some, I have discovered, +were bought by the enterprising tenant of the old Rye House Inn +at Broxbourne, but absolute identification of anything now seems +impossible. + +Blakesware is again described in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in Mary +Lamb's story of "The Young Mahometan." There the Twelve Cæsars are +spoken of as hanging on the wall, as if they were medallions; but Mr. +E.S. Bowlby tells me that he perfectly remembers the Twelve Cæsars at +Gilston, about 1850, as busts, just as Lamb says. In "Rosamund Gray" +(see Vol. I.) Lamb describes the Blakesware wilderness. See also notes +to "The Last Peach," Vol. I., to "Dream-Children" in this volume, and +to "Going or Gone," Vol. IV. + +Lamb has other references to Blakesware and the irrevocability of his +happiness there as a child, in his letters. Writing to Southey on +October 31, 1799, he says:--"Dear Southey,--I have but just got +your letter, being returned from Herts, where I have passed a few +red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to +you, as you have done by Devonshire; but alas! I am a poor pen at that +same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bedroom, the +'Judgment of Solomon' composing one pannel, and 'Actæon spying Diana +naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's +prints, and the Roman Cæsars in marble hung round. I could tell of +a _wilderness_, and of a village church, and where the bones of my +honoured grandam lie; but there are feelings which refuse to be +translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised in another +soil. Of this nature are old family faces, and scenes of infancy." + +And again, to Bernard Barton, in August, 1827:--"You have well +described your old-fashioned grand paternall Hall. Is it not odd that +every one's earliest recollections are of some such place. I had my +Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the 'London'). Nothing fills a child's mind +like a large old Mansion ... better if un- or partially-occupied; +peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the County and +Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of +one, with my feelings at 7 years old! + +"Those marble busts of the Emperors, they seem'd as if they were to +stand for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in +that old Marble Hall, and I to partake of their permanency; Eternity +was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are +toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old Dwelling and +its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about +the grounds escaped his scythe only by my littleness. Ev'n now he is +whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. +Well!" + +Writing to Barton in August, 1824, concerning the present essay, Lamb +describes it as a "futile effort ... 'wrung from me with slow pain'." + +Page 175, line 15 from foot. _Mrs. Battle_. There was a haunted room +at Blakesware, but the suggestion that the famous Mrs. Battle died +in it was probably due to a sudden whimsical impulse. Lamb states in +"Dream-Children" that Mrs. Field occupied this room. + +Page 177, line 22. _The hills of Lincoln_. See Lamb's sonnet "On the +Family Name," Vol. IV. Lamb's father came from Lincoln. + +Page 177, line 11 from foot. _Those old W----s_. Lamb thus disguised +the name of Plumer. He could not have meant Wards, for Robert Ward did +not marry William Plumer's widow till four years after this essay was +printed. + +Page 178, line 2. _My Alice_. See notes to "Dream-Children." + +Page 178, line 2. _Mildred Elia, I take it_. Alter these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "From her, and from my passion for her--for I first learned love + from a picture--Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical + lines, which thou mayst see, if haply thou hast never seen them, + Reader, in the margin.[1] But my Mildred grew not old, like the + imaginery Helen." + +This ballad, written in gentle ridicule of Lamb's affection for the +Blakesware portrait, and Mary Lamb's first known poem, was printed in +the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, and in the _Works_, 1818. + +[Footnote 1: + "High-born Helen, round your dwelling, + These twenty years I've paced in vain: + Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty + Hath been to glory in his pain. + + "High-born Helen, proudly telling + Stories of thy cold disdain; + I starve, I die, now you comply, + And I no longer can complain. + + "These twenty years I've lived on tears, + Dwelling for ever on a frown; + On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; + I perish now you kind are grown. + + "Can I, who loved ray beloved + But for the scorn 'was in her eye,' + Can I be moved for my beloved, + When she returns me sigh for sigh? + + "In stately pride, by my bedside, + High-born Helen's portrait hung; + Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays + Are nightly to the portrait sung. + + "To that I weep, nor ever sleep, + Complaining all night long to her.-- + Helen, grown old, no longer cold, + Said--'you to all men I prefer.'"] + + * * * * * + +Page 178. POOR RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1823. + +Page 179, line 10. _A pound of sweet._ After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came one more descriptive clause--"the bore _par +excellence_." + +Page 181, line 4, _Richard Amlet, Esq._ In "The Confederacy" by Sir +John Vanbrugh--a favourite part of John Palmer's (see the essay "On +Some of the Old Actors"). + +Page 181, line 16. _Poor W----_. In the Key Lamb identifies W---- with +Favell, who "left Cambridge because he was asham'd of his father, who +was a house-painter there." Favell has already been mentioned in the +essay on "Christ's Hospital." + +Page 183, line 22. _At Lincoln._ The Lambs, as we have seen, came from +Lincolnshire. The old feud between the Above and Below Boys seems now +to have abated, but a social gulf between the two divisions of the +city remains. + +Page 184, line 11 from foot. _John Billet_. Probably not the real +name. Lamb gives the innkeeper at Widford, in "Rosamund Gray," the +name of Billet, when it was really Clemitson. + + * * * * * + +Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was entitled "Imperfect +Dramatic Illusion." + +This was, I think, Lamb's last contribution to the _London_, which had +been growing steadily heavier and less hospitable to gaiety. Some one, +however, contributed to it from time to time papers more or less in +the Elian manner. There had been one in July, 1825, on the Widow +Fairlop, a lady akin to "The Gentle Giantess." In September, 1825, was +an essay entitled "The Sorrows of ** ***" (an ass), which might, +both from style and sympathy, be almost Lamb's; but was, I think, by +another hand. And in January, 1826, there was an article on whist, +with quotations from Mrs. Battle, deliberately derived from her +creator. These and other essays are printed in Mr. Bertram Dobell's +_Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903, with interesting comments. + +The present essay to some extent continues the subject treated of in +"The Artificial Comedy," but it may be taken also as containing some +of the matter of the promised continuation of the essay "On the +Tragedies of Shakspeare," which was to deal with the comic characters +of that dramatist (see Vol. I.). + +Page 185, line 15 from foot. _Jack Bannister_. See notes to the essay +on "The Old Actors." His greatest parts were not those of cowards; but +his Bob Acres was justly famous. Sir Anthony Absolute and Tony Lumpkin +were perhaps his chief triumphs. He left the stage in 1815. + +Page 186, line 24. _Gatty_. Henry Gattie (1774-1844), famous for +old-man parts, notably Monsieur Morbleu in Moncrieffs "Monsieur +Tonson." He was also the best Dr. Caius, in "The Merry Wives of +Windsor," of his time. He left the stage in 1833, and settled down as +a tobacconist and raconteur at Oxford. + +Page 186, line 30. _Mr. Emery._ John Emery (1777-1822), the best +impersonator of countrymen in his day. Zekiel Homespun in Colman's +"Heir at Law" was one of his great parts. Tyke was in Morton's "School +of Reform," produced in 1805, and no one has ever played it so well. +He also played Caliban with success. + +Page 187, line 4 from foot. _A very judicious actor._ This actor +I have not identified. Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843) was a dashing +comedian, a Wyndham of his day. In "Free and Easy" he played Sir John +Freeman. + + * * * * * + +Page 188. To THE SHADE OF ELLISTON. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831, where it formed, with the +following essay, one article, under the title "Reminiscences of +Elliston." + +Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), actor and manager, famous for his +stage lovers, both in comedy and tragedy. His Charles Surface was said +to be unequalled, and both in Hotspur and Hamlet he was great. His +last performance was in June, 1831, a very short time before his +death. + +Page 189, line 7. _Thin ghosts._ In the _London Magazine_ the passage +ran:-- + + "Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) admire, while + with uplifted toe retributive you inflict vengeance incorporeal + upon the shadowy rear of obnoxious author, just arrived:-- + + "'what _seem'd_ his tail + The likeness of a kingly kick had on. + * * * * * + "'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout + Vital in every part, not as frail man + In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, + Can in the liquid texture mortal wound + Receive no more, than can the liquid air, + All heart they live, all head, all eye.'" + +Page 189, line 11 from foot. _À la Foppington_. In Vanbrugh's +"Relapse." + +In the _Englishman's Magazine_ the article ended, after "Plaudito, et +Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive at +his d----n." + +The article was signed Mr. H., the point being that Elliston had +played Mr. H. at Drury Lane in Lamb's unlucky farce of that name in +1806. + + * * * * * + +Page 190. ELLISTONIANA. + +See note at the head of "To the Shade of Elliston," above. + +Page 190, line 3 of essay. _My first introduction._ This paragraph was +a footnote in the _Englishman's Magazine_. Elliston, according to +the _Memoirs_ of him by George Raymond, which have Lamb's phrase, +"Joyousest of once embodied spirits," for motto, opened a circulating +library at Leamington in the name of his sons William and Henry, and +served there himself at times. + +Possibly Lamb was visiting Charles Chambers at Leamington when he saw +Elliston. That he did see him there we know from Raymond's book, where +an amusing occurrence is described, illustrating Munden's frugality. +It seems that Lamb, Elliston and Munden drove together to Warwick +Castle. On returning Munden stopped the carriage just outside +Leamington, on the pretext that he had to make a call on an old +friend--a regular device, as Elliston explained, to avoid being +present at the inn when the hire of the carriage was paid. + +Page 191, line 11. _Wrench_. See notes to "The Old Actors." Wrench +succeeded Elliston at Bath, and played in the same parts, and with +something of the same manner. + +Page 191, line 11 from foot. _Appelles ... G.D._ Apelles, painter to +Alexander the Great, was said to let no day pass without experimenting +with his pencil. G.D. was George Dyer, whom we first met in "Oxford in +the Vacation." + +Page 192, line 6. _Ranger_. In Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," one of +Elliston's great parts. + +Page 192, line 17 from foot. _Cibber_. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), the +actor, who was a very vain man, created the part of Foppington in +1697--his first great success. + +Page 192, last line. _St. Dunstan's ... punctual giants._ Old St. +Dunstan Church, in Fleet Street, had huge figures which struck the +hours, and which disappeared with the church, pulled down to make room +for the present one some time before 1831. They are mentioned in Emily +Barton's story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.). Moxon +records that Lamb shed tears when the figures were taken away. + +Page 193, line 6. _Drury Lane_. Drury Lane opened, under Elliston's +management, on October 4, 1819, with "Wild Oats," in which he played +Rover. He left the theatre, a bankrupt, in 1826. + +Page 193, line 19. _The ... Olympic._ Lamb is wrong in his dates. +Elliston's tenancy of the Olympic preceded his reign at Drury Lane. +It was to the Surrey that he retired after the Drury Lane period, +producing there Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan" in 1829. + +Page 193, line 12 from foot. _Sir A---- C----_. Sir Anthony Carlisle +(see note to "A Quakers' Meeting"). + +Page 194, line 7. _A Vestris_. Madame Vestris (1797-1856), the great +comédienne, who was one of Elliston's stars at Drury Lane. + +Page 195, line 6. _Latinity_. Elliston was buried in St. John's +Church, Waterloo Road, and a marble slab with a Latin inscription +by Nicholas Torre, his son-in-law, is on the wall. Elliston was the +nephew of Dr. Elliston, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, +who sent him to St. Paul's School--not, however, that founded by +Colet--but to St. Paul's School, Covent Garden. He was intended for +the Church. + + * * * * * + +Page 195. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1822, where, at the end, were the words, "To +be continued;" but Lamb did not return to the topic. + +For some curious reason Lamb passed over this essay when collecting +_Elia_ for the press. It was not republished till 1833, in the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 195, motto. _The Relapse_. The comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. +Lamb liked this quotation. He uses it in his letter about William +Wordsworth, junior, to Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25, 1819; and +again in his "Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 195, foot. _I can read any thing which I call a book_. Writing to +Wordsworth in August, 1815, Lamb says: "What any man can write, surely +I may read." + +Page 195, last line. _Pocket Books_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added in parenthesis "the literary excepted," the reference being to +the _Literary Pocket Book_ which Leigh Hunt brought out annually from +1819 to 1822. + +Page 196, line 2. _Hume ... Jenyns_. Hume would be David Hume +(1711-1776), the philosopher and historian of England; Edward Gibbon +(1737-1794), historian of Rome; William Robertson, D.D. (1721-1793), +historian of America, Charles V., Scotland and India; James Beattie +(1735-1803), author of "The Minstrel" and a number of essays, who +had, however, one recommendation to Lamb, of which Lamb may have been +unaware--he loved Vincent Bourne's poems and was one of the first +to praise them; and Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), author of _The Art +of Dancing_, and the _Inquiry into Evil_ which Johnson reviewed so +mercilessly. It is stated in Moore's _Diary_, according to Procter, +that Lamb "excluded from his library Robertson, Gibbon and Hume, +and made instead a collection of the works of the heroes of _The +Dunciad_." + +Page 196, line 14. _Population Essay_. That was the day of population +essays. Malthus's _Essay on Population_, 1798, had led to a number of +replies. + +Page 196, line 22. _My ragged veterans_. Crabb Robinson recorded in +his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he +ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, +I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My +Books" in _The Literary Examiner_, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's library +had + + an handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a + selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;--now + a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas + Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old + English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are + "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline + of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old + Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: + there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, + Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir + Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high + fantastical" Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, + is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to + trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids. + +It is in the same essay that Leigh Hunt mentions that he once saw +Lamb kiss an old folio--Chapman's Homer--the work he paraphrased for +children under the title _The Adventures of Ulysses_. + +Page 197, line 15. _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_. Lamb's copy, a +folio containing also the "Philosophical Letters," is in America. + +Page 197, line 20. _Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton_... I cannot say +where are Lamb's copies of Sidney and Fuller; but the British Museum +has his Milton, rich in MS. notes, a two-volume edition, 1751. The +Taylor, which Lamb acquired in 1798, is the 1678 folio _Sermons_. I +cannot say where it now is. + +Page 197, line 26. _Shakspeare_. Lamb's Shakespeare was not sold at +the sale of his library; only a copy of the _Poems_, 12mo, 1714. +His annotated copy of the _Poems_, 1640, is in America. There is a +reference to one of Rowe's plates in the essay "My First Play." The +Shakespeare gallery engravings were the costly series of illustrations +to Shakespeare commissioned by John Boydell (1719-1804), Lord Mayor of +London in 1790. The pictures were exhibited in the Shakespeare Gallery +in Pall Mall, and the engravings were published in 1802. + +After the word "Shakespeare," in the _London Magazine_, came the +sentence: "You cannot make a _pet_ book of an author whom everybody +reads." + +In a letter to Wordsworth, February 1, 1806, Lamb says: "Shakespear is +one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just +before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book." In the same letter +he says of binding: "The Law Robe I have ever thought as comely and +gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear." + +Page 197, line 7 from foot. _Beaumont and Fletcher._ See note to "The +Two Races of Men" for an account of Lamb's copy, now in the British +Museum. + +Page 197, line 5 from foot. _No sympathy with them._ After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came, "nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben +Jonson." This edition by Lamb's old enemy, William Gifford, editor of +the _Quarterly_, was published in 1816. Lamb's copy of Ben Jonson was +dated 1692, folio. It is now in America, I believe. + +Page 197, foot. _The reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy_. This +reprint was, I think, published in 1800, in two volumes, marked ninth +edition. Lamb's copy was dated 1621, quarto. I do not know where it +now is. + +Page 198, line 4. _Malone_. This was Edmund Malone (1741-1812), the +critic and editor of Shakespeare, who in 1793 persuaded the Vicar of +Stratford-on-Avon to whitewash the coloured bust of the poet in the +chancel. A _Gentleman's Magazine_ epigrammatist, sharing Lamb's view, +wrote:-- + + Stranger, to whom this monument is shown, + Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone; + Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays, + And daubs his tombstone, as he mars his plays. + +Lamb has been less than fair to Malone. To defend his action in the +matter of the bust of Shakespeare is impossible, except by saying that +he acted in good faith and according to the fashion of his time. But +he did great service to the fame of Shakespeare and thus to English +literature, and was fearless and shrewd in his denunciation of the +impostor Ireland. + +Page 198, line 26. _The Fairy Queen_. Lamb's copy was a folio, 1617, +12, 17, 13. Against Canto XI., Stanza 32, he has written: "Dear Venom, +this is the stave I wot of. I will maintain it against any in the +book." + +Page 199, line 14. _Nando's_. A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the +east corner of Inner Temple Lane, and thus at one time close to Lamb's +rooms. + +Page 199, line 16. "_The Chronicle is in hand, Sir._" In the _London +Magazine_ the following paragraph was here inserted:-- + + "As in these little Diurnals I generally skip the Foreign News, + the Debates--and the Politics--I find the Morning Herald by far + the most entertaining of them. It is an agreeable miscellany, + rather than a newspaper." + +The _Morning Herald_, under Alexander Chalmers, had given more +attention to social gossip than to affairs of State; but under Thomas +Wright it suddenly, about the time of Lamb's essay, became politically +serious and left aristocratic matters to the _Morning Post_. + +Page 199, line 20. _Town and Country Magazine_. This magazine +flourished between 1769 and 1792. + +Page 199, line 26. _Poor Tobin_. Possibly John Tobin (1770-1804), the +playwright, though I think not. More probably the Tobin mentioned in +Lamb's letter to Wordsworth about "Mr. H." in June, 1806 (two years +after John Tobin's death), to whom Lamb read the manager's letter +concerning the farce. This would be James, John Tobin's brother. + +Page 200, line 13. _The five points_. After these words came, in the +_London Magazine_, the following paragraph:-- + + "I was once amused--there is a pleasure in _affecting_ + affectation--at the indignation of a crowd that was justling in + with me at the pit-door of Covent Garden theatre, to have a sight + of Master Betty--then at once in his dawn and his meridian--in + Hamlet. I had been invited quite unexpectedly to join a party, + whom I met near the door of the playhouse, and I happened to have + in my hand a large octavo of Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, + which, the time not admitting of my carrying it home, of course + went with me to the theatre. Just in the very heat and pressure + of the doors opening--the _rush_, as they term it--I deliberately + held the volume over my head, open at the scene in which the young + Roscius had been most cried up, and quietly read by the lamplight. + The clamour became universal. 'The affectation of the fellow,' + cried one. 'Look at that gentleman _reading_, papa,' squeaked a + young lady, who in her admiration of the novelty almost forgot her + fears. I read on. 'He ought to have his book knocked out of his + hand,' exclaimed a pursy cit, whose arms were too fast pinioned to + his side to suffer him to execute his kind intention. Still I read + on--and, till the time came to pay my money, kept as unmoved, + as Saint Antony at his Holy Offices, with the satyrs, apes, and + hobgoblins, mopping, and making mouths at him, in the picture, + while the good man sits undisturbed at the sight, as if he were + sole tenant of the desart.--The individual rabble (I recognised + more than one of their ugly faces) had damned a slight piece of + mine but a few nights before, and I was determined the culprits + should not a second time put me out of countenance." + +Master Betty was William Henry West Betty (1791-1874), known as the +"Young Roscius," whose Hamlet and Douglas sent playgoers wild in +1804-5-6. Pitt, indeed, once adjourned the House in order that his +Hamlet might be witnessed. His most cried-up scenes in "Hamlet" were +the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, and the fencing scene before the +king and his mother. The piece of Lamb's own which had been hissed +was, of course, "Mr. H.," produced on December 10, 1806; but very +likely he added this reference as a symmetrical afterthought, for he +would probably have visited Master Betty much earlier in his career, +that phenomenon's first appearance at Covent Garden being two years +before the advent of the ill-fated Hogsflesh. + +Page 200, line 22. _Martin B----_. Martin Charles Burney, son of +Admiral Burney, and a lifelong friend of the Lambs--to whom Lamb +dedicated the prose part of his _Works_ in 1818 (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 200, line 28. _A quaint poetess_. Mary Lamb. The poem is in +_Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. III. of this edition). In line +17 the word "then" has been inserted by Lamb. The punctuation also +differs from that of the _Poetry for Children_. + + * * * * * + +Page 201. THE OLD _MARGATE HOY_. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1823. This, like others of Lamb's essays, was +translated into French and published in the _Revue Britannique_ in +1833. It was prefaced by the remark: "L'auteur de cette délicieuse +esquisse est Charles Lamb, connu sous le nom d'Eliah." + +Page 201, beginning. _I have said so before._ See "Oxford in the +Vacation." + +Page 201, line 5 of essay. _My beloved Thames._ Lamb describes a +riparian holiday at and about Richmond in a letter to Robert Lloyd in +1804. + +Page 201, line 8 of essay. _Worthing_... There is no record of the +Lambs' sojourn at Worthing or Eastbourne. They were at Brighton in +1817, and Mary Lamb at any rate enjoyed walking on the Downs there; in +a letter to Miss Wordsworth of November 21, 1817, she described them +as little mountains, _almost as good as_ Westmoreland scenery. They +were at Hastings--at 13 Standgate Street--in 1823 (see Lamb's letters +to Bernard Barton, July 10, 1823, to Hood, August 10, 1824, and to +Dibdin, June, 1826). The only evidence that we have of Lamb knowing +Worthing is his "Mr. H.". That play turns upon the name Hogsflesh, +afterwards changed to Bacon. The two chief innkeepers at Worthing at +the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of its prosperity +were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, and there was a rhyme concerning them +which was well known (see notes to "Mr. H." in Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 11 of essay. _Many years ago_. A little later Lamb says +he was then fifteen. This would make the year 1790. It was probably on +this visit to Margate that Lamb conceived the idea of his sonnet, "O, +I could laugh," which Coleridge admired so much (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 17 of essay. _Thou old Margate Hoy_. This old +sailing-boat gave way to a steam-boat, the _Thames_, some time after +1815. The _Thames_, launched in 1815, was the first true steam-boat +the river had seen. The old hoy, or lighter, was probably sloop +rigged. + +Page 202, foot. _Our enemies_. Lamb refers here to the attacks of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ on the Cockneys, among whom he himself had been +included. In the _London Magazine_ he had written "unfledged" for +"unseasoned." + +Page 206, line 14. _Gebir_. _Gebir_, by Walter Savage Landor +(1775-1864), who was a fortnight older than Lamb, and who afterwards +came to know him personally, was published in 1798. + +Page 206, line 16. _This detestable Cinque Port_. A letter from Mary +Lamb to Randal Norris, concerning this, or another, visit to Hastings, +says: "We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk +up hill and down hill all day long." Lamb, in a letter to Barton, +admitted a benefit: "I abused Hastings, but learned its value." + +Page 208, line 5. _Lothbury_. Probably in recollection of Wordsworth's +"Reverie of Poor Susan," which Lamb greatly liked. + + * * * * * + +Page 208. THE CONVALESCENT. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1825. + +We learn from the _Letters_ that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown +in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House. +Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a +free man. + + * * * * * + +Page 212. SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the +Popular Fallacies under the title, "That great Wit is allied to +Madness;" beginning: "So far from this being true, the greatest wits +will ever be found to be the sanest writers..." and so forth. Compare +the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," Vol. I. Lamb's thesis is +borrowed from Dryden's couplet (in _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I., +lines 163, 164):-- + + Great wits are sure to madness near allied, + And thin partitions do their bounds divide. + +Page 213, line 14. _Kent ... Flavius_. Lamb was always greatly +impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on "Hogarth," Vol. +I.; his "Table Talk," Vol. I.; and his versions, in the _Tales from +Shakespear_, of "King Lear" and "Timon," Vol. III.). + + * * * * * + +Page 215. CAPTAIN JACKSON. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1824. + +No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson. The suggestion +has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the +circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the _Last Essays_, +included "A Death-Bed," with a differing portrait of Randal Norris +therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory. Perhaps the +captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every +now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, +1826), "to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;" although his +reality seems overpowering. + +Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in +constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly +unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber. + +Page 217, line 22. _Glover ... Leonidas_. Richard Glover (1712-1785), +the poet, author of _Leonidas_, 1737. I cannot find that he ever lived +at Westbourne Green. + +Page 218, foot. _The old ballad_. The old ballad "Waly, Waly." This +was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola's Extract Book. + +Page 219, line 8. _Tibbs, and Bobadil_. Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's +"Citizen of the World," and Bobadil in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His +Humour." + + * * * * * + +Page 219. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1825. + +Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is +practically a record of fact. After thirty-three years of service at +the East India House he went home "for ever" on Tuesday, March 29, +1825, with a pension of £441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, +less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister. At +a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up: +"Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant +General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and +it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, +and is now in receipt of an income of £730 per annum, he be allowed +a pension of £450 ... to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to +Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss +Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put +it to Barton:-- + + "DEAR B.B.--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much + more mind, to compose a letter. + + "I am free, B.B.--free as air. + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such Liberty! + + "I was set free on Tuesday in last week at 4 o'clock. + + "I came home for ever!... + + "I went and sat among 'em all at my old 33 years desk yester + morning; and deuce take me if I had not yearnings at leaving all + my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry sociable lads, at leaving them + in the Lurch, fag, fag, fag. + + "I would not serve another 7 years for seven hundred thousand + pound." + +To Miss Hutchinson Lamb said; "I would not go back to my prison for +seven years longer for £10000 a year." + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay was divided into two parts, with +the two quotations now at the head apportioned each to one part. +Part II. began at "A fortnight has passed," on page 224. The essay +was signed "J.D.," whose address was given as "Beaufort-terrace, +Regent-street; late of Ironmonger-court, Fenchurch-street." + +Page 220, line 3. _Recreation_. At "recreation," in the _London +Magazine_, came the footnote:-- + + "Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's day, + could distinguish between a day of religious rest and a day of + recreation; and while they exacted a rigorous abstinence from all + amusements (even to the walking out of nursery maids with their + little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath; in the lieu of the + superstitious observance of the Saints days, which they abrogated, + they humanely gave to the apprentices, and poorer sort of people, + every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport and recreation. + A strain of piety and policy to be commended above the profane + mockery of the Stuarts and their Book of Sports." + +Lamb had said the same thing to Barton in a letter in the spring, +1824, referring there to "Southey's book" as his authority--this being +_The Book of the Church_, 1824. + +Page 220, line 25. _Native ... Hertfordshire_. This was a slight +exaggeration. Lamb was London born and bred. But Hertfordshire was his +mother and grandmother's county, and all his love of the open air was +centred there (see the essay on "Mackery End"). + +Page 221, line 1. _My health_. Lamb had really been seriously unwell +for some time, as the _Letters_ tell us. + +Page 221, line 6. _I was fifty_. Lamb was fifty on February 10, 1825. + +Page 231, line 7. _I had grown to my desk_. In his first letter to +Barton (September 11, 1822) Lamb wrote: "I am like you a prisoner to +the desk. I have been chained to that galley thirty years, a long +shot. I have almost grown to the wood." Again, to Wordsworth: "I sit +like Philomel all day (but not singing) with my breast against this +thorn of a Desk." + +Page 222, line 7. _Boldero, Merryweather ..._ Feigned names of course. +It was Boldero that Lamb once pretended was Leigh Hunt's true name. +And in his fictitious biography of Liston (Vol. I.) Liston's mother +was said to have been a Miss Merryweather. In Lamb's early city days +there was a banking firm in Cornhill, called Boldero, Adey, Lushington +& Boldero. + +Page 222, line 12 from foot. _I could walk it away_. Writing to +Wordsworth in March, 1822, concerning the possibility of being +pensioned off, Lamb had said:--"I had thought in a green old age (O +green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End--emblematic name--how +beautiful! in the Ware road, there to have made up my accounts with +heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and Cheshunt, anon +stretching on some fine Izaac Walton morning, to Hoddsdon or Amwell, +careless as a Beggar, but walking walking ever till I fairly walkd +myself off my legs, dying walking." + +And again, writing to Southey after the emancipation, he says (August, +1825): "Mary walks her twelve miles a day some days, and I twenty on +others. 'Tis all holiday with me now, you know." + +Page 224, line 9. _Ch----_. John Chambers, son of the Rev. Thomas +Chambers, Vicar of Radway-Edgehill, Warwickshire, and an old Christ's +Hospitaller, to whom Lamb wrote the famous letter on India House +society, printed in the _Letters_, Canon Ainger's edition, under +December, 1818. John Chambers lived until 1872, and had many stories +of Lamb. + +Page 224, line 9. _Do----_. Probably Henry Dodwell, to whom Lamb wrote +the letters of July, 1816, from Calne, and that of October 7, 1827, +thanking him for a gift of a sucking pig. But there seems (see the +letter to Chambers above referred to) to have been also a clerk named +Dowley. It was Dodwell who annoyed Lamb by reading _The Times_ till +twelve o'clock every morning. + +Page 224, line 10. _Pl----_. According to the late H.G. Bohn's notes +on Chambers' letter, this was W.D. Plumley. + +Page 224, line 18. My "_works_." See note to the preface to the _Last +Essays of Elia_. The old India House ledgers of Lamb's day are no +longer in existence, but a copy of Booth's _Tables of Interest_ is +preserved, with some mock notices from the press on the fly-leaves in +Lamb's hand. Lamb's portrait by Meyer was bought for the India Office +in 1902. + +Page 224, line 12 from foot. _My own master_. As a matter of fact Lamb +found the time rather heavy on his hands now and then; and he took to +searching for beauties in the Garrick plays in the British Museum as a +refuge. The Elgin marbles were moved there in 1816. + +Page 225, line 16 from foot. _And what is it all for_? At these words, +in the _London Magazine_, came the passage:-- + + "I recite those verses of Cowley, which so mightily agree with my + constitution. + + "Business! the frivolous pretence + Of human lusts to shake off innocence: + Business! the grave impertinence: + Business! the thing which I of all things hate: + Business! the contradiction of my fate. + + "Or I repeat my own lines, written in my Clerk state:-- + + "Who first invented work--and bound the free + And holyday-rejoicing spirit down + To the ever-haunting importunity + Of business, in the green fields, and the town-- + To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad, + To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood? + Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, + Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad + Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, + That round and round incalculably reel-- + For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-- + In that red realm from whence are no returnings; + Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye + He, and his thoughts, keep pensive worky-day! + + "O this divine Leisure!--Reader, if thou art furnished with the + Old Series of the London, turn incontinently to the third volume + (page 367), and you will see my present condition there touched in + a 'Wish' by a daintier pen than I can pretend to. I subscribe to + that Sonnet _toto corde_." + +The sonnet referred to, beginning-- + + They talk of time and of time's galling yoke, + +will be found quoted above, in the notes to "New Year's Eve." It was, +of course, by Lamb himself. To the other sonnet he gave the title +"Work" (see Vol. IV.). Cowley's lines are from "The Complaint." + +Page 225, line 14 from foot. _NOTHING-TO-DO_. Lamb wrote to Barton in +1827: "Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, +and next to that perhaps--good works." + + * * * * * + +Page 226. THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826, where it was one of the Popular +Fallacies, under the title, "That my Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William +Temple are models of the Genteel Style in Writing.--We should prefer +saying--of the Lordly and the Gentlemanly. Nothing," &c. + +Page 226, beginning. _My Lord Shaftesbury_, Anthony Ashley Cooper, +third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), the grandson of the great +statesman, and the author of the _Characteristicks of Men, Manners, +Opinions and Times_, 1711, and other less known works. In the essay +"Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" Lamb says, "Shaftesbury is +not too genteel for me." + +Page 226, beginning. _Sir William Temple._ Sir William Temple +(1628-1699), diplomatist and man of letters, the patron of Swift, +and the husband of the letter-writing Dorothy Osborne. His first +diplomatic mission was in 1665, to Christopher Bernard von Glialen, +the prince-bishop of Munster, who grew the northern cherries (see page +228). Afterwards he was accredited to Brussels and the Hague, and +subsequently became English Ambassador at the Hague. He was recalled +in 1670, and spent the time between then and 1674, when he returned, +in adding to his garden at Sheen, near Richmond, and in literary +pursuits. He re-entered active political life in 1674, but retired +again in 1680, and moved to an estate near Farnham; which he named +Moor Park, laid out in the Dutch style, and made famous for its wall +fruit. Hither Swift came, as amanuensis, in 1689, and he was there, +with intervals of absence, in 1699, when Temple died, "and with him," +Swift wrote in his _Diary_, "all that was good and amiable among men." +He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart, by his special +wish, was placed in a silver casket under the sun-dial at Moor Park, +near his favourite window seat. + +Temple's essays, under the title of _Miscellanea_, were published in +1680 and 1692; his works, in several volumes, between 1700 and 1709. +The best-known essay is that on "Ancient and Modern Learning," but +Lamb refers also to those "On Health and Long Life," "Of the Cure of +the Gout," "Of Gardening." The quotation on page 228 does not exactly +end Temple's garden essay, as Lamb says. Lamb has slightly altered +Temple's punctuation. + + * * * * * + +Page 230. BARBARA S----. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1825. + +This little story exhibits, perhaps better than anything that Lamb +wrote, his curious gift of blending fact and fancy, of building upon +a foundation of reality a structure of whimsicality and invention. +In the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb's works is printed a +letter from Miss Kelly, the actress, and a friend of the Lambs, +in which the true story is told; for it was she, as indeed Lamb +admitted to Wordsworth in a letter in 1825, who told him the +incident--"beautifully," he says elsewhere. + +Miss Kelly wrote, in 1875:-- + + I perfectly remember relating an incident of my childhood to + Charles Lamb and his dear sister, and I have not the least doubt + that the intense interest he seemed to take in the recital, + induced him to adopt it as the principal feature in his beautiful + story of "Barbara S----." Much, however, as I venerate the + wonderful powers of Charles Lamb as a writer--grateful as I ever + must feel to have enjoyed for so many years the friendship of + himself and his dear sister, and proudly honoured as I am by the + two exquisite sonnets he has given to the world as tributary to my + humble talent, I have never been able thoroughly to appreciate the + extraordinary skill with which he has, in the construction of his + story, desired and contrived so to mystify and characterize + the events, as to keep me out of sight, and render it utterly + impossible for any one to guess at me as the original heroine.... + + In the year 1799, Miss Jackson, one of my mother's daughters, by + her first husband, was placed under the special care of dear old + Tate Wilkinson, proprietor of the York Theatre, there to practice, + as in due progression, what she had learned of Dramatic Art, while + a Chorus Singer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, coming back, as + she did after a few years, as the wife of the late celebrated, + inimitable Charles Mathews, to the Haymarket Theatre. In 1799, + through the influence of my uncle, Michael Kelly, the celebrated + singer and composer of that day, I was allowed to become a + miniature chorister in her place.... + + One Saturday, during the limited season of nine months in the + year, Mr. Peake (dear, good old gentleman!) looking, as I remember + he always did--anxiously perplexed--doubtless as to how he could + best dole out the too frequently insufficient amount provided for + the ill-paid company, silently looked me in the face, while he + carefully folded a very _dirty, ragged_ bank note--put it into my + hand, patted my cheek, and with a slight pressure on my shoulder, + hinting there was no time for our usual gossip--as good as said, + "go, my dear," and I hurried down the long gallery, lined down + each side with performers of all degrees, more than one of whom + whispered as I passed--"Is it full pay, dear?" I nodded "Yes," and + proceeded to my seat on the window of the landing-place. + + It was a great comfort in those days, to have a bank-note to + look at; but not always easy to open one. Mine had been cut and + repaired with a line of gum paper, about twenty times as thick as + the note itself, threatening the total destruction of the thin + part. + + Now observe in what small matters Fanny and Barbara were in a + marked degree different characters. Barbara, at 11 years of age, + was some time before she felt the different size of a guinea to a + half guinea, _held tight in her hand_. I, at nine years old, was + not so untaught, or innocent. I was a woman of the world. I took + _nothing_ for granted. I had a deep respect for Mr. Peake, but the + join might have disfigured the note--destroyed its currency; and + it was my business to see all safe. So, I carefully opened it. A + two pound-note instead of one! The blood rushed into my face, the + tears into my eyes, and for a moment, something like an ecstasy + of joy passed through my mind. "Oh! what a blessing to my dear + mother!"--"To whom?"--in an instant said my violently beating + heart,--"My mother?" Why she would spurn me for the wish. How + shall I ever own to her my guilty thought? I trembled violently--I + staggered back on my way to the Treasury, but no one would let me + pass, until I said, "But Mr. Peake has given me too much." "Too + much, has he?" said one, and was followed by a coarse, cold, + derisive, general laugh. Oh! how it went to my heart; but on I + went. + + "If you please, Mr. Peake, you have given me a two--" + + "A what?" + + "A two, Sir!" + + "A two!--God bless my soul!--tut-tut-tut-tut--dear, dear, + dear!--God bless my soul! There, dear," and without another word, + he, in exchange, laid a one pound note on the desk; a new one, + quite clean,--a bright, honest looking note,--mine, the one I had + a right to,--my own,--within the limit of my poor deservings. + + Thus, my dear sir, I give (as you say you wish to have the _facts_ + as accurately stated as possible) the simple, absolute truth. + +As a matter of fact Miss Kelly did afterwards play in Morton's +"Children in the Wood," to Lamb's great satisfaction. The incident of +the roast fowl is in that play. + +In Vol. I. will be found more than one eulogy of Miss Kelly's acting. + +Page 231, last line. _Real hot tears_. In Crabb Robinson's diary Miss +Kelly relates that when, as Constance, in "King John," Mrs. Siddons +(not Mrs. Porter) wept over her, her collar was wet with Mrs. Siddons' +tears. Miss Kelly, of course, was playing Arthur. + +Page 232, line 7. _Impediment ... pulpit_. This is more true than +the casual reader may suppose. Had Lamb not had an impediment in his +speech, he would have become, at Christ's Hospital, a Grecian, and +have gone to one of the universities; and the ordinary fate of a +Grecian was to take orders. + +Page 232, line 13. _Mr. Liston_. Mrs. Cowden Clarke says that Liston +the comedian and his wife were among the visitors to the Lambs' rooms +at Great Russell Street. + +Page 232, line 14. _Mrs. Charles Kemble_, _née_ Maria Theresa De Camp, +mother of Fanny Kemble. + +Page 232, line 16. _Macready_. The only record of any conference +between Macready and Lamb is Macready's remark in his _Diary_ that he +met Lamb at Talfourd's, and Lamb said that he wished to draw his last +breath through a pipe, and exhale it in a pun. But this was long after +the present essay was written. + +Page 232, line 17. _Picture Gallery ... Mr. Matthews_. See note below. + +Page 232, line 26. _Not Diamond's_. Dimond was the proprietor of the +old Bath Theatre. + +Page 235, first line. _Mrs. Crawford_. Anne Crawford (1734-1801), +_née_ Street, who was born at Bath, married successively a Mr. Dancer, +Spranger Barry the actor, and a Mr. Crawford. Her great part was Lady +Randolph in Home's "Douglas." + + * * * * * + +Page 235. THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1823, where, with slight differences, +it formed the concluding portion of the "Letter of Elia to Robert +Southey, Esquire," which will be found in Vol. I. The notes in that +volume should be consulted; but a little may be said here. This, the +less personal portion of the "Letter to Southey," seems to have been +all that Lamb cared to retain. He admitted afterwards, when his +anger against Southey had cooled, that his "guardian angel" had been +"absent" at the time he wrote it. + +The Dean of Westminster at the time was Ireland, the friend of +Gifford--dean from 1815 to 1842. Lamb's protest against the +two-shilling fee was supported a year or so later than its first +appearance by Reynolds, in _Odes and Addresses_, 1825, in a sarcastic +appeal to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to reduce that sum. The +passage in Lamb's essay being reprinted in 1833, suggests that the +reform still tarried. The evidence, however, of J.T. Smith, in his +_Book for a Rainy Day_, is that it was possible in 1822 to enter +Poets' Corner for sixpence. Dean Stanley, in his _Historical Memorials +of Westminster Abbey_, writes: "Free admission was given to the larger +part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first +appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts opened, and the fees +lowered in 1841...." + +Lamb's reference to Southey and to André's monument is +characteristically mischievous. He is reminding Southey of his early +sympathy with rebels--his "Wat Tyler" and pantisocratic days. Major +John André, Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-general, was caught returning +from an interview with an American traitor--a perfectly honourable +proceeding in warfare--and was hanged by Washington as a spy in 1780. +No blame attached either to judge or victim. André's remains were +reburied in the Abbey in 1821. Lamb speaks of injury to André's figure +in the monument, but the usual thing was for the figure of Washington +to be attacked. Its head has had to be renewed more than once. Minor +thefts have also been committed. According to Mrs. Gordon's _Life of +Dean Buckland_, one piece of vandalism at any rate was the work of an +American, who returned to the dean two heads which he had appropriated +as relics. + +In _The Examiner_ for April 8, 1821, is quoted from _The Traveller_ +the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which +shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for churches +was in the air. + + ON A VISIT TO ST. PAUL'S + + What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor, + For lack of two-pence, shut the church's door; + Who, true successors of the ancient leaven, + Erect a turnpike on the road to Heaven? + "Knock, and it shall be open'd," saith our LORD; + "Knock, and pay two-pence," say the Chapter Board: + The Showman of the booth the fee receives, + And God's house is again a "den of thieves." + + * * * * * + +Page 237. AMICUS REDIVIVUS. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1823. + +A preliminary sketch of the first portion of this essay will be +found in the letter from Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt, written probably in +November, 1823. In Barry Cornwall's _Memoir_ of Lamb, Chapter VI., +there is also an account of the accident to Dyer--Procter (Barry +Cornwall) having chanced to visit the Lambs just after the event. For +an account of George Dyer see notes to the essay on "Oxford in the +Vacation". In 1823 he was sixty-eight; later he became quite blind. + +We have another glimpse of G.D. on that fatal day, in the +reminiscences of Mr. Ogilvie, an India House clerk with Lamb, +as communicated to the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell (see _Scribner's +Magazine_, March, 1876):-- + + At the time George Dyer was fished out of New River in front of + Lamb's house at Islington, after he was resuscitated, Mary brought + him a suit of Charles's clothes to put on while his own were + drying. Inasmuch as he was a giant of a man, and Lamb undersized; + inasmuch, moreover, as Lamb's wardrobe afforded only knee breeches + for the nether limbs (Dyer's were colossal), the spectacle he + presented when the clothes were on--or as much on as they could + be--was vastly ludicrous. + +Allsop, in a letter to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, remarked, of Dyer's +immersion, that Lamb had said to him: "If he had been drowned it would +have made me famous. Think of having a Crowner's quest, and all the +questions and dark suspicions of murder. People would haunt the spot +and say, 'Here died the poet of Grongar Hill.'" The poet of "Grongar +Hill" was, of course, John Dyer--another of Lamb's instances of the +ambiguities arising from proper names. + +Page 238, line 19. _The rescue_. At these words, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put this footnote:-- + + "The topography of my cottage, and its relation to the river, + will explain this; as I have been at some cost to have the whole + engraved (in time, I hope, for our next number), as well for + the satisfaction of the reader, as to commemorate so signal a + deliverance." + +The cottage at Colebrooke Row, it should be said, stands to this day +(1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no +difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front +door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel +with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather +Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the +front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have +emerged; if so it would be the simplest thing for him to walk straight +ahead, and find himself in the river. + +Page 240, line 22. _That Abyssinian traveller_. James Bruce +(1730-1794), the explorer of the sources of the Nile, was famous many +years before his _Travels_ appeared, in 1790, the year after which +Lamb left school. The New River, made in 1609-1613, has its source +in the Chadwell and Amwell springs. It was peculiarly Lamb's river: +Amwell is close to Blakesware and Widford; Lamb explored it as a boy; +at Islington he lived opposite it, and rescued George Dyer from its +depths; and he retained its company both at Enfield and Edmonton. + +In the essay on "Newspapers" is a passage very similar to this. + +Page 240, line 32. _Eternal novity_. Writing to Hood in 1824 Lamb +speaks of the New River as "rather elderly by this time." Dyer, it +should be remembered, was of Emmanuel College, and the historian of +Cambridge University. + +Page 241, last paragraph. George Dyer contributed "all that was +original" to Valpy's edition of the classics--141 volumes. He also +wrote the _History of The University and Colleges of Cambridge, +including notices relating to the Founders and Eminent Men_. Among +the eminent men of Cambridge are Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776), of +Christ's Hospital and St. Peter's, the classical commentator; and +Thomas Gray, the poet, the sweet lyrist of Peterhouse, who died +in 1771, when Dyer was sixteen. Tyrwhitt would probably be Thomas +Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), of Queen's College, Oxford, the editor of +Chaucer; but Robert Tyrwhitt (1735-1817), his brother, the Unitarian, +might be expected to take interest in Dyer also, for G.D. was, in +Lamb's phrase, a "One-Goddite" too. The mild Askew was Anthony Askew +(1722-1772), doctor and classical scholar, who, being physician to +Christ's Hospital when Dyer was there, lent the boy books, and was +very kind to him. + + * * * * * + +Page 242. SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1823, where it was entitled "Nugæ +Criticæ. By the Author of Elia. No. 1. Defence of the Sonnets of Sir +Philip Sidney." Signed "L." The second and last of the "Nugæ Criticæ" +series was the note on "The Tempest" (see Vol. I.). + +It may be interesting here to relate that Henry Francis Gary, the +translator of Dante, and Lamb's friend, had, says his son in his +memoir, lent Lamb Edward Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum_, +which was returned after Lamb's death by Edward Moxon, with the leaf +folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sidney. Mr. Gary thereupon +wrote his "Lines to the memory of Charles Lamb," which begin:-- + + So should it be, my gentle friend; + Thy leaf last closed at Sidney's end. + Thou, too, like Sidney, wouldst have given + The water, thirsting and near heaven. + +Lamb has some interesting references to Sidney in the note to Beaumont +and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy" in the _Dramatic Specimens_. + +Page 243, line 5. _Tibullus, or the ... Author of the Schoolmistress_. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb wrote "Catullus." Tibullus was one of +the tenderest of Latin poets. William Shenstone (1714-1763) wrote "The +Schoolmistress," a favourite poem with Lamb. The "prettiest of poems" +he called it in a letter to John Clare. + +Page 243, line 9. _Ad Leonoram_. The following translation of Milton's +sonnet was made by Leigh Hunt:-- + + TO LEONORA SINGING AT ROME + + To every one (so have ye faith) is given + A winged guardian from the ranks of heaven. + A greater, Leonora, visits thee: + Thy voice proclaims the present deity. + Either the present deity we hear, + Or he of the third heaven hath left his sphere, + And through the bosom's pure and warbling wells, + Breathes tenderly his smoothed oracles; + Breathes tenderly, and so with easy rounds + Teaches our mortal hearts to bear immortal sounds. + If God is all, and in all nature dwells, + In thee alone he speaks, mute ruler in all else. + +The Latin in Masson's edition of Milton differs here and there from +Lamb's version. + +Page 243. _Sonnet I_. Lamb cites the sonnets from _Astrophel and +Stella_, in his own order. That which he calls I. is XXXI.; II., +XXXIX.; III., XXIII.; IV., XXVII.; V., XLI.; VI., LIII.; VII., LXIV.; +VIII., LXXIII.; IX., LXXIV.; X., LXXV.; XI., CIII.; XII., LXXXIV. +I have left the sonnets as Lamb copied them, but there are certain +differences noted in my large edition. + +Page 247, middle. _Which I have ... heard objected_. A criticism of +Hazlitt's, in his sixth lecture on Elizabethan literature, delivered +in 1820 at the Surrey Institution, is here criticised. Hazlitt's +remarks on Sidney were uniformly slighting. "His sonnets inlaid in the +Arcadia are jejune, far-fetch'd and frigid.... [The _Arcadia_] is to +me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power +upon record.... [Sidney is] a complete intellectual coxcomb, or nearly +so;" and so forth. The lectures were published in 1821. Elsewhere, +however, Hazlitt found in Sidney much to praise. + +Page 248, line 3. _Thin diet of dainty words_. To this sentence, in +the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the following footnote:-- + + "A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of + matter and circumstance, is I think one reason of the coldness + with which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now + living; which, upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is + entitled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy + one of his Sonnets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and + unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our language. + + "TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN IN THE WINTER + + "_By Lord Thurlow_ + + "O melancholy Bird, a winter's day, + Thou standest by the margin of the pool, + And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school + To Patience, which all evil can allay. + God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey; + And given thyself a lesson to the Fool + Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, + And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. + There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair, + Though these be good, true wisdom to impart. + He who has not enough, for these, to spare + Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart, + And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair: + Nature is always wise in every part." + +This sonnet, by Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow +(1781-1829), an intense devotee of Sir Philip Sidney's muse, was a +special favourite with Lamb. He copied it into his Commonplace Book, +and De Quincey has described, in his "London Reminiscences," how Lamb +used to read it aloud. + +Page 248, line 27. _Epitaph made on him_. After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, +wrote Sidney's _Life_, published in 1652. After Sidney's death +appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end +of Spenser's _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_, in 1595. That which Lamb +quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem +beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly +on Lamb's authority, in Ward's _English Poets_. This is one stanza:-- + + He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind + A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined, + Declaring in his thoughts, his life and that he writ, + Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. + +Sidney was only thirty-two at his death. + + * * * * * + +Page 249. NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, October, 1831, being the second paper under +the heading "Peter's Net," of which "Recollections of a Late Royal +Academician" was the first (see note, Vol. I.). + +The title ran thus:-- + + PETER'S NET + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIA" + + _No. II.--On the Total Defect of the faculty of Imagination + observable in the works of modern British Artists._ + +For explanation of this title see note to the essay that follows. When +reprinting the essay in the _Last Essays of Elia_, 1833, Lamb altered +the title to the one it now bears: the period referred to thus seeming +to be about 1798, but really 1801-1803. + +Page 249, first line of essay. _Dan Stuart_. See below. + +Page 249, line 2 of essay. _The Exhibition at Somerset House._ Between +the years 1780 and 1838 the Royal Academy held its exhibitions at +Somerset House. It then moved, first to Trafalgar Square, in a portion +of the National Gallery, and then to Burlington House, its present +quarters, in 1869. The _Morning Post_ office is still almost opposite +Somerset House, at the corner of Wellington Street. + +Page 250, line 5. _A word or two of D.S._ Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), +one of the Perthshire Stuarts, whose father was out in the '45, and +his grandfather in the '15, began, with his brother, to print the +_Morning Post_ in 1788. In 1795 they bought it for £600, Daniel +assumed the editorship, and in two years' time the circulation had +risen from 350 to 1,000. Mackintosh (afterwards Sir James), Stuart's +brother-in-law, was on the staff; and in 1797 Coleridge began to +contribute. Coleridge's "Devil's Walk" was the most popular thing +printed in Stuart's time; his political articles also helped +enormously to give the paper prestige. Stuart sold the _Morning Post_ +in 1803 for £25,000, and then turned his attention to the development +of _The Courier_, an evening paper, in which he also had occasional +assistance from Coleridge and more regular help from Mackintosh. + +Lamb's memory served him badly in the essay. So far as I can discover, +his connection with the _Morning Post_, instead of ending when Stuart +sold the paper, can hardly be said to have existed until after that +event. The paper changed hands in September, 1803 (two years after the +failure of The _Albion_), and Lamb's hand almost immediately begins to +be apparent. He had, we know, made earlier efforts to get a footing +there, but had been only moderately successful. The first specimens +prepared for Stuart, in 1800, were not accepted. In the late summer of +1801 he was writing for the _Morning Chronicle_--a few comic letters, +as I imagine--under James Perry; but that lasted only a short time. At +the end of 1801 Lamb tried the _Post_ again. In January and February, +1802, Stuart printed some epigrams by him on public characters, two +criticisms of G.F. Cooke, in Richard III. and Lear, and the essay "The +Londoner" (see Vol. I.). Probably there were also some paragraphs. In +a letter to Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says that he is leaving +the _Post_, partly on account of his difficulty in writing dramatic +criticisms on the same night as the performance. + +We know nothing of Lamb's journalistic adventures between February, +1802, and October, 1803, when the fashion of pink stockings came in, +and when he was certainly back on the _Post_ (Stuart having sold it to +establish _The Courier_), and had become more of a journalist than he +had ever been. I quote a number of the paragraphs which I take to be +his on this rich topic; but the specimen given in the essay is not +discoverable:-- + + "_Oct_. 8.--The fugitive and mercurial matter, of which a _Lady's + blush_ is made, after coursing from its natural position, the + _cheek_, to the _tip_ of the _elbow_, and thence diverging for a + time to the _knee_, has finally settled in the _legs_, where, in + the form of a pair of _red hose_, it combines with the posture and + situation of _the times_, to put on a most _warlike_ and _martial + appearance_." + + "_Nov_. 2.--Bartram, who, as a _traveller_, was possessed of a + very _lively fancy_, describes vast plains in the interior of + America, where his _horse's fetlocks_ for miles were dyed a + perfect _blood colour_, in the juice of the _wild strawberries_. + A less ardent fancy than BARTRAM'S may apply this beautiful + phenomenon of summer, to solve the present _strawberry appearance_ + of the _female leg_ this autumn in England." + + "_Nov_. 3.--The _roseate tint_, so agreeably diffused through the + silk stockings of our females, induces the belief that the _dye is + cast_ for their lovers." + + "_Nov_. 8.--A popular superstition in the North of Germany is said + to be the true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. + Who knows but that _late posterity_, when, what is regarded by + us now as _fashion_, shall have long been classed among the + superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their + signs with the antiquated personification of a Mother RED LEGS?" + + "_Nov_. 9.--Curiosity is on tip-toe for the arrival of ELPHY + BEY'S fair _Circassian_ Ladies. The attraction of their + _naturally-placed, fine, proverbial bloom_, is only wanting to + reduce the wandering colour in the 'elbows' and 'ancles' of our + _belles_, back to its native _metropolis_ and _palace_, the + 'cheek.'" + + "_Nov_. 22.--_Pink stockings_ beneath _dark pelices_ are emblems + of _Sincerity_ and _Discretion_; signifying a _warm heart_ beneath + a _cool exterior_." + + "_Nov_. 29.--The decline of red stockings is as fatal to the wits, + as the going out of a fashion to an overstocked jeweller: some + of these gentry have literally for some months past _fed_ on + _roses_." + + "_Dec_. 21.--The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, + dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be + consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions,' where sleep + in peace the _ruffs_ and _hoops_, and _fardingales_ of past + centuries; and + + "All its beauty, all its pomp, decays + Like _Courts removing_, or like _ending plays_." + +On February 7, 1804, was printed Lamb's "Epitaph on a young Lady who +Lived Neglected and Died Obscure" (see Vol. IV.), and now and then we +find a paragraph likely to be his; but, as we know from a letter from +Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart, he had left the _Post_ in the early +spring, 1804. I think this was the end of his journalism, until he +began to write a little for _The Examiner_ in 1812. + +In 1838 Stuart was drawn into a correspondence with Henry Coleridge +in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (May, June, July and August) concerning +some statements about Coleridge's connection with the _Morning Post_ +and _The Courier_ which were made in Gillman's _Life_, Stuart, in the +course of straightening out his relations with Coleridge, referred +thus to Lamb:-- + + But as for good Charles Lamb, I never could make anything out of + his writings. Coleridge often and repeatedly pressed me to settle + him on a salary, and often and repeatedly did I try; but it would + not do. Of politics he knew nothing; they were out of his line of + reading and thought; and his drollery was vapid, when given in + short paragraphs fit for a newspaper; yet he has produced some + agreeable books, possessing a tone of humour and kind feeling, + in a quaint style, which it is amusing to read, and cheering to + remember. + +For further remarks concerning Lamb's journalism see below when we +come to _The Albion_ and his connection with it. + +Page 250, line 6. _Perry, of the Morning Chronicle._ James Perry +(1756-1821) the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_--the leading Whig +paper, for many years--from about 1789. Perry was a noted talker and +the friend of many brilliant men, among them Porson. Southey's letters +inform us that Lamb was contributing to the _Chronicle_ in the summer +of 1801, and I fancy I see his hand now and then; but his identifiable +contributions to the paper came much later than the period under +notice. Coleridge contributed to it a series of sonnets to eminent +persons in 1794, in one of which, addressed to Mrs. Siddons, he +collaborated with Lamb (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 250, line 14. _The Abyssinian Pilgrim_. For notes to this passage +about the New River see the essay "Amicus Redivivus." + +Page 250, foot. _In those days ..._ This paragraph began, in the +_Englishman's Magazine_, with the following sentence:-- + + "We ourself--PETER--in whose inevitable NET already Managers and + R.A.s lie caught and floundering--and more peradventure shall + flounder--were, in the humble times to which we have been + recurring, small Fishermen indeed, essaying upon minnows; angling + for quirks, not _men_." + +The phrase "Managers and R.A.s" refers to the papers on Elliston and +George Dawe which had preceded this essay, although the Elliston essay +had not been ranged under the heading "Peter's Net." The George Dawe +paper is in Vol. I. of this edition. + +Page 252, line 25. _Basilian water-sponges._ The Basilian order of +monks were pledged to austerity; but probably Lamb intended merely a +joke upon his friend Basil Montagu's teetotalism (see note in Vol. +I. to "Confessions of a Drunkard," a paper quoted in Montagu's _Some +Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors_). In John Forster's +copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, in the South Kensington Museum, +a legacy from Elia, there is written "Basil Montagu!" against +this passage. Moreover the context runs, "we were right toping +Capulets"--as opposed to the (Basil) Montagus. + +Page 253, line 23. _Bob Allen._ See the essay on "Christ's Hospital" +and note. + +Page 253, line 24. _The "Oracle."_ This daily paper was started in the +1780's by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, as a rival to _The +World_ (see below). + +Page 253, line 31. _Mr. Deputy Humphreys._ I am disappointed to have +been able to find nothing more about this Common Council butt. + +Page 254, lines 11 and 12. _The "True Briton_," _the "Star_," _the +"Traveller_." _The True Briton_, a government organ in the 1790's, +which afterwards assimilated Cobbett's Porcupine. _The Star_ was +founded by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, in 1788. It was +the first London evening paper to appear regularly. _The Traveller_, +founded about 1803, still flourishes under the better-known title of +_The Globe_. + +Page 254, lines 24-26. _Este ... Topham ... Boaden_. Edward Topham +(1751-1820), author of the _Life of John Elwes_, the miser, founded +_The World_, a daily paper, in 1787. Parson Este, the Rev. Charles +Este, was one of his helpers. James Boaden (1762-1839), dramatist, +biographer and journalist, and editor of _The Oracle_ for some years, +wrote the _Life of Mrs. Siddons_, 1827. + +Page 254, foot. _The Albion_. Lamb's memory of his connection with +_The Albion_ was at fault. His statement is that he joined it on the +sale of the _Morning Post_ by Stuart, which occurred in 1803; but as a +matter of fact his association with it was in 1801. This we know from +his letters to Manning in August of that year, quoting the epigram on +Mackintosh (see below) and announcing the paper's death. Mackintosh, +says Lamb, was on the eve of departing to India to reap the fruits of +his apostasy--referring to his acceptance of the post of Recordership +of Bombay offered to him by Addington. But this was a slip of memory. +Mackintosh's name had been mentioned in connection with at least +two posts before this--a judgeship in Trinidad and the office of +Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lamb's epigram may have had reference +to one or the other. In the absence of a file of _The Albion_, which I +have been unable to find, it is impossible to give exact dates or to +reproduce any of Lamb's other contributions. + +Page 255, line 6. _John Fenwick_. See the essay "The Two Races of +Men," and note. Writing to Manning on September 24, 1802, Lamb +describes Fenwick as a ruined man hiding from his creditors. In +January, 1806, he tells Stoddart that Fenwick is "coming to town on +Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison." +And we meet him again as late as 1817, in a letter to Barron Field, on +August 31, where his editorship of The Statesman is mentioned. In +Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart there are indications that Mrs. +Fenwick and family were mindful of the Lambs' charitable impulses. + +After "Fenwick," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, Lamb wrote: "Of him, +under favour of the public, something may be told hereafter." It is +sad that the sudden discontinuance of the magazine with this number +for ever deprived us of further news of this man. + +Page 255, line 11. _Lovell_. Daniel Lovell, subsequently owner and +editor of _The Statesman_, which was founded by John Hunt, Leigh +Hunt's brother, in 1806. He had a stormy career, much chequered by +imprisonment and other punishment for freedom of speech. He died in +1818. + +Page 255, line 20. _Daily demands of the Stamp Office._ The newspaper +stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to +fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in 1855 abolished. + +Page 255, line 28. _Accounted very good men now._ A hit, I imagine, +particularly at Southey (see note to "The Tombs in the Abbey"). Also +at Wordsworth and Mackintosh himself. + +Page 256, line 3. _Sir J----s M----h_. Sir James Mackintosh +(1765-1832), the philosopher, whose apostasy consisted in his public +recantation of the opinions in favour of the French Revolution +expressed in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, published in 1791. In 1803 he +accepted the offer of the Recordership of Bombay. Lamb's epigram, +which, as has been stated above, cannot have had reference to this +particular appointment, runs thus in the version quoted in the letter +to Manning of August, 1801:-- + + Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, + In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: + When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, + He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: + This thou may'st do at last; yet much I doubt, + If thou hash any bowels to gush out. + +Page 256, line 6. _Lord ... Stanhope_. This was Charles, third earl +(1753-1816), whose sympathies were with the French Revolution. His +motion in the House of Lords against interfering with France's +internal affairs was supported by himself alone, which led to a medal +being struck in his honour with the motto, "The Minority of One, +1795;" and he was thenceforward named "Minority," or "Citizen," +Stanhope. George Dyer, who had acted as tutor to his children, was one +of Stanhope's residuary legatees. + +Page 256, line 10. _It was about this time ..._ With this sentence +Lamb brought back his essay to its original title, and paved the way +for the second part--now printed under that heading. + +At the end of this paper, in the _Englishman's Magazine_, were the +words, "To be continued." For the further history of the essay see the +notes that follow. + + * * * * * + +Page 256. BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF +MODERN ART. + +_Athenæum_, January 12, 19, 26, and February 2, 1833, where it was +thus entitled: "On the Total Defects of the Quality of Imagination, +observable in the Works of Modern British Artists." By the Author of +the Essays signed "Elia." + +The following editorial note was prefixed to the first +instalment:--"This Series of Papers was intended for a new periodical, +which has been suddenly discontinued. The distinguished writer having +kindly offered them to the ATHENÆUM, we think it advisable to perfect +the Series by this reprint; and, from the limited sale of the work in +which it originally appeared, it is not likely to have been read by +one in a thousand of our subscribers." + +The explanation of this passage has been made simple by the researches +of the late Mr. Dykes Campbell. Lamb intended the essay originally for +the _Englishman's Magazine_, November number, to follow the excursus +on newspapers. But that magazine came to an end with the October +number. In the letter from Lamb to Moxon dated October 24, 1831, Lamb +says, referring to Moxon's announcement that the periodical would +cease:--"Will it please, or plague, you, to say that when your Parcel +came I damned it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous +description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending +you to morrow, the last day you gave me." + +That was the present essay. Subsequently--at the end of 1832--Moxon +started a weekly paper entitled _The Reflector_, edited by John +Forster, in which the printing of Lamb's essay was begun. It lasted +only a short time, and on its cessation Lamb sent the ill-fated +manuscript to _The Athenæum_, where it at last saw publication +completed. Of _The Reflector_ all trace seems to have vanished, and +with it possibly other writings of Lamb's. + +In _The Athenæum_ of December 22, 1832, the current _Reflector_ (No. +2) is advertised as containing "An Essay on Painters and Painting by +Elia." + +Page 256, line 1 of essay. _Hogarth_. Compare Lamb's criticism of +Hogarth, Vol. I. + +Page 256, foot. _Titian's "Ariadne."_ This picture is now No. 35 +in the National Gallery. Writing to Wordsworth in May, 1833, it is +amusing to note, Lamb says: "Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling +with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition +it served me as illustrative." The legend of Ariadne tells that after +being abandoned by Theseus, whom she loved with intense passion, she +was wooed by Bacchus. + +Page 258, line 2. _Somerset House._ See note above to the essay on +"Newspapers." + +Page 258, line 14. _Neoteric ... Mr. ----_. Probably J.M.W. Turner and +his "Garden of the Hesperides," now in the National Gallery. It is +true it was painted in 1806, but Lamb does not describe it as a +picture of the year and Turner was certainly the most notable +neoteric, or innovator, of that time. + +Page 259, line 1. _Of a modern artist._ In _The Athenæum_ this +had been printed "of M----," meaning John Martin (1789-1854). His +"Belshazzar's Feast," which Lamb analyses below, was painted in 1821, +and made him famous. It was awarded a £200 premium, and was copied on +glass and exhibited with great success as an illuminated transparency +in the Strand. Lord Lytton said of Martin that "he was more original, +more self-dependent, than Raphael or Michael Angelo." Lamb had +previously expressed his opinion of Martin, in a letter to Bernard +Barton, dated June 11, 1827, in a passage which contains the germ +of this essay:--"Martin's Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen. +Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, +the squalling, contorted little antics that are playing at being +frightened, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a +mask, are detestable. Then the _letters_ are nothing more than a +transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a +sudden at a Christmas Gambol, to scare the ladies. The _type_ is +as plain as Baskervil--they should have been dim, full of mystery, +letters to the mind rather than the eye." + +Page 259, line 13. _The late King_. George IV., who built, when Prince +of Wales, the Brighton Pavilion. As I cannot find this incident in any +memoirs of the Regency, I assume Lamb to have invented it, after his +wont, when in need of a good parallel. "Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name" +stands of course for Mrs. Fitzherbert. + +Page 259, line 33. _The ingenious Mr. Farley_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), who controlled the pantomimes at Covent Garden from 1806 +to 1834, and invented a number of mechanical devices for them. He also +acted, and had been the instructor of the great Grimaldi. Lamb alludes +to him in the essay on "The Acting of Munden." + +Page 262, line 10. "_Sun, stand thou still ..._" See Joshua x. 12. +Martin's picture of "Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still" was +painted in 1816. Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, +Lamb says: "Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, fritter'd into +1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there--you should +see only the _Sun_ and _Joshua_ ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes +finding him out." + +Page 262, line 29. _The great picture at Angerstein's_. This picture +is "The Resurrection of Lazarus," by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, with +the assistance, it is conjectured, of Michael Angelo. The picture is +now No. 1 in the National Gallery, the nucleus of which collection was +once the property of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823). Angerstein's +art treasures were to be seen until his death in his house in Pall +Mall, where the Reform Club now stands. + +Page 263, line 35. _The Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend_. See +the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847 ed., Vol. II., pp. 126-127. + +Page 265, line 5. "_Truly, fairest Lady ..._" The passage quoted by +Lamb is from Skeltoa's translation of _Don Quixote_, Part II., Chapter +LVIII. The first sentence runs: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actæon was not +more astonished or in suspense when on the sodaine he saw Diana," and +so forth. + +Page 266, line 9. "_Guzman de Alfarache_." The Picaresque romance by +Mateo Aleman--_Vida y Lechos del picaro Guzman de Alfarache_, Part I., +1599; Part II., 1605. It was translated into English by James Mabbe in +1622 as _The Rogue; or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache_. Lamb had a +copy, which is now in my possession, with Mary Lamb's name in it. + + * * * * * + +Page 266. REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823. + +This paper, being printed in the same number as that which announced +Elia's death, was signed "Elia's Ghost." + +Lamb returned to this vein of fancy two years or so later when (in +1825) he contributed to his friend William Hone's _Every-Day Book_ +the petition of the Twenty-Ninth of February, a day of which Hone had +taken no account, and of the Twelfth of August, which from being kept +as the birthday of King George IV. during the time that he was Prince +of Wales, was, on his accession to the throne, disregarded in favour +of April 23, St. George's Day. For these letters see Vol. I. of this +edition. + +Page 271, line 15. "_On the bat's back ..._" From Ariel's song in +"The Tempest." Lamb confesses, in at least two of his letters, to a +precisely similar plight. + + * * * * * + +Page 271. THE WEDDING. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1825. + +The wedding was that of Sarah Burney, daughter of Lamb's old friends, +Rear-Admiral James Burney and his wife Sarah Burney, to her cousin, +John Payne, of Pall Mall, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, in April, +1821. The clergyman was the Rev. C.P. Burney, who was not, however, +vicar of St. Mildred's in the Poultry, but of St. Paul's, Deptford, in +Kent. Admiral Burney lived only six months longer, dying in November. + +Canon Ainger pointed out that when Lamb was revising this essay for +its appearance in the _Last Essays of Elia_, he was, like the admiral, +about to lose by marriage Emma Isola, who was to him and his sister +what Miss Burney had been to her parents. She married Edward Moxon in +July, 1833. + +Page 274, line 8. _An unseasonable disposition to levity_. Writing to +P.G. Patmore in 1827 Lamb says: "I have been to a funeral, where I +made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners." Again, +writing to Southey: "I am going to stand godfather; I don't like the +business; I cannot muster up decorum for these occasions; I shall +certainly disgrace the font; I was at Hazlitt's marriage and was like +to have been turned out several times during the ceremony. Anything +awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral." + +Page 274, line 24. _Miss T----s_. In the _London Magazine_ "Miss +Turner's." + +Page 274, line 27. _Black ... the costume of an author_. See note +below. + +Page 274, line 29. _Lighter colour_. Here the _London Magazine_ had: +"a pea-green coat, for instance, like the bridegroom." + +Page 274, line 34. _A lucky apologue_. I do not find this fable; but +Lamb's father, in his volume of poems, described in a note on page +381, has something in the same manner in his ballad "The Sparrow's +Wedding":-- + + The chatt'ring Magpye undertook + Their wedding breakfast for to cook, + He being properly bedight + In a cook's cloathing, black and white. + +Page 275, foot. _The Admiral's favourite game_. Admiral Burney wrote a +treatise on whist (see notes to "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist"). + + * * * * * + +Page 276. THE CHILD ANGEL. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1823. + +Thomas Moore's _Loves of the Angels_ was published in 1823. Lamb used +it twice for his own literary purposes: on the present occasion, with +tenderness, and again, eight years later, with some ridicule, for +his comic ballad, "Satan in Search of a Wife," 1831, was ironically +dedicated to the admirers of Moore's poem (see Vol. IV.). + + * * * * * + +Page 279. A DEATH-BED. + +Hone's _Table Book_, Vol. I., cols. 425-426, 1827. Signed "L.," and +dated London, February 10, 1827. The essay is very slightly altered +from a letter written by Lamb to Crabb Robinson, January 20, 1827, +describing the death of Randal Morris. It was printed in the first +edition only of the _Last Essays of Elia_; its place being taken +afterwards by the "Confessions of a Drunkard," an odd exchange. The +essay was omitted, in deference, it is believed, to the objection of +Mrs. Norris to her reduced circumstances being made public. As the +present edition adheres to the text of the first edition, "The +Death-Bed" is included in its original place as decided by the author. +The "Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +Randal Norris was for many years sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple +(see postscript to the essay on the "Old Benchers"). Writing to +Wordsworth in 1830 Lamb spoke of him as "sixty years ours and our +father's friend." An attempt has been made to identify him with the +Mr. Norris of Christ's Hospital who was so kind to the Lambs after the +tragedy of September, 1796. I cannot find any trace of Randal Norris +having been connected with anything but the law and the Inner Temple; +but possibly the Mr. Norris of the school was a relative. + +Mrs. Randal Norris was connected with Widford, the village adjoining +Blakesware, where she had known Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother. It was +thither that she and her son retired after Randal Norris's death, to +join her daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss Jane, who had a school for +girls known as Goddard House School. Lamb kept up his friendship with +them to the end, and they corresponded with Mary Lamb after his death. +Mrs. Norris died in 1843, aged seventy-eight, and was buried at +Widford. The grave of Richard Norris, the son, is also there. He died +in 1836. One of the daughters, Elizabeth, married Charles Tween, of +Widford, and lived until 1894. The other daughter, Jane, married +Arthur Tween, his brother, and lived until 1891. + +Mary Lamb was a bridesmaid at the Norris's wedding and after the +ceremony accompanied the bride and bridegroom to Richmond for the day. +So one of their daughters told Canon Ainger. + +Crabb Robinson seems to have exerted himself for the family, as Lamb +wished. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that an annuity of £80 was settled upon +Mrs. Norris. + +Page 279, last line. _To the last he called me Jemmy_. In the letter +to Crabb Robinson--"To the last he called me Charley. I have none to +call me Charley now." + +Page 280, line 2. _That bound me to B----_. In the letter to Crabb +Robinson--"that bound me to the Temple." + +Page 280, line 14. _Your Corporation Library_. In the letter--"The +Temple Library." + +Page 280, line 19. _He had one Song_. Garrick's "Hearts of Oak." + + * * * * * + +Page 281. OLD CHINA. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1823. + +This essay forms a pendant, or complement, to "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," completing the portrait of Mary Lamb begun there. +It was, with "The Wedding," Wordsworth's favourite among the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 282, line 23. _The brown suit_. P.G. Patmore, in his +recollections of Lamb in the _Court Journal_, 1835, afterwards +reprinted, with some alterations, in his _My Friends and +Acquaintances_, stated that Lamb laid aside his snuff-coloured suit +in favour of black, after twenty years of the India House; and he +suggests that Wordsworth's stanzas in "A Poet's Epitaph" was the +cause:-- + + But who is he, with modest looks, + And clad in homely russet brown? + He murmurs near the running brooks + A music sweeter than their own. + + He is retired as noontide dew, + Or fountain in a noon-day grove; + And you must love him, ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +Whatever Patmore's theory may be worth, it is certain that Lamb +adhered to black after the change. + +Page 282, line 25. _Beaumont and Fletcher_. See note to "Books and +Reading." + +Page 282, line 27. _Barker's_. Barker's old book-shop was at No. 20 +Great Russell Street, over which the Lambs went to live in 1817. It +had then, however, become Mr. Owen's, a brazier's (Wheatley's _London +Past and Present_ gives Barker's as 19, but a contemporary directory +says 20). Great Russell Street is now Russell Street. + +Page 282, line 30. _From Islington_. This would be when Lamb and his +sister lived at 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, a stone's throw from +the Islington boundary, in 1799-1800, after the death of their father. + +Page 283, line 11. _The "Lady Blanch._" See Mary Lamb's poem on this +picture, Vol. IV. and note. + +Page 283, line 15. _Colnaghi's_. Colnaghi, the printseller, then in +Cockspur Street, now Pall Mall East. After this word came in the +_London Magazine_ "(as W---- calls it)." The reference, Mr. Rogers +Rees tells me, is to Wainewright's article "C. van Vinkbooms, his +Dogmas for Dilletanti," in the same magazine for December, 1821, where +he wrote: "I advise Colnaghi and Molteno to import a few impressions +immediately of those beautiful plates from Da Vinci. The ... and Miss +Lamb's favourite, 'Lady Blanche and the Abbess,' commonly called +'Vanitas et Modestia' (Campanella, los. ed.), for I foresee that this +Dogma will occasion a considerable call for them--let them, therefore, +be ready." + +Page 283, line 5 from foot. _To see a play_. "The Battle of Hexham" +and "The Surrender of Calais" were by George Colman the Younger; "The +Children in the Wood," a favourite play of Lamb's, especially with +Miss Kelly in it, was by Thomas Morton. Mrs. Bland was Maria Theresa +Bland, _née_ Romanzini, 1769-1838, who married Mrs. Jordan's brother. +Jack Bannister we have met, in "The Old Actors." + +Page 286, line 12. _The Great yew R----_. This would be Nathan Meyer +Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the +family and the greatest financier of modern times. + + * * * * * + +Page 286. POPULAR FALLACIES. + +This series of little essays was printed in the _New Monthly Magazine_ +in 1826, beginning in January. The order of publication there was not +the same as that in the _Last Essays of Elia_; one of the papers, +"That a Deformed Person is a Lord," was not reprinted by Lamb at all +(it will be found in Vol. I. of this edition); and two others were +converted into separate essays (see "The Sanity of True Genius" and +"The Genteel Style in Writing"). + +After Lamb's death a new series of Popular Fallacies was contributed +to the _New Monthly Magazine_ by L.B. (Laman Blanchard) in 1835, +preceded by an invocation to the spirit of Charles Lamb. + +Page 286. I.--THAT A BULLY is ALWAYS A COWARD. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287, line 1. _Hickman_. This would be Tom Hickman, the pugilist. +In Hazlitt's fine account of "The Fight," Hickman or the Gas-Man, +"vapoured and swaggered too much, as if he wanted to grin and bully +his adversary out of the fight." And again, "'This is the _grave +digger_' (would Tom Hickman exclaim in the moments of intoxication +from gin and success, showing his tremendous right hand); 'this will +send many of them to their long homes; I haven't done with them yet.'" +But he went under to Neale, of Bristol, on the great day that Hazlitt +describes. + +Page 287, line 2. _Him of Clarissa_. Mr. Hickman, in Richardson's +novel _Clarissa_, the lover of Miss Bayes. + +Page 287. II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287. III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288, line 12. _In Mandeville_. In Bernard Mandeville's Fable of +the Bees, a favourite book of Lamb's. See Vol. I., note to "The Good +Clerk." + +Page 288. IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288. V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 290. VI.--THAT ENOUGH is AS GOOD AS A FEAST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291. VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE +WRONG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291, line 4 from foot. _Little Titubus_. I do not know who this +was, if any more than an abstraction; but it should be remembered that +Lamb himself stammered. + +Page 292. VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 292. IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Compare the reflections on puns in the essay on "Distant +Correspondents." Compare also the review of Hood's _Odes and +Addresses_ (Vol. I.). Cary's account of a punning contest after Lamb's +own heart makes the company vie with each in puns on the names +of herbs. After anise, mint and other words had been ingeniously +perverted Lamb's own turn, the last, was reached, and it seemed +impossible that anything was left for him. He hesitated. "Now then, +let us have it," cried the others, all expectant. "Patience," he +replied; "it's c-c-cumin." + +Page 293, line 18. _One of Swift's Miscellanies_. This joke, often +attributed to Lamb himself, will be found in _Ars Punica, sine flos +Linguarum, The Art of Punning; or, The Flower of Languages_, by Dr. +Sheridan and Swift, which will be found in Vol. XIII. of Scott's +edition of Swift. Among the directions to the punster is this:-- + +Rule 3. The Brazen Rule. He must have better assurance, like Brigadier +C----, who said, "That, as he was passing through a street, he made to +a country fellow who had a hare swinging on a stick over his shoulder, +and, giving it a shake, asked him whether it was his own _hair_ or a +periwig!" Whereas it is a notorious Oxford jest. + +Page 294, line 8. _Virgil ... broken Cremona_. Swift (as Lamb +explained in the original essay in the _New Monthly Magazine_), seeing +a lady's mantua overturning a violin (possibly a Cremona), quoted +Virgil's line: "Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ!" (_Eclogues_, +IX., 28), "Mantua, alas! too near unhappy Cremona." + +Page 294. X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. + +Whether a Mrs. Conrady existed, or was invented or adapted by Lamb to +prove his point, I have not been able to discover. But the evidence of +Lamb's "reverence for the sex," to use Procter's phrase, is against +her existence. _The Athenæum_ reviewer on February 16, 1833, says, +however, quoting the fallacy: "Here is a portrait of Mrs. Conrady. We +agree with the writer that 'no one that has looked on her can pretend +to forget the lady.'" The point ought to be cleared up. + +Page 296. XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, April, 1826. + +Page 297, line 13. _Our friend Mitis_. I do not identify Mitis among +Lamb's many friends. + +Page 297, line 11 from foot. _Presentation copies_. The late Mr. +Thomas Westwood, the son of the Westwoods with whom the Lambs lived +at Edmonton, writing to Notes and Queries some thirty-five years ago, +gave an amusing account of Lamb pitching presentation copies out of +the window into the garden--a Barry Cornwall, a Bernard Barton, a +Leigh Hunt, and so forth. Page 298, line 6. _Odd presents of game_. +Compare the little essay on "Presents of Game," Vol. I. + +Page 298. XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. In that place the first sentence +began with the word "Two;" the second ended with "of our assertions;" +and (fourteenth line of essay) it was said of the very poor man +that he "can ask" no visitors. Lamb, in a letter, wished Wordsworth +particularly to like this fallacy and that on rising with the lark. + +Page 300, line 9. _It has been prettily said_. By Lamb himself, or +more probably by his sister, in _Poetry for Children_, 1809. See "The +First Tooth," Vol. III., which ends upon the line + + A child is fed with milk and praise. + +Page 301, line 3. _There is yet another home_. Writing to Mrs. +Wordsworth on February 18, 1818, Lamb gives a painful account, very +similar in part to this essay, of the homeless home to which he was +reduced by visitors. But by the time he wrote the essay, when all his +day was his own, the trouble was not acute. He tells Bernard Barton +on March 20, 1826, "My tirade against visitors was not meant +_particularly_ at you or A.K. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not +just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_." Compare +the first of the "Lepus" papers in Vol. I. + +Page 301, line 20. _It is the refreshing sleep of the day_. After this +sentence, in the magazine, came this passage:-- + + "O the comfort of sitting down heartily to an old folio, and + thinking surely that the next hour or two will be your own--and + the misery of being defeated by the useless call of somebody, who + is come to tell you, that he is just come from hearing Mr. Irving! + What is that to you? Let him go home, and digest what the good man + said to him. You are at your chapel, in your oratory." + +Mr. Irving was the Rev. Edward Irving (1792-1834), whom Lamb knew +slightly and came greatly to admire. + +Page 302. XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "A Bachelor's Complaint." I cannot identify the particular +friend whom Lamb has hidden under asterisks; although his cousin would +seem to have some likeness to one of the Bethams mentioned in the +essay "Many Friends" (Vol. I.), and in the letter to Landor of +October, 1832 (usually dated April), after his visit to the Lambs. + +Page 304, line 15. _Honorius dismiss his vapid wife_. Writing to +Bernard Barton on March 20, 1826, Lamb says:--"In another thing I +talkd of somebody's _insipid wife_, without a correspondent object in +my head: and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way) has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are numerous. I send out a character +every now and then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my +friends." + +Page 304, line 11 from foot. _Merry, of Delia Cruscan memory_. Robert +Merry (1755-1798), an affected versifier who settled in Florence as a +young man, and contributed to the _Florence Miscellany_. He became +a member of the Delia Cruscan Academy, and on returning to England +signed his verses, in _The World_, "Delia Crusca." A reply to his +first effusion, "Adieu and Recall to Love," was written by Mrs. Hannah +Cowley, author of _The Belle's Stratagem_, and signed "Anna Matilda;" +this correspondence continued; a fashion of sentiment was thus +started; and for a while Delia Cruscan poetry was the rage. The +principal Delia Cruscan poems were published in the _British Album_ +in 1789, and the collection was popular until Gifford's _Baviad_ +(followed by his _Mæviad_) appeared in 1791, and satirised its +conceits so mercilessly that the school collapsed. A meeting with Anna +Matilda in the flesh and the discovery that she was twelve years his +senior had, however, put an end to Merry's enthusiasm long before +Gifford's attack. Merry afterwards threw in his lot with the French +Revolution, and died in America. He married, as Lamb says, Elizabeth +Brunton, an excellent tragic actress, in 1791. But that was in +England. The journey to America came later. + +The story of Merry's avoidance of the lady of his first choice is +probably true. Carlo Antonio Delpini was a famous pantomimist in his +day at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket. He also was +stage manager at the Opera for a while, and occasionally arranged +entertainments for George IV. at Brighton. He died in 1828. + +Page 305. XIV.--THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "The Superannuated Man," to which this little essay, which, +with that following, is one of Lamb's most characteristic and perfect +works, serves as a kind of postscript. + +Page 308. XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Page 309. XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, September, 1826. + +This was the last of the series and Lamb's last contribution to the +_New Monthly Magazine_. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 315. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, ETC. + +See notes to the essays "On Some of the Old Actors," "The Artificial +Comedy" and "The Acting of Munden." Two portions of these essays, not +reprinted by Lamb, call for comment: the story of the first night of +"Antonio," and the account of Charles Mathews' collection of pictures. + +Page 328, line 14 from foot. _My friend G.'s "Antonio."_ William +Godwin's tragedy, produced on December 13, 1800, at Drury Lane. Lamb +had written the epilogue (see Vol. IV.). Compare the letter to Manning +of December 16, 1800. + +Page 329, line 28. _M. wiped his cheek_. Writing to Godwin after the +failure Lamb says: "The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, +looked not to be more lovely than Marshal's forehead when it spit +forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines +by Marvel ... + + "'Where every Mower's wholesome heat + Smells like an Alexander's sweat.'" + +And again, to Manning: "His [Marshal's] face was lengthened, and all +over perspiration; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; I could +have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. 'From every pore of him a +perfume fell.'" + +Page 329, foot. _R----s the dramatist_. I imagine this to be Frederic +Reynolds (1764-1841), author of "The Dramatist" and many other plays. +We know Lamb to have known him later, from a mention in a letter to +J.B. Dibdin. + +Page 330, foot, _Brutus ... Appius_. Brutus in "Julius Cæsar," or +possibly in the play called "Brutus," by John Howard Payne, Lamb's +friend (produced December 3, 1818), in which Brutus kills his son--a +closer parallel. Appius was probably a slip of the pen for Virginius, +who in Sheridan Knowles' drama that bears his name kills his daughter +to protect her from Appius. + +Page 331, line 7. _G. thenceforward_. Godwin did, however, write +another play, "Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote the prologue. It was +moderately successful. + +Page 331, 1st line of essay. _I do not know, etc_. The paragraph +beginning with these words is often printed by editors of Lamb as +a separate article entitled "The Old Actors." Charles Mathews' +collection of theatrical portraits is now in the Garrick Club. In +his lifetime it occupied the gallery at Ivy Lodge, Highgate (or more +properly Kentish Town). A year or so before Mathews' death in 1835, +his pictures were exhibited at the Queen's Bazaar in Oxford Street, +Lamb's remarks being printed in the catalogue _raisonné_. + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Accountants, Lamb on, 3. +Actors and acting, Lamb's essays on, 150, 161, 168, 185, 188, 190, 230, + 315, 322, 331. +Actors among Lamb's friends, 232. +Adams, Parson, 49. +Agar's wish, 348. +Aguecheek, Lamb on, 155. +Ainger, Canon, his notes on Lamb, 345, 353, 361, 403, 436, 438. +_Albion, The_, and Lamb, 254, 429, 432. +Alice W----n, 32, 44, 116, 117, 339, 363, 389. +ALL FOOLS' DAY, 48, 367. +Allen, Bob, 25, 253, 355, 431. +Allsop, Thomas, quoting Lamb, 357. +---- and "Roast Pig," 396. +---- quotes Lamb on G.H., 425. +Almsgiving, Lamb on, 137. +Alsatia, the debtors' sanctuary, 162. +America, Lamb relics in, 344, 357, 358, 362, 412. +AMICUS REDIVIVUS, 237, 424. +Anatomy and love, 64. +_Anatomy of Melancholy_ quoted, 46. +André, Major, 237, 424. +Anna Matilda, 443. +Antiquity, Lamb on, 11. +"Antonio," by Godwin, 328, 444. +_Arcadia, The_, by Sidney, 242. +Arrowsmith, Aaron, 369. +"Artaxerxes," 113, 387. +Artificial comedy, Lamb's essay on, 161, 399. +Artists, their want of imagination, 256. +Arundel Castle and the chimney-sweep legend, 127. +_As when a child on some long winter's night_, 388. +_Athenæum, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 433. +_Athenian Oracle, The_, 303. +Australia, Lamb on, 122. +Ayrton, William, 361, 363. + +B + +BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE, 144, 397. +Badams, Mrs., 362. +Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 340. +Bannister, Jack, 159, 185, 399, 408. +BARBARA S----, 230, 421. +Barker's book-shop, 282, 439. +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART, + 256, 433. +Barrington, Daines, 101, 383. +Bartholomew Fair, 128, 391. +Barton, Bernard, Lamb's letters to, 341, 406, 417, 420, 435, 442. +-- Thomas, 102, 383. +Baskett prayer-book, 9. +Battle, Mrs., 37, 175, 406. +---- on whist, 37. +---- her identity, 361. +Beaumont and Fletcher, Lamb's copy, 357. +Beauty, Lamb on, 295. +"Beggar's Petition," 394. +Begging, Lamb's essay on, 130, 392. +Belisarius, 131. +"Belshazzars Feast," Martin's picture of, 259, 434. +Benchers, The Old, Lamb's essay on, 94. +Bensley, Robert, 152, 318, 398. +Betty, Master, 414. +Bigod, Ralph, Lamb's name for Fenwick, 27, 356. +Billet, John, 184. +Binding, Lamb on, 412. +_Blackwood's Magazine_ and Scott, 340. +Blake, William, and Lamb, 391. +BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE, 174, 405. +Blakesware near Widford, 115, 174, 388, 405. +Bland, Mrs., 283, 439. +Blandy, Miss, the poisoner, 98, 380. +Bodkin, W.H., 392. +_Book of Sports, The_, 418. +Books, Lamb on, 34, 360. +-- that are not books, 195, 411. +Booth's _Tables of Interest_ and Lamb, 419. +Borrowing, Lamb on, 26. +Bourne, Vincent, 133, 393. +Bowles, William Lisle, 38, 362. +Boyer, James, 23, 353. +Braham, John, 71, 371. +Breeding, Lamb on, 288. +Bridget, Elia. _See_ Elia. +Brighton and the Lambs, 415. +-- Lamb's imaginery scene there, 259. +British Museum, a careful vandal, 357. +Browne, Moses, 404. +-- Sir Thomas, 58, 66, 80. +Bruce, James, 240, 425. +Bruton, Miss Sarah, 376. +Brutons, Lamb's relations, 88, 89. +Buckland, Dean, and the American vandal, 424. +Bullies, Lamb on, 286, 440. +_Buncle, The Life of_, 30, 357. +Burney, Edward, 65, 370. +-- James, 361. +Burney, Martin, 200, 414. +-- Mrs., and Mrs. Battle, 361. +-- Sarah, her wedding, 271, 436. +Burns, Robert, and Lamb, 70, 370. +Burton, Robert, quoted, 46, 77. +_Business! the frivolous pretence_, 419. +Button Snap, Lamb's cottage, 385, 386, 387. +_But who is he, with modest looks_, 438. + + +C + +Cambridge, Lamb at, 345. +Camelford, Lord, 121, 390. +Candle-light, Lamb on, 308. +CAPTAIN JACKSON, 215, 416. +Card playing, essay on, in _Every-Day Book_, 362. +Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 193, 372, 410. +Cary, H.F., his verses on Lamb, 426. +-- on Lamb's puns, 441. +Cave, Edward, 344. +Chambers, John, 224, 419. +Chapman's _Homer_ kissed by Lamb, 412. +CHAPTER ON EARS, A, 43, 363. +CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA, A, 171, 402. +Chess and Mrs. Battle, 42. +CHILD ANGEL, THE, 276, 437. +Children and the dark, 77. +Chimney-sweepers, Lamb's essay on, 124, 390. +CHINA, OLD, 281, 438. +-- its first roast pork, 138. +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO, 14, 350. +---- prayer-book, 9. +---- food in Lamb's day, 14, 350. +---- holidays in Lamb's day, 15, 351. +---- the dungeon, 19. +---- flogging, 23. +---- Grecians, 26, 355. +---- its graces, 110, 384. +---- the Coleridge memorial, 354. +---- the Lamb medal, 355. +Clapdishes, 131. +"Cobbler of Preston," by Johnson, 170, 401. +Cockletop, in "Modern Antiques," 168, 400. +Colebrooke cottage, 425. +Coleridge, Hartley, on Lamb, 400. +-- S.T., at Christ's Hospital, 15, 350, 351. +-- his wit combats, 25. +-- his treatment of books, 29, 356. +-- his "Ode on the Departing Year," 31, 359. +-- on apple-dumplings, 108, 384. +-- his "Epitaph on an Infant," 141, 397. +-- on Boyer, 353. +-- and the Christ's Hospital memorial, 354. +-- his military name, 356. +-- Lamb's letters to, 356, 368, 396. +-- his marginalia, 358. +-- his notes in Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +------ in Donne, 358. +-- on Lamb, 359. +-- Lamb's letter to, concerning Quakers, 368. +-- and Christopher North, 371. +-- his sonnets with Lamb, 388. +-- and the _Morning Post_, 429, 430. +Colet, Dean, his _Accidence_, 59. +Colnaghi's print shop, 283, 439. +Comberback, Coleridge's military name, 29, 356. +_Come, all degrees now passing by_, 391. +Comedy and its licence, 161. +COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS, 130, 392. +CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD, 437. +Congreve, Lamb on, 160, 162. +Conrady, Mrs., 294, 441. +CONVALESCENT, THE, 208, 416. +Corbet, Peter, 404. +Coventry, Thomas, 97, 380. +Cowards and bullies, 286. +Cowley, on business, 419. +Crawford, Anne, 423. +Cresseid, 131. +Curry, Sir Christopher, in "Inkle and Yarico," 169, 401. + + +D + +Da Vinci, Leonardo, and Lamb's beauty, 69, 370. +Dawson, Bully, 287. +Days, Lamb's fantasy upon, 266. +DEATH-BED, A, 279, 437. +Delia Cruscan poetry, 443. +Delpini, 305, 443. +Dennis, John, 292. +De Quincey on Lamb, 377. +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING, 195, 411. +Dickens anticipated by Lamb, 356, 417. +Disputes, Lamb on, 291. +DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG, 137, 395. +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS, 118, 389. +Dobell, Mr. Bertram, his notes on Lamb, 342, 395, 408. +Doctor, the, at Islington, 238. +Dodd, James William, 155. +Dodwell, Henry, 224, 419. +Dornton in "The Road to Ruin," 169, 401. +Dorrell, William, the Lambs' enemy, 32, 360. +DREAM-CHILDREN, 115, 388. +Dreams, Lamb on, 79. +Drowning in dreams, 241. +Drury Lane Theatre, 111, 385. +Dyer, George, 11, 237, 241, 347, 348, 349, 424, 425, 433. +---- and the New River, 237, 424. + +E + +Early rising, Lamb on, 305. +East India House, Lamb at, 219. +------ Lamb's superannuation, 219, 417. +------ Lamb's fellow clerks, 223, 224, 403, 404. +Edwards, Thomas, 92, 379. +Eel-soup, 374. +Elgin marbles, 225, 419. +ELIA, 1823, suggested dedication, 337. +-- its poor reception, 338. +-- second series. American edition, 339. +Elia, F.A., 337. +-- Lamb on, 8. +-- his death, 171. +-- Lamb's character of, 171, 402. +-- origin of name, 337. +-- his birthplace, 365. +-- Bridget (Mary Lamb), 43, 362. +---- her taste in reading, 86. +---- her regrets for poverty, 282. +ELLISTON, TO THE SHADE OF, 188, 409. +ELLISTONIANA, 190, 410. +Elliston, R.W., Lamb's essays on, 188, 190, 409, 410. +---- at Leamington, 190. +---- his grave, 411. +---- Lamb and Munden on an excursion, 410. +Elton, Sir C.A., his poem to Lamb, 358. +Emery, John, 186, 409. +Endor, the Witch of, 75, 372. +_Englishman's Magazine_, 342. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 188, 190, 249. +Evans, William, 3, 343. +Evelyn, John, quoted, 72. +_Every-Day Book_, essay on card-playing, 362. +_Examiner, The_, and Lamb's "Chimney-Sweepers," 392. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 63, 168. +---- "On a visit to St. Paul's," 424. +Example, Lamb on, 288. +Excursions, the Lambs', 283. + + +F + +_Faerie Queene_, Lamb's copy, 413. +FALLACIES, POPULAR. _See_ POPULAR FALLACIES. +_Family Pictures_, by Anne Manning, 378. +Farley, Charles, 169, 259, 401, 435. +"Father, A," his remonstrance with Lamb, 360. +Favell, Joseph, 25, 181, 355, 408. +Feasting, Lamb on, 290. +Fenwick, John, 27, 129, 255, 356, 432. +Field, Barron, 90, 118, 363, 377, 389. +-- Mary, 361, 405. +-- Matthew, 20, 352. +Fielde, Francis, Lamb's godfather, 111, 385. +Flecknoe, quoted, 51. +Flogging, Lamb on, 23. +Fools, Lamb's essay on, 48, 367. +Fountains, Lamb on, 96. +Fox, George, 53, 368. +French translation of Lamb, 415. +Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 71. +Funerals and Lamb, 274, 436. + + +G + +Gallantry, Lamb on, 90, 377. +"Garden, The," by Marvell, 96. +Gattie, Henry, 186, 408. +Gebir and the Tower of Babel, 49. +_Gebir_, by Landor, 206, 415. +GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING, THE, 226, 420. +Gentility, Lamb on, 176. +George IV., 259, 268, 435, 436. +Gladmans, Lamb's relations, 88, 89, 90. +_Gli Elogi del Porco_, 396. +Gluttony and grace, Lamb on, 105. +Godwin, William, his play "Antonio," 328, 444. +-- Lamb's friend, 376. +-- Lamb's letter to, 444. +Gold's _London Magazine_, 395. +GRACE BEFORE MEAT, 104, 384. +Graces at Christ's Hospital, 110, 384. +Gray's Inn Gardens, 155, 399. +Grecians at Christ's Hospital, 26, 355. +Greg, Mr. Thomas, and Lamb's property, 385. +Guildhall giants, 29. +_Gulliver's Travels_, 382. + + +H + +Hare Court, Lamb's rooms in, 390. +"Harlequin's Invasion," 113, 387. +Hastings and the Lambs, 206, 416. +Hawes, Dr., 241. +Hazlitt, William, on Sidney, 247, 427. +---- on Lamb in the country, 345. +---- knocked down by John Lamb, 347. +---- his interest in John Buncle, 357. +---- as Duns Scotus, 367. +---- Lamb's letter to, 397. +---- on Lamb, 403. +---- his wedding, 436. +-- W.C., his notes on Lamb, 357, 438. +Helicon and Hippocrene confused, 37. +Hertfordshire hair, 178. +-- and Lamb, 220, 418. +-- Lamb's praise of, 375. +_He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind_, 428. +Heywood, Thomas, quoted, 67. +Hickman, Tom, the prize fighter, 287, 440. +_High-born Helen, round your dwelling_, 407. +Hodges (or Huggins), 352. +Hogarth, his chimney-sweeper, 126. +Hogsflesh and Bacon, 415. +Hogs Norton and the pigs, 109. +Holcroft, Thomas, 376. +Hone's _Table Book_, Lamb's contribution to, 279. +Hood, Thomas, his friendship with Lamb, 393. +---- on beggars, 393. +Hooker, Richard, 104, 384. +Hoole, John, 404. +Horsey, Samuel, 135, 393. +Huggins (or Hodges), 352. +Hugh of Lincoln, 70, 371. +Hume, David, 70, 371. +-- Joseph, Lamb's friend, 394. +Humphreys, Mr. Deputy, 253. +Hunt, Leigh, and Lamb, 360. +---- chaffed by Lamb, 364. +Hunt, Leigh, replies to Lamb, 365. +---- and Lamb's "Chimney Sweepers," 392. +---- on Lamb's books, 412. +---- his translation of Milton, 426. +-- Thornton, 77, 372. +Hutchinson, Sarah, Lamb's letter to, 417. + + +I + +_I can remember when a child the maids_, 372. +_I have not forgot how thou didst love thy Charles_, 350. +Illusion on the stage, 185. +Imagination, its lack in the artists of Lamb's day, 256. +Imitators of Lamb, 339. +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES, 66, 370. +Ino Leucothea, 79. +Ireland, Dean, 423. +Irving, Edward, and Lamb, 442. +Isola, Emma, 436. + + +J + +JACKSON, CAPTAIN, 215, 416. +-- "Omniscient," 102, 383. +"Janus Weathercock." _See_ Wainewright. +Jekyll, Joseph, 97, 379. +_John Woodvil_ quoted, 368, 372. +Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 250, 344, 383. +Jokes to order, Lamb on, 252. +Jonson, Ben, quoted, 89. +Jordan, Mrs., 151, 398. +Joshua, Martin's picture of, 262, 435. +Journalism and Lamb, 251. + + +K + +Kelly, Fanny, and BARBARA S----, 421. +---- and Mrs. Siddons, 422. +Kemble, John Philip, 153, 168, 327, 398. +Kenney, James, 30, 357. +Kent, Charles, his edition of Lamb, 421. +King, Thomas, 166, 400. + + +L + +"Lady of the Manor," 113, 387. +Lamb, Charles, on the South-Sea House, 1. +---- on accountants, 3. +---- on Elia, 8. +---- on Oxford, 10. +---- on antiquity, 11. +---- on old libraries, 11. +---- on George Dyer, 11. +---- on his school-days, 14. +---- on Coleridge's school-days, 14. +---- on Matthew Fielde, 21. +---- on James Boyer, 22. +---- on borrowers and borrowing, 26. +---- on John Fenwick, 27. +---- on Coleridge as a book borrower, 29. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle, 30. +---- on the New Year, 31. +---- on bells, 31. +---- on his childhood, 32, 75. +---- on the joy of life, 33. +---- on death, 34. +---- on Mrs. Battle and whist, 37, +---- his want of ear, 43. +---- his piano playing, 44. +---- on oratorios, 45. +---- on Novello's evenings, 47. +---- on fools, 48. +---- on Quakers, 51, 55, 72. +---- on silence, 51. +---- on Sewel's _History_, 53. +---- on John Woolman, 54. +---- and the Quaker "wit," 55. +---- his reading, 56. +---- on schoolmasters, 59. +---- on Valentine's Day, 63. +---- on anatomy and love, 64. +---- on door knocks, 64. +---- on Edward Burney's valentine, 65. +---- on imperfect sympathies, 66. +---- on Scotchmen, 67. +---- on Jews, 70. +---- on Braham, 71. +---- on negroes, 71. +---- on Quakers, 72. +---- on witches, 74. +---- on his childhood, 75. +---- on children and the dark, 77. +---- on Thornton Hunt's bringing up, 77. +---- on dreams, 79. +---- on his relations, 80. +---- on Sarah Lamb, 80. +---- on John Lamb, jr., 81, 117. +---- on his sister Mary, 86. +---- his dislike of stories, 86. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle again, 87. +---- on Mackery End, 88. +---- his Hertfordshire relations, 88. +---- on the comely Brutons, 89. +---- on gallantry, 90. +---- on Joseph Paice, 92. +---- on the Temple, 94. +---- on sun-dials, 95. +---- on fountains, 96. +---- on the old Benchers, 97. +---- on Joseph Jekyll, 97. +---- on Samuel Salt, 98, 103. +---- on Thomas Coventry, 99. +---- on his father, 99. +---- on Daines Barrington, 101. +---- on James Mingay, 102. +---- on Baron Maseres, 103. +---- on saying grace, 104. +---- on Milton, 107. +---- his godfather Field, 111. +---- as a landed proprietor, 112. +---- his first play, 112. +---- and his imaginary children, 115. +---- his grandmother, 115. +---- on Blakesware, 116. +---- on distant correspondents, 118. +---- on Lord Camelford's whim, 121. +---- on puns, 122. +---- on Australia, 122. +---- on chimney-sweepers, 124. +---- on Saloop, 125. +---- and fine teeth, 127. +---- and James White, 128. +---- on beggars, 130. +---- his translation from Bourne, 133. +Lamb, Charles, on Samuel Horsey, 135. +---- on almsgiving, 137. +---- on the origin of roast pig, 137. +---- on roast pig, 140. +---- and his plum cake, 142. +---- on married people, 144. +---- on "Twelfth Night," 150. +---- on Mrs. Jordan, 151. +---- on Mrs. Powel, 151. +---- on Bensley's Malvolio, 152. +---- on Dodd's Aguecheek, 155. +---- on Dicky Suett, 157. +---- on Jack Bannister, 159. +---- on Jack Palmer, 159, 165. +---- on the artificial comedy, 161. +---- on Wycherley and Congreve, 162. +---- on the "School for Scandal," 164. +---- on J.P. Kemble, 168. +---- on Munden's faces, 169. +---- on Elia's death, 172. +---- on family mansions, 174. +---- on Blakesware, 175. +---- on the feeling of gentility, 176. +---- on poor relations, 178. +---- on Favell's sensitiveness, 181. +---- on John Billet, 183. +---- on stage illusion, 185. +---- on Gattie's old men, 186. +---- on Emery as Tyke, 186. +---- on Elliston, 188, 190. +---- entertains Elliston, 194. +---- on reading, 195. +---- on books that are not books, 195. +---- on binding, 196. +---- on editions of the great authors, 197. +---- on the names of poets, 198. +---- on Shakespeare, 198. +---- his adventure on Primrose Hill, 199. +---- on watering-places, 201. +---- on the voyage to Margate, 21. +---- on a good liar, 202. +---- on the ocean, 205. +---- on Hastings, 206. +---- on smuggling, 207. +---- on convalescence, 208. +---- on the sanity of genius, 212. +---- on Captain Jackson, 215. +---- on his clerk-state, 219. +---- his superannuation, 221. +---- on leisure, 222. +---- on the genteel style in writing, 226. +---- on Sir William Temple, 226. +---- on Miss Kelly's reminiscence. 230. +---- on his friends among actors, 232. +---- on Westminster Abbey fees, 235. +---- on Andrews monument, 237. +---- on George Dyer's immersion, 237. +---- on the Islington doctor, 238, +---- on the New River, 240. +---- on drowning in dreams, 241. +---- on Sidney's sonnets, 242. +---- on Milton's Latin sonnet, 243. +---- on Hazlitt s opinion of Sidney, 248. +---- on James Bruce, 250. +---- on Dan Stuart, 250. +---- on the _Morning Post_ days, 250. +---- on joking to order, 252. +---- on Bob Allen, 253. +---- on _The Albion_, 254. +---- and Sir James Mackintosh, 256. +---- on modern painters, 256. +---- on Titian's "Ariadne," 256. +---- on Raphael, 257. +---- on J.M.W. Turner, 258. +---- his imaginary scene at Brighton, 259. +---- on John Martin, 260. +---- on Don Quixote, 264. +---- his fantasy on the Days, 266. +---- on Miss Burney's wedding, 271. +---- on mothers and daughters, 273. +---- on his behaviour on solemn occasions, 274. +Lamb, Charles, on Admiral Burney, 275. +---- his fantasy on the child angel, 276. +---- on Randal Norris's death, 279. +---- on old china, 281. +---- his sister's regrets for poverty, 282. +---- and the folio Beaumont and Fletcher, 282. +---- and his sister's excursions, 283. +---- and his sister's playgoing, 283. +---- on bullies and cowards, 286. +---- on ill-gotten gains, 287. +---- on jokes and laughter, 287. +---- on breeding, 288. +---- on the poor and the rich, 288. +---- on sayings concerning money, 290. +---- on disputants, 291. +---- on puns, 292. +---- on Mrs. Conrady, 294. +---- on beauty, 295. +---- on presents, 296. +---- on home, 298. +---- on friendship, 302. +---- on Merry's wedding day, 304. +---- on early rising, 305. +---- on superannuation, 307. +---- on going to bed late, 308. +---- on candle-light, 308. +---- on sulky tempers, 309. +---- on Kemble in Godwin's "Antonio," 329. +---- on Mathews' collection of portraits, 331. +---- on the name Elia, 337. +---- his dedication to _Elia_, 337, +---- his imitators, 339. +---- his Key to _Elia_, 339. +---- and the _London Magazine_, 340. +---- on Taylor's editing, 341. +---- his _post London Magazine_ days, 342. +---- at the South-Sea House, 342. +---- in the country, 345. +---- at Oxford, 346. +---- his sonnet on Cambridge, 346. +---- on Milton's MSS., 346. +---- his jokes with George Dyer, 347. +---- on George Dyer's career, 348, 349. +---- his lines to his aunt, 350. +---- his popularity at school, 355. +---- on Grecians and Deputy-Grecians, 355. +---- on reading and borrowing, 356. +---- and Luther's _Table Talk_, 357. +---- Coleridge as a reader, 357. +---- his copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +---- his copy of Donne, 358. +---- his books in America, 358. +---- his reply to "Olen," 358. +---- his sonnet "Leisure," 359. +---- Coleridge's description of him, 359. +---- on Coleridge's "Ode," 359. +---- his sonnet on Innocence, 360. +---- rebuked by "A Father," 360. +---- and the Burneys, 361. +---- elementary rules of whist, 362. +---- his ear for music, 363. +---- weathering a Mozartian storm, 364. +---- his chaff of Hunt, 364. +---- on Elia's ancestors, 364. +---- chaffed by Hunt, 365. +---- Maginn thinks him a Jew, 365. +---- on birthplaces, 365. +---- on turning Quaker, 368. +---- kisses a copy of Burns, 371. +---- his threat concerning Burns, 371. +---- rebuked by Christopher North, 371. +---- his admiration of Braham, 371. +---- on Sir Anthony Carlisle, 372. +---- his sisters, 373. +---- on John Lamb's pamphlet, 374. +Lamb, Charles, his cousins, 376. +---- his blank verse fragment, 377. +---- on Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," 377. +---- De Quincey's description of him, 377. +---- his chivalry, 377. +---- Barry Cornwall's anecdote of him, 377. +---- his birthplace, 379. +---- his patron, 380. +---- his father, 381. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +---- and Southey's criticism of _Elia_, 384. +---- as a landowner, 385. +---- his letter to his tenant, 386. +---- and his mother, 387. +---- his sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, 388. +---- and Alice W----, 389. +---- his love period, 389. +---- and chimney-sweepers, 390. +---- at Bartholomew Fair, 391. +---- his acquaintance with Hood, 393. +---- his joke to a beggar, 394. +---- on the "Beggar's Petition," 394. +---- his joke on Wainewright, 395. +---- the origin of his "Roast Pig," 395. +---- his recantation, 397. +---- his aunts, 397. +---- on Mrs. John Rickman, 397. +---- criticised by Macaulay, 399. +---- praised by Hartley Coleridge, 400. +---- on Elia's character, 402. +---- on the East India House clerks, 404. +---- letter to Southey about Blakesware, 406. +---- letter to Barton on same subject, 406. +---- his excursion with Elliston and Munden, 410. +---- his books described by Leigh Hunt, 412. +---- his affectation of affectation, 414. +---- and watering-places, 415. +---- at Hastings, 416. +---- leaves the India House, 417. +---- letter to Barton on his liberty, 417. +---- on the Puritans, 418. +---- his love of walking, 419. +---- his sonnet on "Work," 419. +---- his remark to Macready, 423. +---- his remark to Allsop about Dyer, 425. +---- the last book he read, 426. +---- on Lord's Thurlow's poems, 427. +---- his paragraphs for the _Morning Post_, 429. +---- as he appeared to Dan Stuart, 430. +---- his epigrams on Mackintosh, 433. +---- his real opinion of Titian's "Ariadne," 434. +---- letter to Barton on John Martin, 435. +---- at Hazlitt's wedding, 436. +---- his clothes, 438. +---- his pun at Cary's, 441. +---- his treatment of presentation copies, 441. +-- Elizabeth, Lamb's mother, 387. +-- John (Lovel), 100, 381. +---- his boyhood, 183, 408. +---- quoted, 437. +---- jr., his character, 81. +---- his childhood, 117. +---- at the South-Sea House, 344. +---- and Hazlitt, 347. +---- his _Letter ... on Cruelty to Animals_, 374. +---- his death, 388. +-- Mary (Bridget Elia), Lamb's sister, 43, 86, 362, 376. +---- her account of a schoolmaster, 62. +---- a quaint poetess, 200, 414. +---- her first play, 387. +---- her poem "Helen," 407. +-- Sarah (Lamb's aunt), 15, 142, 350, 397. +---- her character, 80. +Lamb, Sarah, her sarcasm, 184. +-- family, 81, 373. +"LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA," 339. +Laughter, Lamb on, 287. +"Lazarus, The Raising of," by Piombo, 262, 435. +Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 25, 110, 354, 384. +---- Samuel, 25, 355. +Leisure, Lamb on, 420. +Letter-writing, Lamb on, 118. +Liar, a good, 202. +Libraries, Lamb on, 11. +_Life of John Buncle_, by Amory, 30, 357. +Lincoln, John Lamb's boyhood, 183, 408. +Liston, John, 169, 401, 423. +Lloyd, Charles, 360. +Lombardy and the pawnbrokers, 254. +London, Lamb's homes in, 379. +_London Magazine_, history of, 340. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 1-56, 66-185, 195-208, 215, 219, 230, + 235, 237, 242, 271, 276, 281, 315, 322, 331. +---- Lamb's last contribution to, 408. +Love and anatomy, 64. +"Love for Love," by Congreve, 160. +Lovel. _See_ John Lamb. +Lovell, Daniel, 255, 432. +Lully, Raymond, 49, 196. +"Lun's Ghost," 113, 387. +Luther's _Table Talk_ and Coleridge, 357. +"Lycidas" in its original form, 346. + + +M + +Macaulay, Lord, 399. +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 86, 375. +Mackintosh, Sir James, 433. +Macready, W.C., and Lamb, 423. +Maginn, William, 365. +Make-believe, an artist in, 215. +Malone, Edmund, 198, 413. +Malvolio, the character of, 316. +Man, Henry, 6, 344. +Manning, Miss Anne, quoted, 378. +-- Thomas, 56, 369. +---- and "Roast Pig," 137, 396. +---- Lamb's letter to, 376, 444. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +Margate, Lamb at, 415. + Hoy, Lamb's essay on, 201, 415. +Marriage, Lamb on, 144. +Married people, Lamb's essay on, 144, 397. +Marshal, Godwin's friend, 329, 444. +Martin, John, 259, 434. +Marvell, Andrew, quoted, 96, 176. +Maseres, Baron, 103, 383. +Mathews, Charles, his pictures, 331, 445. +Mendicity, Society for Suppression of, 130, 392. +Merry, Robert, 304, 443. +Micawber, Wilkins, anticipated, 356, 417. +Middleton, Thomas Fanshaw, 23, 24, 354. +Milton, John, on education, 60, 369. +---- Lamb on, 107. +---- adapted by Lamb, 188. +---- on the _Arcadia_, 242. +---- and the civil war, 242. +---- his Latin sonnet, "Ad Leonoram," 243, 426. +---- Lamb's copy of, 412. +Mingay, James, 102, 383. +MODERN GALLANTRY, 90, 377. +Money, sayings concerning, 290. +Montagu, Basil, 12, 252, 348, 431. + Lady Mary Wortley, 381. +Montgomery, James, and Lamb, 390. +Moore, Thomas, his _Loves of the Angels_, 276, 437. +Moore's _Diary_ quoted, 411. +_Morning Chronicle_ and Lamb, 429, 431. +-- _Herald_, 413. +-- _Post_ and Lamb, 249, 429. +Mothers and daughters, Lamb on, 273. +"Mourning Bride," Mary Lamb's first play, 387. +Moxon, Lamb's letter to, 434. +Mozart, Lamb copes with, successfully, 364. +"Mr. H." and Elliston, 409. +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST, 37, 361. +Munden, Joseph Shepherd, 168, 400. +Music, Lamb's difficulty with, 44, 363. +MY FIRST PLAY, 110, 385. +_My good friend, for favours to my son and wife_, 382. +MY RELATIONS, 80, 373. + + +N + +Names of poets, Lamb on, 198. +Negroes, Lamb on, 71. +_New Monthly Magazine_, 342. +------ Lamb's contributions to, 212, 226, 286-309. +New River, the, and G.D., 237, 424. +NEW YEAR'S EVE, 31, 358. +Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 30, 87, 131, 197, 357, 393, 412. +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, 249, 428. +Newspaper stamps, 433. +Night-fears, Lamb on, 77. +_Nobleman, The Unfortunate Young_, 81. +Norris, Randal, 279, 416, 437. +North, Christopher (John Wilson), 371. +Novello, Vincent, 47, 363. +Nyren, John, 363. + + +O + +_Odes and Addresses_ quoted, 392. +OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG, 291, 440. +Ogilvie, his memories of G.D., 424. +OLD ACTORS, THE, 322, 444. +-- BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE, THE, 94, 379. +-- CHINA, 281, 438. +-- MARGATE HOY, THE, 201, 415. +OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER, THE, 56, 369. +"Olen," Sir C.A. Elton's pseudonym, 358. +_O melancholy Bird, a winter's day_, 427. +_One parent vet is left,--a wretched thing_, 382. +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, 150, 397. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN, 168, 400. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY, 161, 399. _See_ also + APPENDIX. +Orrery lectures, 60, 370. +OXFORD IN THE VACATION, 8, 345. +Oxford, Lamb at, 8, 345. + + +P + +Paice, Joseph, 92, 343, 378. +Palmer, John, 159, 399. +Paltock's _Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +Paracelsus, Lamb on, 196. +_Paradise Regained_, 107. +Patmore, P.G., on Lamb, 403. +---- Lamb's letter to, 436. +---- on Lamb's dress, 438. +Peirson, Peter, 101, 382. + Susannah, 99, 381. +Penn, William, and the judges, 73. +Perry, James, 250, 431. +_Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +"Peter's Net," 428, 431. +Pianoforte, Lamb's solo, 44. +Pig, Lamb's essay upon, 137, 395. +Piombo, his "Raising of Lazarus," 262, 435. +Piquet and Mrs. Battle, 41. +_Pity the sorrows of a poor old man_, 394. +Playgoing, the Lambs, 283. +Plumer, Richard, 7, 344. +-- Walter, 7, 40, 345, 362. +-- William, 344, 389, 405. +_Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions_ by John Lamb, 381. +Polar expeditions, 58, 369. +Poor, Lamb on the, 288, 298. +POOR RELATIONS, 178, 408. +Pope, Alexander, _The Rape of the Lock_, 38. +-- Miss, 167, 400. +POPULAR FALLACIES, 212, 226, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 292, 294, 296, 298, + 302, 305, 308, 309, 439 _et seq_. +Pork, Lamb's essay on, 137. +Porphyry on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, 396. +Poverty and pleasure, 282. +Powell, Mrs., 151. +PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS, THE, 124, 390. +Presentation copies, Lamb on, 297, 441. +Presents, Lamb on, 296. +Procter, B.W. (Barry Cornwall), his dream, 79, 373. +---- quoted, 371, 377. +---- on Munden, 400. +Puckeridge and Lamb's property, 112. +Pulham, Brook, 363. +Punning, Lamb on, 122, 292, 441. +Puritans and Sunday, 418. + + +Q + +Quadrille and Mrs. Battle, 38. +Quakerism and Lamb, 368. +QUAKER'S MEETING, A, 51, 367. +Quarrels, Lamb on, 309. +Quick, John, 332. +Quixote, Don, 154, 265, 398, 435. + + +R + +Ramsay, London Librarian, 49, 367. +Raphael, his "Bible," 257. +Raymond, George, his _Memoirs of Elliston_, 410. +Reade, John, 102, 383. +Reading, Lamb's essay upon, 195, 411. +Red stockings, and Lamb's jokes, 251, 429. +_Reflector, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 144. +---- Moxon's paper, 434. +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE, 266, 436. +Relations, poor, Lamb s essay on, 178, 408. +Restoration comedy, Lamb on, 160, 161. +Rickman, Mrs. John, Lamb's opinion of, 397. +Robinson, Crabb, quoted, 370. +---- Lamb's letters to, 374, 437. +---- on Lamb's books, 411. +Romano, Julio, 263. +Rover, in "Wild Oats," 188. +Roydon, Matthew, his elegy upon Sidney, 248, 428. +Rutter, Mr. J.A., his notes on Lamb, 343. + + +S + +St. Dunstan's giants, 192, 410. +Saloop, Lamb on, 125. +Salt, Samuel, 98, 352, 380. +Samuel and the Witch of Endor, 75, 372. +Sandwich, Lord, epigram on, 344. +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS, 212, 416. +Sargus, Mr. Lamb's tenant, 386. +"School for Scandal," Lamb on, 164. +School-days, Lamb on his, 14. +Schoolmasters, Lamb's essay on, 56, 369. +Scotchmen, Lamb on, 67, 371. +Scott, John, editor of the _London_, 340. +Sea, the, Lamb on, 204. +Sedition, Lamb's exercises in, 255. +Selden, John, 104, 384. +Sensitiveness, Lamb on, 181. +Sewel, William, historian of Quakers, 369. +Shaftesbury, Lord, 226, 420. +Shakespeare, Lamb on, 197, 412. +-- his bust at Stratford-on-Avon, 198, 413. +Sharp, Granville, 50, 367. +Shenstone, William, 243, 426. +Sheridan, R.B., 26, 111, 167, 356, 385, 400. +Siddons, Mrs., in "Isabella," 114, 388. +Sidney, Sir Philip, his sonnets, 242, 426. +Sitting up late, Lamb on, 308. +Smith, the Scotchman, 69, 370. + John Thomas, 394. +Smollett, Tobias George, 70, 371. +Smuggling, Lamb on, 207. +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 242, 426. +_So should it be, my gentle friend_, 426. +South Downs, Lamb on, 415. +SOUTH-SEA HOUSE, THE, 1, 342. +Southey at Westminster School, 235. +-- Robert, his criticism of _Elia_, 359. +-- Lamb's letters to, 384, 406, 419, 423, 436. +Spencer, Lord, epigram on, 344. +Spenser, Lamb's copy of the _Faerie Queene_, 413. +Stackhouse's _History of the Bible_, 75, 372. +STAGE ILLUSION, 185, 408. +Stanhope, Lord, 433. +Stocks, Lamb in the, 363. +_Stranger, to whom this monument is shown_, 413. +Stuart, Daniel, 250, 429. 430. +Suett, Dicky, 157, 399. +Sulkiness, its pleasures, 309. +Sun-dials in the Temple, 95. +SUPERANNUATED MAN, THE, 219, 417. +Superannuation, Lamb on, 219, 307. +Surface, Joseph and Charles, 166. +Swift's _Ars Punica_, 293, 441. + + +T + +Taylor, Bishop, on the sunrise, 309. +-- John, 337, 341, 358. +Teeth, Lamb's admiration of, 127. +Temple, The, and Lamb, 94, 113, 379, 387. +-- the winged horse, 97. +-- Sir William, 226, 420, +THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD, 286, 440. +-- A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST, 287, 440. +-- A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE, 309, 443. +-- ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST, 290, 440. +-- HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES, 294, 441. +-- HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY, 298, 442. +-- ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS, 287, 440. +-- SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC., 288, 440. +-- THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH, 288, 440. +-- THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST, 292, 440. +-- VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC., 292, 440. +-- WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. 296, 441. +-- WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAME, 308, 443. +-- WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK, 305, 443. +-- YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG, 302, 442. +_The chatt'ring Magpye undertook_, 437. +Thelwall, John, 376. +_They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke_, 359. +Thomson, James, 70. +_Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black_, 433. +Thurlow, Lord, his sonnet, 427. +Tipp, John, 5, 343. +Titian, his "Ariadne," 256, 434. +_To every one (so have ye faith) is given_, 426. +TO THE SHADE OK ELLISTON, 188, 409. +Tobin, James Webbe, 16, 352. +-- John, 199, 413. +TOMBS IN THE ABBEY, THE, 235, 423. +_Tristram Shandy_, a parallel to Lamb, 403. +Trollope, A.W., quoted, 351. +_Turkish Spy_ and Lamb's roast-pig essay, 395. +Turner, J.M.W., 258, 434. +"Twelfth Night," Lamb's remarks on, 150, 153, 284, 316. +Twelve Cæsars, 405, 406. +_Two Lords whose names if I should quote_, 344. +TWO RACES OF MEN, THE, 26, 355. +Twopenny, Richard, 102, 383. +-- post in 1825, 370. + + +U + +Ugliness, Lamb on, 295. +Unitarianism, 81, 373. + + +V + +VALENTINE'S DAY, 63, 370. +Vallans, his "Tale of Two Swans," 375. +Virgil, his Latin pun, 294, 441. +Visitors, Lamb on, 301, 442. + + +W + +Wainewright, T.G., 395, 439. +Ward, Robert, afterwards Plumer-Ward, 405. +Watering-places, Lamb on, 201, 415. +Weathercock, Janus. _See_ Wainewright. +WEDDING, THE, 271, 436. +-- an interrupted, 305. +Westminster Abbey, the price for admission, 235, 423. +Westwood, Thomas, on Lamb, 441. +_We were two pretty babes, the youngest she_, 360. +Wharry, John, 102, 383. +_What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor_, 424. +_What seem'd his tail the likeness of a kingly kick had on_, 409. +Whist, 37, 275, 361, 362, 437. +White, James, 123, 157, 390, 391. +---- and the chimney-sweepers, 128. +---- and Dodd, 157. +"Wild Oats," 188. +_Who first invented work--and bound the free_, 419. +Wilson, John. _See_ Christopher North. +Winstanley, Susan, and Joseph Paice, 92. +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS, 74, 372. +Woolman, John, 54, 369. +Wordsworth, Mrs., Lamb's letter to, 442. +-- William, his "Yarrow Visited," 89, 377. +---- Lamb's letters to, 356, 388, 412, 417, 418, 434. +---- his theory of language, 394. +---- his "Anecdote for Fathers," 395. +---- his "Poet's Epitaph," 438. +"Work," Lamb's sonnet on, 419. +Worthing and the Lambs, 415. +Wrench, Benjamin, 191, 410. +Wycherley, Lamb on, 162. + + +Y + +_Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers_, 346. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB, +VOLUME 2*** + + +******* This file should be named 10343-8.txt or 10343-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/4/10343 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10343-8.zip b/old/10343-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e9b308 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10343-8.zip diff --git a/old/10343.txt b/old/10343.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b83a854 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10343.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21290 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2, +by Charles Lamb, et al, Edited by E. V. Lucas + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 + +Author: Charles Lamb + +Release Date: November 30, 2003 [eBook #10343] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY +LAMB, VOLUME 2*** + + +E-text prepared by Keren Vergon, William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB, VOLUME 2 + +ELIA; and THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +BY + +CHARLES LAMB + +EDITED BY + +E.V. LUCAS + + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This volume contains the work by which Charles Lamb is best known and +upon which his fame will rest--_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_. +Although one essay is as early as 1811, and one is perhaps as late as +1832, the book represents the period between 1820 and 1826, when Lamb +was between forty-five and fifty-one. This was the richest period of +his literary life. + +The text of the present volume is that of the first edition of each +book--_Elia_, 1823, and _The Last Essays of Elia_, 1833. The principal +differences between the essays as they were printed in the _London +Magazine_ and elsewhere, and as they were revised for book form by +their author, are shown in the Notes, which, it should be pointed out, +are much fuller in my large edition. The three-part essay on "The Old +Actors" (_London Magazine_, February, April, and October, 1822), from +which Lamb prepared the three essays; "On Some of the Old Actors," +"The Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "The Acting of +Munden," is printed in the Appendix as it first appeared. The absence +of the "Confessions of a Drunkard" from this volume is due to the fact +that Lamb did not include it in the first edition of _The Last Essays +of Elia_. It was inserted later, in place of "A Death-Bed," on account +of objections that were raised to that essay by the family of +Randal Norris. The story is told in the notes to "A Death-Bed." The +"Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +In Mr. Bedford's design for the cover of this edition certain Elian +symbolism will be found. The upper coat of arms is that of Christ's +Hospital, where Lamb was at school; the lower is that of the Inner +Temple, where he was born and spent many years. The figures at the +bells are those which once stood out from the facade of St. Dunstan's +Church in Fleet Street, and are now in Lord Londesborough's garden in +Regent's Park. Lamb shed tears when they were removed. The tricksy +sprite and the candles (brought by Betty) need no explanatory words of +mine. + +E.V.L. + + + + +CONTENTS + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +The South-Sea House 1 342 +Oxford in the Vacation 8 345 +Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago 14 350 +The Two Races of Men 26 355 +New Year's Eve 31 358 +Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist 37 361 +A Chapter on Ears 43 363 +All Fools' Day 48 367 +A Quaker's Meeting 51 367 +The Old and the New Schoolmaster 56 369 +Valentine's Day 63 370 +Imperfect Sympathies 66 370 +Witches, and other Night-Fears 74 372 +My Relations 80 373 +Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 86 375 +Modern Gallantry 90 377 +The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 94 379 +Grace Before Meat 104 384 +My First Play 110 385 +Dream-Children; A Reverie 115 388 +Distant Correspondents 118 389 +The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 124 390 +A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis 130 392 +A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 137 395 +A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married + People 144 397 +On Some Old Actors 150 397 +On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century 161 399 +On the Acting of Munden 168 400 + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +Preface, by a Friend of the late Elia 171 402 +Blakesmoor in H----shire 174 405 +Poor Relations 178 408 +Stage Illusion 185 408 +To the Shade of Elliston 188 409 +Ellistoniana 190 410 +Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading 195 411 +The Old Margate Hoy 201 415 +The Convalescent 208 416 +Sanity of True Genius 212 416 +Captain Jackson 215 416 +The Superannuated Man 219 417 +The Genteel Style in Writing 226 420 +Barbara S---- 230 421 +The Tombs in the Abbey 235 423 +Amicus Redivivus 237 424 +Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney 242 426 +Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago 249 428 +Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the + Productions of Modern Art 256 433 +Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age 266 436 +The Wedding 271 436 +The Child Angel: a Dream 276 437 +A Death-Bed 279 437 +Old China 281 438 +Popular Fallacies-- + I. That a Bully is always a Coward 286 440 + II. That Ill-gotten Gain never Prospers 287 440 + III. That a Man must not Laugh at his own Jest 287 440 + IV. That such a One shows his Breeding.--That + it is Easy to Perceive he is no Gentleman 288 440 + V. That the Poor Copy the Vices of the Rich 288 440 + VI. That Enough is as Good as a Feast 290 440 + VII. Of Two Disputants, the Warmest is Generally + in the Wrong 291 440 + VIII. That Verbal Allusions are not Wit, because + they will not Bear a Translation 292 440 + IX. That the Worst Puns are the Best 292 440 + X. That Handsome is that Handsome does 294 441 + XI. That We must not look a Gift-horse in the + Mouth 296 441 + XII. That Home is Home though it is never so + Homely 298 442 + XIII. That You must Love Me, and Love my Dog 302 442 + XIV. That We should Rise with the Lark 305 443 + XV. That We should Lie Down with the Lamb 308 443 + XVI. That a Sulky Temper is a Misfortune 309 443 + + +APPENDIX + TEXT NOTE + PAGE PAGE + +On Some of the Old Actors (_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) 315 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, April, 1822) 322 444 +The Old Actors (_London Magazine_, October, 1822) 331 444 + + NOTES 337 + INDEX 447 + + +FRONTISPIECE + +ELIA + +From a Drawing by Daniel Maclise, now preserved in the Victoria and +Albert Museum. + + + + +ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition, 1823_) + +THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE + + +Reader, in thy passage from the Bank--where thou hast been receiving +thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant +like myself)--to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or +Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,--didst thou +never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, +to the left--where Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare +say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, +and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with +few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out--a desolation something +like Balclutha's.[1] + +This was once a house of trade,--a centre of busy interests. The +throng of merchants was here--the quick pulse of gain--and here some +forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since +fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos; imposing staircases; +offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces--deserted, or thinly +peopled with a few straggling clerks; the still more sacred interiors +of court and committee rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, +door-keepers--directors seated in form on solemn days (to proclaim a +dead dividend,) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, +with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting massy silver +inkstands long since dry;--the oaken wainscots hung with pictures +of deceased governors and sub-governors, of queen Anne, and the +two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty;--huge charts, which +subsequent discoveries have antiquated;--dusty maps of Mexico, dim as +dreams,--and soundings of the Bay of Panama!--The long passages hung +with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might +defy any, short of the last, conflagration;--with vast ranges of +cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, +an "unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart +withal,--long since dissipated, or scattered into air at the blast of +the breaking of that famous BUBBLE.-- + +Such is the SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. At least, such it was forty years ago, +when I knew it,--a magnificent relic! What alterations may have been +made in it since, I have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I +take for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the +face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stagnates +upon it. The moths, that were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers +and day-books, have rested from their depredations, but other light +generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their single +and double entries. Layers of dust have accumulated (a superfoetation +of dirt!) upon the old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save +by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the +mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed +curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous +HOAX, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with +the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition +of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy +contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. + +Peace to the manes of the BUBBLE! Silence and destitution are upon thy +walls, proud house, for a memorial! + +Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living +commerce,--amid the fret and fever of speculation--with the Bank, +and the 'Change, and the India-house about thee, in the hey-day of +present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting +thee, their _poor neighbour out of business_--to the idle and merely +contemplative,--to such as me, old house! there is a charm in thy +quiet:--a cessation--a coolness from business--an indolence almost +cloistral--which is delightful! With what reverence have I paced thy +great bare rooms and courts at eventide! They spoke of the past:--the +shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit +by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle +me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which +scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from +their enshrining shelves--with their old fantastic flourishes, and +decorative rubric interlacings--their sums in triple columniations, +set down with formal superfluity of cyphers--with pious sentences at +the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to +open a book of business, or bill of lading--the costly vellum covers +of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some _better +library_,--are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look +upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped +ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had every thing on a larger +scale than we have hearts for) are as good as any thing from +Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of our days have gone retrograde. + +The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House--I speak of +forty years back--had an air very different from those in the public +offices that I have had to do with since. They partook of the genius +of the place! + +They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit of superfluous +salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had not much to do) persons +of a curious and speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason +mentioned before. Humorists, for they were of all descriptions; and, +not having been brought together in early life (which has a tendency +to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other), but, +for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, they +necessarily carried into it their separate habits and oddities, +unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. Hence they +formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic +retainers in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet pleasant +fellows, full of chat--and not a few among them had arrived at +considerable proficiency on the German flute. + +The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-Briton. He had +something of the choleric complexion of his countrymen stamped on his +visage, but was a worthy sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to +the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember +to have seen in caricatures of what were termed, in my young days, +_Maccaronies_. He was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy +as a gib-cat over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him, +making up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if +he feared every one about him was a defaulter; in his hypochondry +ready to imagine himself one; haunted, at least, with the idea of +the possibility of his becoming one: his tristful visage clearing +up a little over his roast neck of veal at Anderton's at two (where +his picture still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire +of the master of the coffee-house, which he had frequented for the +last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the meridian of its +animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The +simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke +of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in the +families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. +Then was his _forte_, his glorified hour! How would he chirp, and +expand, over a muffin! How would he dilate into secret history! His +countryman, Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent +than he in relation to old and new London--the site of old theatres, +churches, streets gone to decay--where Rosamond's pond stood--the +Mulberry-gardens--and the Conduit in Cheap--with many a pleasant +anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures +which Hogarth has immortalized in his picture of _Noon_,--the worthy +descendants of those heroic confessors, who, flying to this country, +from the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and his dragoons, kept alive +the flame of pure religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog-lane, +and the vicinity of the Seven Dials! + +Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a +nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of +the passages leading to Westminster-hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle +bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed +to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the +applications of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you +felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, +you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance of +the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the +shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was +in its original state of white paper. A sucking babe might have posed +him. What was it then? Was he rich? Alas, no! Thomas Tame was very +poor. Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear +all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, +which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in +its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth +of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood,--much less can +explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day,--to the +illustrious, but unfortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the +secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought--the sentiment--the +bright solitary star of your lives,--ye mild and happy pair,--which +cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your +station! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead +of glittering attainments: and it was worth them altogether. You +insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a piece of defensive +armour only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. _Decus et +solamen._ + +Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither +pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the +matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, +and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without +his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, +with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream +and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in +Threadneedle-street, which, without any thing very substantial +appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself +that lived in them, (I know not who is the occupier of them now) +resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet breasts," +as our ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms and +orchestras--chorus singers--first and second violoncellos--double +basses--and clarionets--who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, +and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the +desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that +were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any +thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was +thought too refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in +writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in +the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the balance of last +year in the sum of 25_l._ 1_s._ 6_d._) occupied his days and nights +for a month previous. Not that Tipp was blind to the deadness of +_things_ (as they call them in the city) in his beloved house, or did +not sigh for a return of the old stirring days when South Sea hopes +were young--(he was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most +intricate accounts of the most flourishing company in these or those +days):--but to a genuine accountant the difference of proceeds is +as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his heart as the +thousands which stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether +his part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like intensity. +With Tipp form was every thing. His life was formal. His actions +seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. +He made the best executor in the world: he was plagued with incessant +executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his +vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at the little +orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp of +the dying hand, that commended their interests to his protection. With +all this there was about him a sort of timidity--(his few enemies used +to give it a worse name)--a something which, in reverence to the dead, +we will place, if you please, a little on this side of the heroic. +Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with a sufficient +measure of the principle of self-preservation. There is a cowardice +which we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in +its elements; it betrays itself, not you: it is mere temperament; the +absence of the romantic and the enterprising; it sees a lion in the +way, and will not, with Fortinbras, "greatly find quarrel in a straw," +when some supposed honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a +stage-coach in his life; or leaned against the rails of a balcony; or +walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or looked down a precipice; or let +off a gun; or went upon a water-party; or would willingly let you go +if he could have helped it: neither was it recorded of him, that for +lucre, or for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. + +Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in whom common +qualities become uncommon? Can I forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, +the polished man of letters, the _author_, of the South-Sea House? +who never enteredst thy office in a morning, or quittedst it in +mid-day--(what didst _thou_ in an office?)--without some quirk that +left a sting! Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive +but in two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue +from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee terse, +fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone by in these +fastidious days--thy topics are staled by the "new-born gauds" of the +time:--but great thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, +upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, +and Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great Britain +her rebellious colonies,--and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, +and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond,--and such small +politics.-- + +A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, was fine +rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended,--not in a right line, +reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favoured a +little of the sinister bend) from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So +tradition gave him out; and certain family features not a little +sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed +author) had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and +had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig +still living, who has represented the county in so many successive +parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter flourished +in George the Second's days, and was the same who was summoned before +the House of Commons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess +of Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave +came off cleverly in that business. It is certain our Plumer did +nothing to discountenance the rumour. He rather seemed pleased +whenever it was, with all gentleness, insinuated. But, besides +his family pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang +gloriously.-- + +Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-like, pastoral +M----; a flute's breathing less divinely whispering than thy Arcadian +melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song +sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind +more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly +M----, the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not +what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle offspring of +blustering winter:--only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have +been mild, conciliatory, swan-like.-- + +Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must +be mine in private:--already I have fooled the reader to the top of +his bent;--else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who +existed in trying the question, and _bought litigations_?--and still +stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might +have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a +pen--with what deliberation would he wet a wafer!-- + +But it is time to close--night's wheels are rattling fast over me--it +is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. + +Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this +while--peradventure the very _names_, which I have summoned up before +thee, are fantastic--insubstantial--like Henry Pimpernel, and old John +Naps of Greece:-- + +Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their +importance is from the past. + +[Footnote 1: I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were +desolate.--Ossian.] + + + + +OXFORD IN THE VACATION + + +Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article--as the +wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, +seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the _quis +sculpsit_ in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a +Vivares, or a Woollet--methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, _Who is +Elia?_ + +Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-forgotten +humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long +since gone to decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your +mind as one of the self-same college--a votary of the desk--a notched +and cropt scrivener--one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick +people are said to do, through a quill. + +Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is my +humour, my fancy--in the forepart of the day, when the mind of your +man of letters requires some relaxation--(and none better than such +as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies)--to +while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, +cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first +place ******* and then it sends you home with such increased appetite +to your books ***** not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste +wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally, +the impression of sonnets, epigrams, _essays_--so that the very +parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, the settings up of an +author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the morning among +the cart-rucks of figures and cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its +ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation.--It +feels its promotion. ***** So that you see, upon the whole, the +literary dignity of _Elia_ is very little, if at all, compromised in +the condescension. + +Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities incidental +to the life of a public office, I would be thought blind to certain +flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to pick in this Joseph's +vest. And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret +the abolition, and doing-away-with altogether, of those consolatory +interstices, and sprinklings of freedom, through the four +seasons,--the _red-letter days_, now become, to all intents and +purposes, _dead-letter days_. There was Paul, and Stephen, and +Barnabas-- + + Andrew and John, men famous in old times + +--we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as I was at +school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the same token, +in the old _Baskett_ Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy +posture--holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act of flaying, after the +famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti.--I honoured them all, and could almost +have wept the defalcation of Iscariot--so much did we love to keep +holy memories sacred:--only methought I a little grudged at the +coalition of the _better Jude_ with Simon-clubbing (as it were) their +sanctities together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them--as an +economy unworthy of the dispensation. + +These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life--"far +off their coming shone."--I was as good as an almanac in those days. +I could have told you such a saint's-day falls out next week, or the +week after. Peradventure the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, +would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better +than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom +of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of +these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. + +Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses +the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded--but I am wading out +of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and +ecclesiastical authority--I am plain Elia--no Selden, nor Archbishop +Usher--though at present in the thick of their books, here in the +heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. + +I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as +myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of +academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle +weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at +this time of the year, falls in so pat with _ours_. Here I can take +my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I +please. I seem admitted _ad eundem_. I fetch up past opportunities. +I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for _me_. In +moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock +vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I +proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike +that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and +bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely +mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which +favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can +be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. + +The walks at these times are so much one's own,--the tall trees of +Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open +doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some +Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) +whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and +to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at +the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the +immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; +ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which +have cooked for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but +is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a +Manciple. + +Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, +art every thing! When thou _wert_, thou wert not antiquity--then thou +wert nothing, but hadst a remoter _antiquity_, as thou called'st it, +to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself +flat, _jejune, modern_! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or +what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same +idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as +nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing! + +What were thy _dark ages_? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as +now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can +never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though +a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our +ancestors wandered to and fro groping! + +Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace +me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves-- + +What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the +souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these +Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. +I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. +I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking +amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings +is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew +amid the happy orchard. + +Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. +Those _variae lectiones_, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do +but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The +credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I +leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G.D.--whom, by the way, I +found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some +seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is +grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of +the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him +his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. + +D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No +inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is +consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's-inn--where, like a +dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, +amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, +apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm +and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not--the winds of +litigation blow over his humble chambers--the hard sheriffs officer +moves his hat as he passes--legal nor illegal discourtesy touches +him--none thinks of offering violence or injustice to him--you would +as soon "strike an abstract idea." + +D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, +in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two +Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, +relative to C----, by which he hopes to settle some disputed +points--particularly that long controversy between them as to +priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in +these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the +encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C----. Your caputs, +and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these +questions.--Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma +Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they +rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent--unreverend. They have +their good glebe lands _in manu_, and care not much to rake into the +title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is +not a man to complain. + +D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. _A priori_ +it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. +would have done the same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own +walks in Clifford's-inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking +short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the +midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other +morning at our friend _M.'s_ in Bedford-square; and, finding nobody at +home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with +great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book--which +ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of +the untimely or unfortunate visitor--and takes his leave with many +ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, +his walking destinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, +and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at _M.'s_--Mrs. +_M._ presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty _A.S._ at her +side--striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call +(forgetting that they were "certainly not to return from the country +before that day week") and disappointed a second time, inquires +for pen and paper as before: again the book is brought, and in the +line just above that in which he is about to print his second name +(his re-script)--his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him +like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his +own duplicate!--The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good +resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep +them too rigorously. + +For with G.D.--to be absent from the body, is sometimes (not to speak +it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, +personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition--or, +being stopped, starts like a thing surprised--at that moment, reader, +he is on Mount Tabor--or Parnassus--or co-sphered with Plato--or, with +Harrington, framing "immortal commonwealths"--devising some plan of +amelioration to thy country, or thy species--peradventure meditating +some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to _thee thyself_, +the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at +thy obtruded personal presence. + +D. is delightful any where, but he is at the best in such places as +these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, +at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better +than all the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and +good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he +goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you +have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. + +[Footnote 1: Januses of one face.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.] + + + + +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO + + +In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a +magnificent eulogy on my old school,[1] such as it was, or now appears +to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, +very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding +with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the +cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be +said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument +most ingeniously. + +I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some +peculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows had not. +His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the +privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through +some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy +sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He +had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon +our quarter of a penny loaf--our _crug_--moistened with attenuated +small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack +it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, +and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched +for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the +hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less +repugnant--(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week)--was +endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of +ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. +In lieu of our _half-pickled_ Sundays, or _quite fresh_ boiled beef +on Thursdays (strong as _caro equina_), with detestable marigolds +floating in the pail to poison the broth--our scanty mutton crags on +Fridays--and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same +flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which +excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal +proportion)--he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting +griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal +kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt! I +remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatting +down upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the +viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered +to the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. +There was love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the +manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who were too many to share +in 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 for +me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could +reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced +notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival +in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them +to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one after +another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred +playmates. + +O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The +yearnings 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, and +in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire! + +To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the +recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days of +summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting +memory of those _whole-day-leaves_, when, by some strange arrangement, +we were turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own hands, whether +we had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing-excursions +to 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 +for such water-pastimes:--How merrily we would sally forth into the +fields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton like +young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which +those of us that were pennyless (our scanty morning crust long since +exhausted) had not the means of allaying--while the cattle, and the +birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing to +satisfy our cravings--the very beauty of the day, and the exercise +of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon +them!--How faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards +nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that +the hours of our uneasy liberty had expired! + +It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets +objectless--shivering at cold windows of printshops, to extract a +little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little +novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual +faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own +charges) to the Lions in the Tower--to whose levee, by courtesy +immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. + +L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the +foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint +which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was +understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the +severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions +of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I +have been called out of my bed, and _waked for the purpose_, in the +coldest winter nights--and this not once, but night after night--in +my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven +other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has +been any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six +last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, +answerable for an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had the +power to hinder.--The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of +us from the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and, under +the cruelest penalties, forbad the indulgence of a drink of water, +when we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, and +the day's sports. + +There was one H----, who, I learned, in after days, was seen expiating +some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying +that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered--at Nevis, +I think, or St. Kits,--some few years since? My friend Tobin was the +benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero +actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red hot iron; and +nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, to the one +half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may +seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of +his) he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the +_ward_, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better +than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must +cry roast meat--happier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept +his own counsel--but, foolisher, alas! than any of his species in the +fables--waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky +minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; +and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as +(toppling down the walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any +longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, +to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent any +censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired +Perry. + +Under the same _facile_ administration, can L. have forgotten the cool +impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open +platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, +which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for +our dinners? These things were daily practised in that magnificent +apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so +highly for the grand paintings "by Verrio, and others," with which it +is "hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat +boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to +him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions +carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (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 +of fresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition. But +these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children +are universally fat-haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, +_unsalted_, are detestable. A _gag-eater_ in our time was equivalent +to a _goul_, and held in equal detestation.--suffered under the +imputation. + + --'Twas said + He ate strange flesh. + +He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants +left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may credit +me)--and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which +he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at +his bed-side. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he +privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces +of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported, that, on +leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue +check handkerchief, full of something. This then must be the accursed +thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose +of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally +prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play +with him. He was excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. +He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every +mode of that negative punishment, which is more grievous than many +stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his +school-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had +traced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out +building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery-lane, which are +let out to various scales of pauperism with open door, and a common +staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth +up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by +an 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 was +looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little +after my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all his +conduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to +sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers +or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents +of ----, an honest couple come to decay,--whom this seasonable supply +had, in all probability, saved from mendicancy; and that this young +stork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while been +only feeding the old birds!--The governors on this occasion, much +to their honour, voted a present relief to the family of ----, and +presented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read +upon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medal +to ----, I believe, would not be lost upon his auditory.--I had left +school then, but I well remember ----. He was a tall, shambling youth, +with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostile +prejudices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think +I heard he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by the +old folks. + +I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon the +day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted +to assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was of tender years, +barely turned of seven; and had only read of such things in books, or +seen them but in dreams. I was told he had _run away_. This was the +punishment for the first offence.--As a novice I was soon after taken +to see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where a +boy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket--a mattress, +I think, was afterwards substituted--with a peep of light, let in +askance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by. Here +the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of any +but the porter who brought him his bread and water--who _might not +speak to him_;--or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call him +out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, +because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude:--and here +he was shut up by himself of _nights_, out of the reach of any sound, +to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition incident +to his time of life, might subject him to.[2] This was the penalty for +the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of +him in the next degree? + +The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose +expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as +at some solemn _auto da fe_, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling +attire--all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he +was exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters +formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of +this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could +have anticipated. With his pale and frighted features, it was +as if some of those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon +him. In this disguisement he was brought into the hall (_L.'s +favourite state-room_), where awaited him the whole number of his +school-fellows, whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforth to +share no more; the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the +last time; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the +occasion; and of two faces more, of direr import, because never but +in these extremities visible. These were governors; two of whom, by +choice, or charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these +_Ultima Supplicia_; not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), +but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter +Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle +turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for +the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long +and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. +We were generally too faint with attending to the previous disgusting +circumstances, to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree +of corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out the +back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his +_San Benito_, to his friends, if he had any (but commonly such poor +runagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance +the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the +outside of the hall gate. + +These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil +the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and +recreation _after_ school hours; and, for myself, I must confess, +that I was never happier, than _in_ them. The Upper and the Lower +Grammar Schools were held in the same room; and an imaginary line only +divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the +inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrennees. The Rev. James Boyer +was the Upper Master; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that +portion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be a +member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just +what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence, or +a grammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take +two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in +forgetting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then +the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a +brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole +remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the +cane with no great good will--holding it "like a dancer." It looked +in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; +and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that +did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great +consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now +and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came, +it made no difference to us--he had his private room to retire to, the +short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth +and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden +to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among +us--Peter Wilkins--the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle--the +Fortunate Blue Coat Boy--and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for +mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; +or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called _cat-cradles_; or +making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the +art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a +hundred other such devices to pass away the time--mixing the useful +with the agreeable--as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John +Locke chuckle to have seen us. + +Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect +to mix in equal proportion the _gentleman_, the _scholar_, and the +_Christian_; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally +found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged +in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when +he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the +classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first +years of their education; and his very highest form seldom proceeded +further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phaedrus. How +things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the +proper person to have remedied these abuses, always affected, perhaps +felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. +I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether +displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. +We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, +with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and +then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat +and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering +their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that +enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our +little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and +the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders +rolled innocuous for us; his storms came near, but never touched us; +contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our +fleece was dry.[3] His boys turned out the better scholars; we, I +suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him +without something of terror allaying their gratitude; the remembrance +of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and +summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and +Elysian exemptions, and life itself a "playing holiday." + +Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were +near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. +We occasionally heard sounds of the _Ululantes_, and caught glances +of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was crampt to +barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those +periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[4]--He would +laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble +about _Rex_--or at the _tristis severitas in vultu_, or _inspicere in +patinas_, of Terence--thin jests, which at their first broaching could +hardly have had _vis_ enough to move a Roman muscle.--He had two wigs, +both pedantic, but of differing 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 to +the school, when he made his morning appearance in his _passy_, or +_passionate wig_. No comet expounded surer.--J.B. had a heavy hand. I +have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the +maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume +to set your wits at me?"--Nothing was more common than to see him make +a head-long entry into the school-room, from his inner recess, or +library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, "Od's +my life, Sirrah," (his favourite adjuration) "I have a great mind to +whip you,"--then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into +his lair--and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which +all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong +out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some +Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell--"_and I WILL, too._"--In +his gentler moods, when the _rabidus furor_ was assuaged, he had +resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to +himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at the same +time; a paragraph, and a lash between; which in those times, when +parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these +realms, was not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration +for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. + +Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual +from his hand--when droll squinting W---- having been caught putting +the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had +clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity +averred, that _he did not know that the thing had been forewarned_. +This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the _oral_ or +_declaratory_, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who +heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was +unavoidable. + +L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, +in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and ample +encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not to +compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot +dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of C.--when he +heard that his old master was on his death-bed--"Poor J.B.!--may all +his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub +boys, all head and wings, with no _bottoms_ to reproach his sublunary +infirmities." + +Under him were many good and sound scholars bred.--First Grecian of +my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and men, since +Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T----e. What +an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who +remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors!--You never met +the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly +dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. +Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each +other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced +age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long 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 in yours +at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the _Cicero De +Amicitia_, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart +even then was burning to anticipate!--Co-Grecian with S. was Th----, +who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at +the Northern courts. Th---- was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing +of speech, with raven locks.--Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him +(now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. 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 the _regni +novitas_ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility +quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly +fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a +reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers +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 Oxford Prize Poems; a +pale, studious Grecian.--Then followed poor S----, ill-fated M----! of +these the Muse is silent. + + Finding some of Edward's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy +fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar +not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician, +Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand +still, intranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion +between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear +thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of +Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not +pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, +or Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the +accents of the _inspired charity-boy_!--Many were the "wit-combats," +(to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller,) between him and C.V. +Le G----, "which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion, and an +English man of war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far +higher 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 all winds, by +the quickness of his wit and invention." + +Nor shall thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the +cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont +to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant +jest 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 _Nircus +formosus_ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou +didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by +provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by +thy angel-look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "_bl----_," for a +gentler greeting--"_bless thy handsome face_!" + +Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of +Elia--the junior Le G---- and F----; who impelled, the former by +a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect--ill +capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to +in our seats 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 Roman +height about him. + +Fine, frank-hearted Fr----, the present master of Hertford, with +Marmaduke T----, mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends +still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. + +[Footnote 1: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.] + +[Footnote 2: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, +accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of +this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits +was dispensed with.--This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout +of Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) +methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue.] + +[Footnote 3: Cowley.] + +[Footnote 4: In this and every thing B. was the antipodes of his +co-adjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, +worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the +more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, +under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the +chroniclers 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, in +a way of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was _too classical for +representation_.] + + + + +THE TWO RACES OF MEN + + +The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is +composed of two distinct races, _the men who borrow_, and _the men +who lend_. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those +impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, +black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and +Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with +one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superiority +of the former, which I choose to designate as the _great race_, +is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive +sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his +brethren." There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and +suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of +the other. + +Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all +ages--Alcibiades--Falstaff--Sir Richard Steele--our late incomparable +Brinsley--what a family likeness in all four! + +What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! what rosy gills! +what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest,--taking +no more thought than lilies! What contempt for money,--accounting +it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal +confounding of those pedantic distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_! +or rather what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke), +resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible +pronoun adjective!--What near approaches doth he make to the primitive +_community_,--to the extent of one half of the principle at least!-- + +He is the true taxer who "calleth all the world up to be taxed:" and +the distance is as vast between him and _one of us_, as subsisted +betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid +it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem!--His exactions, too, have such a +cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or +state-gatherers,--those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of +welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth +you with no receipt; confining himself to no set season. Every day is +his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the _lene +tormentum_ of a pleasant look to your purse,--which to that gentle +warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the +traveller, for which sun and wind contended! He is the true Propontic +which never ebbeth! The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's +hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with +destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained +to lend--that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the +reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the +penalties of Lazarus and of Dives!--but, when thou seest the proper +authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, +a handsome sacrifice! See how light _he_ makes of it! Strain not +courtesies with a noble enemy. + +Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death +of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed this life on +Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, without much trouble. He +boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who +heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and +sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in +life he found himself invested with ample revenues; which, with that +noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the +_great race_, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate +and bring to nothing: for there is something revolting in the idea of +a king holding a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all +regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of disfurnishment; getting rid +of the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) + + To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, + Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, + +he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, +"borrowing and to borrow!" + +In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it +has been calculated that he laid a tythe part of the inhabitants under +contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated:--but +having had the honour of accompanying my friend, divers times, in his +perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at +first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort +of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to +explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; feeders +of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to +express himself), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a +loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took +a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be +"stocked with so fair a herd." + +With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his +treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had +often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." +So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away +(for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he +threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him--as +boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious,--into ponds, or +ditches, or deep holes,--inscrutable cavities of the earth;--or he +would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's +side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no +interest--but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's +offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed +it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies +became necessary, the first stranger, was sure to contribute to the +deficiency. For Bigod had an _undeniable_ way with him. He had a +cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just +touched with grey (_cana fides_). He anticipated no excuse, and found +none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the _great race_, I +would put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times have +disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the +kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than +to say _no_ to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, +by his mumping visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better; +and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in +reality so much less shock in the refusal. + +When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his swell of +feeling; how magnificent, how _ideal_ he was; how great at the +midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I +have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and +think that I am fallen into the society of _lenders_, and _little +men_. + +To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers +than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more +formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your _borrowers +of books_--those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry +of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, +matchless in his depredations! + +That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth +knocked out--(you are now with me in my little back study in +Bloomsbury, reader!)--with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side +(like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of +nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, _Opera Bonaventurae_, +choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school +divinity also, but of a lesser calibre,--Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), +showed but as dwarfs,--itself an Ascapart!--_that_ Comberbatch +abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I +confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that "the title +to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for instance), is in exact +ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the +same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves +is safe? + +The slight vacuum in the left-hand case--two shelves from the +ceiling--scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser--was +whilom the commodious resting-place of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will +hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who +introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to +discover its beauties--but so have I known a foolish lover to praise +his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her +off than himself.--Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth +volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as +distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates _borrowed_ Hector. +Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state.--There loitered +the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side.--In yonder +nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," I mourns his +ravished mate. + +One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, +sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as +rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of +this nature (my friend's gathering's in his various calls), picked +up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little +memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These +proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they +stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as +little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am.--I charge +no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the +ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. + +To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are +sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give +no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, +spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of +tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely +woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?--knowing at the time, +and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn +over one leaf of the illustrious folio:--what but the mere spirit +of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy +friend?--Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the +Gallican land-- + + Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, + A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, + Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder! + +--hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, +about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies +with thy quips and mirthful tales?--Child of the Green-room, it was +unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part +Englishwoman!--that _she_ could fix upon no other treatise to bear +away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke +Greville, Lord Brook--of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, +Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a +tittle! _Was there not Zimmerman on Solitude?_ + +Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, be shy +of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy +books; but let it be to such a one as S.T.C.--he will return them +(generally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with +annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are +these precious MSS. of his--(in _matter_ oftentimes, and almost in +_quantity_ not unfrequently, vying with the originals)--in no very +clerkly hand--legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas +Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! +wandering in Pagan lands.--I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy +library, against S.T.C. + + + + +NEW YEAR'S EVE + + +Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, +which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his +mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he +termeth _his_. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this +custom of solemnizing our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or +is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor +understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of +a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or +cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. +It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is +left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. + +Of all sounds of all bells--(bells, the music nighest bordering upon +heaven)--most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the +Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of my mind to a +concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past +twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected--in +that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person +dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a +contemporary, when he exclaimed + + I saw the skirts of the departing Year. + +It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be +conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am sure I felt it, and all +felt it with me, last night; though some of my companions affected +rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, +than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I +am none of those who-- + + Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. + +I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, +new years,--from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to +face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine +only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into +foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past +disappointments. I am armour-proof against old discouragements. I +forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again _for +love_, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so +dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and +events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the +incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I +should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall +to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W----n, than that so +passionate a love-adventure should be lost. It was better that our +family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us +of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds _in +banco_, and be without the idea of that specious old rogue. + +In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look back upon +those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping +over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love +_himself_, without the imputation of self-love? + +If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is introspective--and +mine is painfully so--can have a less respect for his present +identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know him to be light, and +vain, and humorsome; a notorious ***; addicted to ****: averse +from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it;--*** besides; +a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it on, and spare not; I +subscribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst be willing to lay +at his door--but for the child Elia--that "other me," there, in the +back-ground--I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that +young master--with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid +changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of some other +house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient small-pox at +five, and rougher medicaments I can lay its poor fevered head upon the +sick pillow at Christ's and wake with it in surprise at the gentle +posture of maternal tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had +watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least colour +of falsehood.--God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed! Thou art +sophisticated.--I know how honest, how courageous (for a weakling) it +was--how religious, how imaginative, how hopeful! From what have I +not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself--and not some +dissembling guardian presenting a false identity, to give the rule to +my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being! + +That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in such +retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or +is it owing to another cause; simply, that being without wife or +family, I have not learned to project myself enough out of myself; +and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon +memory and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favourite? If +these speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader--(a busy man, +perchance), if I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am +singularly-conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under +the phantom cloud of Elia. + +The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely +to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the +ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of +peculiar ceremony.--In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, +though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to +bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce +conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that +concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, +never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, +if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but +he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can +appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now, +shall I confess a truth?--I feel these audits but too powerfully. I +begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the +expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. +In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count +upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon +the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away "like a +weaver's shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the +unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the +tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the +inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the +face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the +sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am +content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my +friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to +be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the +grave.--Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, +puzzles and discomposes me. My household-gods plant a terrible fixed +foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek +Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun, and sky, and +breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of +fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and +the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and +innocent vanities, and jests, and _irony itself_--do these things go +out with life? + +Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant +with him? + +And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios! must I part with the intense +delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge +come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of +intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading? + +Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which +point me to them here,--the recognisable face--the "sweet assurance of +a look"--? + +In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying--to give it its +mildest name--does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial +August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. +At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. +Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant +again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips +and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to +the insubstantial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, +dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral +appearances,--that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus' sickly sister, +like that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles:--I am none of +her minions--I hold with the Persian. + +Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into +my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital +plague-sore.--I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such +hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of +the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a +pillow. Some have wooed death--but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, +ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give +thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused +or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, +proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest +thee, thou thin, melancholy _Privation_, or more frightful and +confounding _Positive!_' + +Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether +frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, +that he shall "lie down with kings and emperors in death," who in his +life-time never greatly coveted the society of such bed-fellows?--or, +forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear?"--why, to comfort +me, must Alice W----n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust +at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon +your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be +lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must +shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In +the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. +Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly +candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine--and while that turn-coat +bell, that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, +with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us attune to +its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. +Cotton.-- + +THE NEW YEAR + + Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star + Tells us, the day himself's not far; + And see where, breaking from the night, + He gilds the western hills with light. + With him old Janus doth appear, + Peeping into the future year, + With such a look as seems to say, + The prospect is not good that way. + Thus do we rise ill sights to see, + And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; + When the prophetic fear of things + A more tormenting mischief brings, + More full of soul-tormenting gall, + Than direst mischiefs can befall. + But stay! but stay! methinks my sight, + Better inform'd by clearer light, + Discerns sereneness in that brow, + That all contracted seem'd but now. + His revers'd face may show distaste, + And frown upon the ills are past; + But that which this way looks is clear, + And smiles upon the New-born Year. + He looks too from a place so high, + The Year lies open to his eye; + And all the moments open are + To the exact discoverer. + Yet more and more he smiles upon + The happy revolution. + Why should we then suspect or fear + The influences of a year, + So smiles upon us the first morn, + And speaks us good so soon as born? + Plague on't! the last was ill enough, + This cannot but make better proof; + Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through + The last, why so we may this too; + And then the next in reason shou'd + Be superexcellently good: + For the worst ills (we daily see) + Have no more perpetuity, + Than the best fortunes that do fall; + Which also bring us wherewithal + Longer their being to support, + Than those do of the other sort: + And who has one good year in three, + And yet repines at destiny, + Appears ungrateful in the case, + And merits not the good he has. + Then let us welcome the New Guest + With lusty brimmers of the best; + Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, + And renders e'en Disaster sweet: + And though the Princess turn her back, + Let us but line ourselves with sack, + We better shall by far hold out, + Till the next Year she face about. + +How say you, reader--do not these verses smack of the rough +magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not fortify like a +cordial; enlarging the heart, and productive of sweet blood, and +generous spirits, in the concoction? Where be those puling fears of +death, just now expressed or affected?--Passed like a cloud--absorbed +in the purging sunlight of clear poetry--clean washed away by a wave +of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries--And now +another cup of the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of them, +to you all, my masters! + + + + +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST + + +"A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game." This was +the celebrated _wish_ of old Sarah Battle (now with God) who, next +to her devotions, loved a good game at whist. She was none of your +lukewarm gamesters, your half and half players, who have no objection +to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that +they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game, +and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at +a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will +desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and +play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. +One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said, +that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. + +Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from +her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, +willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a +thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, +no concessions. She hated favours. She never made a revoke, nor +ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost +forfeiture. She fought a good fight: cut and thrust. She held not her +good sword (her cards) "like a dancer." She sate bolt upright; and +neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people +have their blind side--their superstitions; and I have heard her +declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. + +I never in my life--and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of +it--saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play; or +snuff a candle in the middle of a game; or ring for a servant, till it +was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous +conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, +cards were cards: and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine +last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a +literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; +and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that he thought there was +no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, +in recreations of that kind! She could not bear to have her noble +occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that +light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the +world to do,--and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards--over a +book. + +Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock her favourite +work. She once did me the favour to play over with me (with the cards) +his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem; and to explain to me how +far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ +from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant; and I +had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles: but +I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his ingenious notes +upon that author. + +Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love; but whist +had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy +and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty +and quick shifting of partners--a thing which the constancy of +whist abhors;--the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of +Spadille--absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of +whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his +brother-nobility of the Aces;--the giddy vanity, so taking to the +inexperienced, of playing alone:--above all, the overpowering +attractions of a _Sans Prendre Vole_,--to the triumph of which there +is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of +whist;--all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation +to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the _solider_ game: +that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast +of snatches. One or two rubbers might coextend in duration with an +evening. They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate +steady enmities. She despised the chance-started, capricious, and ever +fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she +would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the +little Italian states, depicted by Machiavel; perpetually changing +postures and connexions; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings +to-morrow; kissing and scratching in a breath;--but the wars of +whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational, +antipathies of the great French and English nations. + +A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. +There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage--nothing +superfluous. No _flushes_--that most irrational of all pleas that +a reasonable being can set up:--that any one should claim four by +virtue of holding cards of the same mark and colour, without reference +to the playing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions +of the cards themselves! She held this to be a solecism; as pitiful +an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised +superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of things.--Suits +were soldiers, she would say, and must have a uniformity of array to +distinguish them: but what should we say to a foolish squire, who +should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, +that never were to be marshalled--never to take the field?--She even +wished that whist were more simple than it is; and, in my mind, would +have stript it of some appendages, which, in the state of human +frailty, may be venially, and even commendably allowed of. She saw no +reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not +one suit always trumps?--Why two colours, when the mark of the suits +would have sufficiently distinguished them without it?-- + +"But the eye, my dear Madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. +Man is not a creature of pure reason he must have his senses +delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where +the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker +spirit of unsensualizing would have kept out.--You, yourself, have a +pretty collection of paintings--but confess to me, whether, walking +in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among the +Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with +an elegant delight, at all comparable to _that_ you have it in your +power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment +of the court cards?--the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a +procession--the gay triumph-assuring scarlets--the contrasting +deadly-killing sables--the 'hoary majesty of spades'--Pam in all his +glory!-- + +"All these might be dispensed with; and, with their naked names upon +the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very well, picture-less. +But the _beauty_ of cards would be extinguished for ever. Stripped +of all that is imaginative in them, they must degenerate into mere +gambling.--Imagine a dull deal board, or drum head, to spread them on, +instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena +for those courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys +in!--Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers--(work of Chinese +artist, unconscious of their symbol,--or as profanely slighting their +true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out +those little shrines for the goddess)--exchange them for little bits +of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate!"-- + +The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; +and to her approbation of my arguments on her favourite topic that +evening, I have always fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a +curious cribbage board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her +maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) +brought with him from Florence:--this, and a trifle of five hundred +pounds, came to me at her death. + +The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with +religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never +greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have +heard her say,--disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to +it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "_go_"--or +"_that's a go_." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging +teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar stake), +because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would +have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful +tenure of declaring "_two for his heels_." There is something +extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a +gentlewoman born. + +Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she +would ridicule the pedantry of the terms--such as pique--repique--the +capot--they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, +or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, +or square. She would argue thus:--Cards are warfare: the ends are +gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport: when +single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. +By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not +much bettered. No looker on can be interested, except for a bet, +and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck +_sympathetically_, or for your play.--Three are still worse; a mere +naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without +league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory +interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty +infractions of them, as in tradrille.--But in square games (_she +meant whist_) all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is +accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common +to every species--though the _latter_ can be but very imperfectly +enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a +participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals +too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not +wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist +abhors neutrality, or interest beyond its sphere. You glory in some +surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold--or even +an interested--by-stander witnesses it, but because your _partner_ +sympathises in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for +two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their +disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) +your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one +in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying +the channels. War becomes a civil game.--By such reasonings as these +the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime. + +No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where +chance entered into the composition, _for nothing_. Chance, she would +argue--and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion!--chance +is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious, +that cannot be _glory_. What rational cause of exultation could it +give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? +or before spectators, where no stake was depending?--Make a lottery +of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number--and what +possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it +gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a +prize?--Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, +where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and +those people idots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such +circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played +for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for +glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit,--his memory, or +combination-faculty rather--against another's; like a mock-engagement +at a review, bloodless and profitless.--She could not conceive a +_game_ wanting the spritely infusion of chance,--the handsome excuses +of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, +whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with +insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, +and Knights, the _imagery_ of the board, she would argue, (and I think +in this case justly) were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard +head-contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form +and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper +arena for such combatants. + +To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, +she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always +trying to get the better in something or other:--that this passion can +scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards +are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but _play_ +at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, +yet, during the illusion, we _are_ as mightily concerned as those +whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting; +much ado; great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for +disproportioned ends; quite as diverting, and a great deal more +innoxious, than many of those more serious _games_ of life, which men +play, without esteeming them to be such.-- + +With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these matters, I +think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at +cards _for nothing_ has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or +not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a +game at piquet _for love_ with my cousin Bridget--Bridget Elia. + +I grant there is something sneaking in it; but with a toothache, or a +sprained ancle,--when you are subdued and humble,--you are glad to put +up with an inferior spring of action. + +There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as _sick whist_.-- + +I grant it is not the highest style of man--I deprecate the manes of +Sarah Battle--she lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise.-- + +At such times, those _terms_ which my old friend objected to, come in +as something admissible.--I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though +they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows +of winning amuse me. + +That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her)--(dare I +tell thee, how foolish I am?)--I wished it might have lasted for ever, +though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade +of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The +pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive +to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over: +and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. +Bridget and I should be ever playing. + + + + +A CHAPTER ON EARS + + +I have no ear.-- + +Mistake me not, reader,--nor imagine that I am by nature destitute +of those exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and +(architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human capital. +Better my mother had never borne me.--I am, I think, rather delicately +than copiously provided with those conduits; and I feel no disposition +to envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, +in those ingenious labyrinthine inlets--those indispensable +side-intelligencers. + +Neither have I incurred, or done any thing to incur, with Defoe, +that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to draw upon +assurance--to feel "quite unabashed," and at ease upon that article. +I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them +aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I ever should be. + +When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will understand me +to mean--_for music_.--To say that this heart never melted at the +concourse of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel.--"_Water +parted from the sea_" never fails to move it strangely. So does "_In +Infancy_." But they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the +old-fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman--the +gentlest, sure, that ever merited the appellation--the sweetest--why +should I hesitate to name Mrs. S----, once the blooming Fanny +Weatheral of the Temple--who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, +small imp as he was, even in his long coats; and to make him glow, +tremble, and blush with a passion, that not faintly indicated the +day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, which was afterwards destined +to overwhelm and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W----n. + +I even think that _sentimentally_ I am disposed to harmony. But +_organically_ I am incapable of a tune. I have been practising "_God +save the King_" all my life; whistling and humming of it over to +myself in solitary corners; and am not yet arrived, they tell me, +within many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been +impeached. + +I am not without suspicion, that I have an undeveloped faculty of +music within me. For, thrumming, in my wild way, on my friend A.'s +piano, the other morning, while he was engaged in an adjoining +parlour,--on his return he was pleased to say, "_he thought it could +not be the maid_!" On his first surprise at hearing the keys touched +in somewhat an airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his +suspicions had lighted on _Jenny_. But a grace, snatched from a +superior refinement, soon convinced him that some being,--technically +perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle common to all +the fine arts,--had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all +her (less-cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. +I mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any +view of disparaging Jenny. + +Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet have I taken +some pains) what a note in music is; or how one note should differ +from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a +tenor. Only sometimes the thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from +its being supereminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, +for my misapplication of the simplest terms of _that_ which I +disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to _say_ I +am ignorant of I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. _Sostenuto_ and _adagio_ +stand in the like relation of obscurity to me; and _Sol_, _Fa_, _Mi_, +_Re_, is as conjuring as _Baralipton_. + +It is hard to stand alone--in an age like this,--(constituted to the +quick and critical perception of all harmonious combinations, I verily +believe, beyond all preceding ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the +gamut)--to remain, as it were, singly unimpressible to the magic +influences of an art, which is said to have such an especial stroke at +soothing, elevating, and refining the passions.--Yet rather than break +the candid current of my confessions, I must avow to you, that I have +received a great deal more pain than pleasure from this so cried-up +faculty. + +I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's hammer, in +a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But +those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of +music. The ear is passive to those single strokes; willingly enduring +stripes, while it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. +It will strive--mine at least will--'spite of its inaptitude, to thrid +the maze; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hieroglyphics. +I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and +inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of +the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was not +obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, +fruitless, barren attention! I take refuge in the unpretending +assemblage of honest common-life sounds;--and the purgatory of the +Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. + +I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the purposes of the +cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the auditory in the pit +(what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience!) immoveable, or +affecting some faint emotion,--till (as some have said, that our +occupations in the next world will be but a shadow of what delighted +us in this) I have imagined myself in some cold Theatre in Hades, +where some of the _forms_ of the earthly one should be kept up, with +none of the _enjoyment_; or like that-- + + --Party in a parlour, + All silent, and all DAMNED! + +Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, as +they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension.--Words are +something; but to be exposed to an endless battery of mere sounds; to +be long a dying, to lie stretched upon a rack of roses; to keep up +languor by unintermitted effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar +upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound +with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty +frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a +book, _all stops_, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to +invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an +inexplicable rambling mime--these are faint shadows of what I have +undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this empty +_instrumental music_. + +I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experienced +something vastly lulling and agreeable:--afterwards followeth the +languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos; +or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth +music make her first insinuating approaches:--"Most pleasant it is +to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary +grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate +upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him +most, _amabilis insania_, and _mentis gratissimus error_. A most +incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to +themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, +and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done.--So delightsome +these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without +sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical +meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn +from them--winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and +still pleasing their humours, until at last the SCENE TURNS UPON A +SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary +places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but harsh and +distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, _subrusticus pudor_, +discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden, +and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner +are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on +them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to +their minds; which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions they +can avoid, they cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist." + +Something like this "SCENE-TURNING" I have experienced at the evening +parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend _Nov----_; who, by +the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players, +converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, +and these latter into minor heavens.[1] + +When my friend commences upon one of those solemn anthems, which +peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the side +aisles of the dim abbey, some five and thirty years since, waking +a new sense, and putting a soul of old religion into my young +apprehension--(whether it be _that_, in which the psalmist, weary of +the persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings--or _that +other_, which, with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth +by what means the young man shall best cleanse his mind)--a holy calm +pervadeth me.--I am for the time + + --rapt above earth, + And possess joys not promised at my birth. + +But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid a soul +prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss than lies in +her capacity to receive,--impatient to overcome her "earthly" with his +"heavenly,"--still pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and +fresh from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted _German_ ocean, +above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those +Arions _Haydn_ and _Mozart_, with their attendant tritons, _Bach_, +_Beethoven_, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up +would but plunge me again in the deeps,--I stagger under the weight +of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end;--clouds, as of +frankincense, oppress me--priests, altars, censers, dazzle before +me--the genius of _his_ religion hath me in her toils--a shadowy +triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so +ingenuous he is Pope, and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of +dreams, a she-Pope too,--tri-coroneted like himself!--I am converted, +and yet a Protestant;--at once _malleus hereticorum_, and myself grand +heresiarch: or three heresies centre in my person:--I am Marcion, +Ebion, and Cerinthus--Gog and Magog--what not?--till the coming in of +the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a draught of true +Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at +once reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith; and restores +to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced +host and hostess. + +[Footnote 1: + I have been there, and still would go; + 'Tis like a little heaven below.--_Dr. Watts_.] + + + + +ALL FOOLS' DAY + + +The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first +of 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 know +one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch +of _that same_--you understand me--a speck of the motley. Beshrew +the man who on such a day as this, the _general festival_, should +affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the +corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest +to-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 your +pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at +the 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 of +Amiens--_duc ad me_--_duc ad me_--how goes it? + + Here shall he see + Gross fools as he. + +Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who +was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in +a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much +difficulty 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 what +tune 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 a +salamander-gathering down AEtna. Worse than samphire-picking by some +odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios. + +Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the +bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the +disinterested sect of the Calenturists. + +Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring +in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at +my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if +I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or +thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you +must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the +low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by +a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on +Fish-street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat. + +What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?--cry, baby, put its finger +in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty +moppet! + +Mister Adams--'odso, I honour your coat--pray do us the favour to read +to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop--the twenty and +second in your portmanteau there--on Female Incontinence--the same--it +will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the +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. Remove +those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins +of his apprehension stumbling across them. + +Master Stephen, you are late.--Ha! Cokes, is it you?--Aguecheek, +my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.--Master Shallow, your +worship's poor servant to command.--Master Silence, I will use few +words with you.--Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in +somewhere.--You six will engross all the poor wit of the company +to-day.--I know it, I know it. + +Ha! honest R----, my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, +art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare +as thy stories:--what dost thou flitting about the world at this +rate?--Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to +read long ago.--Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, +thou canst hawk a volume or two.--Good Granville S----, thy last +patron, is flown. + + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapt in lead.-- + +Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between +Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic +smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly +ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise +sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of +Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy +singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy +with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I +forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now +to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if +Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands +of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have +given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied +and 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 +is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to +thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and +kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived +not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not +guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards +that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I +entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the +hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; +and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my +apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors--I +felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five +thoughtless virgins.--I have never made an acquaintance since, that +lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some +tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest +obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall +commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will +not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable +hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season +ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool +told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of +folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his +composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or +fish,--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh +thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such +whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the +kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, +minions of the goddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my +words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are +the _April Fool_. + +A QUAKER'S MEETING + + Still-born Silence! thou that art + Flood-gate of the deeper heart! + Offspring of a heavenly kind! + Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind! + Secrecy's confident, and he + Who makes religion mystery! + Admiration's speaking'st tongue! + Leave, thy desert shades among, + Reverend hermits' hallowed cells, + Where retired devotion dwells! + With thy enthusiasms come, + Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb![1] + +Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st +thou find a refuge from the noises and clamours of the multitude; +would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou +possess the depth of thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut +out from the consolatory faces of thy species; would'st thou be alone, +and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not +without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit in aggregate; a +simple in composite:--come with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made?" go +not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the +earth; shut not up thy casements; nor pour wax into the little cells +of thy ears, with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses.--Retire +with me into a Quaker's Meeting. + +For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it +is commendable; but for a multitude, it is great mastery. + +What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what +the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the goddess reigns and +revels.--"Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their +inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the +blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds--than their opposite (Silence +her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, +and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. +Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would +seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight. + +There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By +imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect +is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so +absolutely as in a Quaker's Meeting.--Those first hermits did +certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian +solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of +conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing +spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant +as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a friend +sitting by--say, a wife--he, or she, too, (if that be probable), +reading another, without interruption, or oral communication?--can +there be no sympathy without the gabble of words?--away with this +inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, +Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude. + +To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some cathedral, +time-stricken; + + Or under hanging mountains, + Or by the fall of fountains; + +is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those enjoy, who come +together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. This +is the loneliness "to be felt."--The Abbey Church of Westminster hath +nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches +of a Quaker's Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, + + --sands, ignoble things, + Dropt from the ruined sides of kings-- + +but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into +the fore-ground--SILENCE--eldest of things--language of old +Night--primitive Discourser--to which the insolent decays of +mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, +unnatural progression. + + How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, + Looking tranquillity! + +Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation +without intrigue! parliament without debate! what a lesson dost +thou read to council, and to consistory!--if my pen treat of you +lightly--as haply it will wander--yet my spirit hath gravely felt the +wisdom of your custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which +some out-welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have +reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed +by Fox and Dewesbury.--I have witnessed that, which brought before +my eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the rude jests and +serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, +sent to molest you--for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, +the out-cast and off-scowering of church and presbytery.--I have seen +the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle, with +the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of +the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye +as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, and +Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells +us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead men under his feet." + +Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend to you, +above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers. +It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals of Fox, and the +primitive Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than any +thing you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to +stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, +no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here +read the true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps +hath been a by-word in your mouth,)--James Naylor: what dreadful +sufferings, with what patience, he endured even to the boring through +of his tongue with red-hot irons without a murmur; and with what +strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which they +stigmatised for blasphemy, had given way to clearer thoughts, he could +renounce his error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet +keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker still!--so different from +the practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they +apostatize, _apostatize all_, and think they can never get far enough +from the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of +some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not implicated. + +Get the Writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers. + +How far the followers of these good men in our days have kept to +the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have substituted +formality for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone determine. I have +seen faces in their assemblies, upon which the dove sate visibly +brooding. Others again I have watched, when my thoughts should have +been better engaged, in which I could possibly detect nothing but a +blank inanity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition to unanimity, +and the absence of the fierce controversial workings.--If the +spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they make +few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, in their preaching. +It is seldom indeed that you shall see one get up amongst them to hold +forth. Only now and then a trembling, female, generally _ancient_, +voice is heard--you cannot guess from what part of the meeting it +proceeds--with a low, buzzing, musical sound, laying out a few words +which "she thought might suit the condition of some present," with a +quaking diffidence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that any +thing of female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full of +tenderness, and a restraining modesty.--The men, for what I observed, +speak seldomer. + +Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a sample of the +old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant stature, who, as Wordsworth +phrases it, might have danced "from head to foot equipt in iron mail." +His frame was of iron too. But _he_ was malleable. I saw him shake +all over with the spirit--I dare not say, of delusion. The strivings +of the outer man were unutterable--he seemed not to speak, but to +be spoken from. I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees to +fail--his joints all seemed loosening--it was a figure to set off +against Paul Preaching--the words he uttered were few, and sound--he +was evidently resisting his will--keeping down his own word-wisdom +with more mighty effort, than the world's orators strain for theirs. +"He had been a WIT in his youth," he told us, with expressions of a +sober remorse. And it was not till long after the impression had begun +to wear away, that I was enabled, with something like a smile, to +recall the striking incongruity of the confession--understanding the +term in its worldly acceptation--with the frame and physiognomy of the +person before me. His brow would have scared away the Levities--the +Jocos Risus-que--faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at +Enna.--By _wit_, even in his youth, I will be sworn he understood +something far within the limits of an allowable liberty. + +More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a word having been +spoken. But the mind has been fed. You go away with a sermon, not made +with hands. You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; or as +in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, +the TONGUE, that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and +captive. You have bathed with stillness.--O when the spirit is sore +fretted, even tired to sickness of the janglings, and nonsense-noises +of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to go and seat yourself, +for a quiet half hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among +the gentle Quakers! + +Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uniformity, tranquil +and herd-like--as in the pasture--"forty feeding like one."-- + +The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of receiving a soil; +and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence of its +contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands +to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the +metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like +troops of the Shining Ones. + +[Footnote 1: From "Poems of all sorts," by Richard Fleckno, 1653.] + + + + +THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER + + +My reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. Odd, out of +the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most +of my notions, and ways of feeling. In every thing that relates to +_science_, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. +I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country +gentlemen, in king John's days. I know less geography than a +school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as +authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into +Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divisions; +nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South +Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a +very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terrae Incognitae. +I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or +Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of them at +sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness--and if the sun on +some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the West, I +verily believe, that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension +about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity +and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some +vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of +miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, +even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four +great monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, +floats as _first_ in my fancy. I make the widest conjectures +concerning Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My friend _M._, with great +painstaking, got me to think I understood the first proposition in +Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the second. I am entirely +unacquainted with the modern languages; and, like a better man than +myself, have "small Latin and less Greek." I am a stranger to the +shapes and texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers--not from +the circumstance of my being town-born--for I should have brought the +same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen it +in "on Devon's leafy shores,"--and am no less at a loss among purely +town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes.--Not that I affect +ignorance--but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have +been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold +without aching. I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation +with so little discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre +a stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little +knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company; every body is so +much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your +acquisitions. But in a _tete-a-tete_ there is no shuffling. The truth +will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left +alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, +that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.-- + +In one of my daily jaunts between Bishopsgate and Shacklewell, the +coach stopped to take up a staid-looking gentleman, about the wrong +side of thirty, who was giving his parting directions (while the +steps were adjusting), in a tone of mild authority, to a tall youth, +who seemed to be neither his clerk, his son, nor his servant, but +something partaking of all three. The youth was dismissed, and +we drove on. As we were the sole passengers, he naturally enough +addressed his conversation to me; and we discussed the merits of the +fare, the civility and punctuality of the driver; the circumstance of +an opposition coach having been lately set up, with the probabilities +of its success--to all which I was enabled to return pretty +satisfactory answers, having been drilled into this kind of etiquette +by some years' daily practice of riding to and fro in the stage +aforesaid--when he suddenly alarmed me by a startling question, +whether I had seen the show of prize cattle that morning in +Smithfield? Now as I had not seen it, and do not greatly care for +such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged to return a cold negative. He +seemed a little mortified, as well as astonished, at my declaration, +as (it appeared) he was just come fresh from the sight, and doubtless +had hoped to compare notes on the subject. However he assured me that +I had lost a fine treat, as it far exceeded the show of last year. We +were now approaching Norton Falgate, when the sight of some shop-goods +_ticketed_ freshened him up into a dissertation upon the cheapness of +cottons this spring. I was now a little in heart, as the nature of my +morning avocations had brought me into some sort of familiarity with +the raw material; and I was surprised to find how eloquent I was +becoming on the state of the India market--when, presently, he dashed +my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether I had +ever made any calculation as to the value of the rental of all the +retail shops in London. Had he asked of me, what song the Sirens sang, +or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, I +might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have hazarded a "wide solution."[1] My +companion saw my embarrassment, and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch +just coming in view, with great good-nature and dexterity shifted +his conversation to the subject of public charities; which led to +the comparative merits of provision for the poor in past and present +times, with observations on the old monastic institutions, and +charitable orders;--but, finding me rather dimly impressed with +some glimmering notions from old poetic associations, than strongly +fortified with any speculations reducible to calculation on the +subject, he gave the matter up; and, the country beginning to open +more and more upon us, as we approached the turnpike at Kingsland (the +destined termination of his journey), he put a home thrust upon me, in +the most unfortunate position he could have chosen, by advancing some +queries relative to the North Pole Expedition. While I was muttering +out something about the Panorama of those strange regions (which I had +actually seen), by way of parrying the question, the coach stopping +relieved me from any further apprehensions. My companion getting out, +left me in the comfortable possession of my ignorance; and I heard +him, as he went off, putting questions to an outside passenger, who +had alighted with him, regarding an epidemic disorder, that had been +rife about Dalston; and which, my friend assured him, had gone through +five or six schools in that neighbourhood. The truth now flashed upon +me, that my companion was a schoolmaster; and that the youth, whom he +had parted from at our first acquaintance, must have been one of the +bigger boys, or the usher.--He was evidently a kind-hearted man, who +did not seem so much desirous of provoking discussion by the questions +which he put, as of obtaining information at any rate. It did not +appear that he took any interest, either, in such kind of inquiries, +for their own sake; but that he was in some way bound to seek for +knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which he had on, forbade me to +surmise that he was a clergyman. The adventure gave birth to some +reflections on the difference between persons of his profession in +past and present times. + +Rest to the souls of those fine old Pedagogues; the breed, long +since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres: who believing that +all learning was contained in the languages which they taught, and +despising every other acquirement as superficial and useless, came to +their task as to a sport! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed +away all their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual +cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies; renewing +constantly the occupations which had charmed their studious childhood; +rehearsing continually the part of the past; life must have slipped +from them at last like one day. They were always in their first +garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, among their _Flori_ and +their _Spici-legia_; in Arcadia still, but kings; the ferule of their +sway not much harsher, but of like dignity with that mild sceptre +attributed to king Basileus; the Greek and Latin, their stately Pamela +and their Philoclea; with the occasional duncery of some untoward +Tyro, serving for a refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or a clown +Damaetas! + +With what a savour doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it is sometimes +called) Paul's Accidence, set forth! "To exhort every man to the +learning of grammar, that intendeth to attain the understanding of +the tongues, wherein is contained a great treasury of wisdom and +knowledge, it would seem but vain and lost labour; for so much as it +is known, that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is either +feeble or faulty; and no building be perfect, whereas the foundation +and ground-work is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden of +the frame." How well doth this stately preamble (comparable to those +which Milton commendeth as "having been the usage to prefix to some +solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon, or Lycurgus") correspond +with and illustrate that pious zeal for conformity, expressed in a +succeeding clause, which would fence about grammar-rules with the +severity of faith-articles!--"as for the diversity of grammars, it +is well profitably taken away by the king majesties wisdom, who +foreseeing the inconvenience, and favourably providing the remedie, +caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be diligently +drawn, and so to be set out, only everywhere to be taught for the use +of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." What a +_gusto_ in that which follows: "wherein it is profitable that he can +orderly decline his noun, and his verb." _His_ noun! + +The fine dream is fading away fast; and the least concern of a teacher +in the present day is to inculcate grammar-rules. + +The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of every thing, +because his pupil is required not to be entirely ignorant of any +thing. He must be superficially, if I may so say, omniscient. He is to +know something of pneumatics; of chemistry; of whatever is curious, +or proper to excite the attention of the youthful mind; an insight +into mechanics is desirable, with a touch of statistics; the quality +of soils, &c. botany, the constitution of his country, _cum multis +aliis_. You may get a notion of some part of his expected duties by +consulting the famous Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib. + +All these things--these, or the desire of them--he is expected to +instil, not by set lessons from professors, which he may charge in the +bill, but at school-intervals, as he walks the streets, or saunters +through green fields (those natural instructors), with his pupils. +The least part of what is expected from him, is to be done in +school-hours. He must insinuate knowledge at the _mollia tempera +fandi_. He must seize every occasion--the season of the year--the time +of the day--a passing cloud--a rainbow--a wagon of hay--a regiment of +soldiers going by--to inculcate something useful. He can receive no +pleasure from a casual glimpse of Nature, but must catch at it as an +object of instruction. He must interpret beauty into the picturesque. +He cannot relish a beggar-man, or a gipsy, for thinking of the +suitable improvement. Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by the +sophisticating medium of moral uses. The Universe--that Great Book, as +it has been called--is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a +book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting +schoolboys.--Vacations themselves are none to him, he is only rather +worse off than before; for commonly he has some intrusive upper-boy +fastened upon him at such times; some cadet of a great family; some +neglected lump of nobility, or gentry; that he must drag after him to +the play, to the Panorama, to Mr. Bartley's Orrery, to the Panopticon, +or into the country, to a friend's house, or to his favourite +watering-place. Wherever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A +boy is at his board, and in his path, and in all his movements. He is +boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy. + +Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but +they are unwholesome companions for grown people. The restraint is +felt no less on the one side, than on the other.--Even a child, that +"plaything for an hour," tires _always_. The noises of children, +playing their own fancies--as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting +on the green before my window, while I am engaged in these grave +speculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shacklewell--by distance +made more sweet--inexpressibly take from the labour of my task. It is +like writing to music. They seem to modulate my periods. They ought at +least to do so--for in the voice of that tender age there is a kind of +poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of man's conversation.--I +should but spoil their sport, and diminish my own sympathy for them, +by mingling in their pastime. + +I would not be domesticated all my days with a person of very +superior capacity to my own--not, if I know myself at all, from any +considerations of jealousy or self-comparison, for the occasional +communion with such minds has constituted the fortune and felicity of +my life--but the habit of too constant intercourse with spirits above +you, instead of raising you, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of +original thinking from others, restrain what lesser portion of that +faculty you may possess of your own. You get entangled in another +man's mind, even as you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You +are walking with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to +lassitude. The constant operation of such potent agency would reduce +me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts from +others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are +cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, but not each man's +intellectual frame.-- + +As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged upwards, as +little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be stunted downwards +by your associates. The trumpet does not more stun you by its +loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility. + +Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a +schoolmaster?--because we are conscious that he is not quite at his +ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place, in the society of his +equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he +cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours. He cannot meet +you on the square. He wants a point given him, like an indifferent +whist-player. He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching +_you_. One of these professors, upon my complaining that these little +sketches of mine were any thing but methodical, and that I was unable +to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in the method by +which young gentlemen in _his_ seminary were taught to compose English +themes.--The jests of a schoolmaster are coarse, or thin. They do +not _tell_ out of school. He is under the restraint of a formal and +didactive hypocrisy in company, as a clergyman is under a moral one. +He can no more let his intellect loose in society, than the other +can his inclinations.--He is forlorn among his co-evals; his juniors +cannot be his friends. + +"I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this profession, +writing to a friend respecting a youth who had quitted his school +abruptly, "that your nephew was not more attached to me. But persons +in my situation are more to be pitied, than can well be imagined. We +are surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate +hearts, but _we_ can never hope to share an atom of their affections. +The relation of master and scholar forbids this. _How pleasing this +must be to you, how I envy your feelings_, my friends will sometimes +say to me, when they see young men, whom I have educated, return after +some years absence from school, their eyes shining with pleasure, +while they shake hands with their old master, bringing a present of +game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms +for my care of their education. A holiday is begged for the boys; +the house is a scene of happiness; I, only, am sad at heart--This +fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master +with gratitude for the care of his boyish years--this young man--in +the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never +could repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when +I praised; he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never +_love_ me--and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, +is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting +the scene of their boyish hopes and fears; and the seeing on equal +terms the man they were accustomed to look up to with reverence. +My wife too," this interesting correspondent goes on to say, "my +once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster.--When I married +her--knowing that the wife of a schoolmaster ought to be a busy +notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna would ill supply the +loss of my dear bustling mother, just then dead, who never sat still, +was in every part of the house in a moment, and whom I was obliged +sometimes to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save her from +fatiguing herself to death--I expressed my fears, that I was bringing +her into a way of life unsuitable to her; and she, who loved me +tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties +of her new situation. She promised, and she has kept her word. What +wonders will not woman's love perform?--My house is managed with a +propriety and decorum, unknown in other schools; my boys are well +fed, look healthy, and have every proper accommodation; and all this +performed with a careful economy, that never descends to meanness. But +I have lost my gentle, _helpless_ Anna!--When we sit down to enjoy an +hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listen +to what have been her useful (and they are really useful) employments +through the day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's task. Her +heart and her features are changed by the duties of her situation. To +the boys, she never appears other than the _master's wife_, and she +looks up to me as the _boys' master_; to whom all show of love and +affection would be highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her +situation and mine. Yet _this_ my gratitude forbids me to hint to +her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered creature, and can +I reproach her for it?"--For the communication of this letter, I am +indebted to my cousin Bridget. + +[Footnote 1: Urn Burial.] + + + + +VALENTINE'S DAY + + +Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy +name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen! Immortal +Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a +_name_, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to +seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with +thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? +Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other +mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril; +nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom +all mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop +Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with +thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is + + Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. + +Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and instead of +the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. + +In other words, this is the day on which those charming little +missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every +street and turning. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks +beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely +credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in +this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment +of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, +no emblem is so common as the _heart_,--that little three-cornered +exponent of all our hopes and fears,--the bestuck and bleeding heart; +it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations +than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology +for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this +anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we +have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might +easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed +for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover +addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam, +my _liver_ and fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting +a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a _midriff_ to bestow?" But +custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to +the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at +animal and anatomical distance. + +Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, +exceed in interest a _knock at the door_. It "gives a very echo to +the throne where Hope is seated." But its issues seldom answer to +this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to +see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations the welcomest in +expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a +Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal +entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, +airy, confident, and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is +less mechanical than on other days; you will say, "That is not the +post, I am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens!--delightful +eternal common-places, which "having been will always be;" which no +school-boy nor school-man can write away; having your irreversible +throne in the fancy and affections--what are your transports, when the +happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the +emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, +some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses-- + + Lovers all, + A madrigal, + +or some such device, not over abundant in sense--young Love disclaims +it,--and not quite silly--something between wind and water, a chorus +where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I +apprehend they did, in Arcadia. + +All Valentines are not foolish; and I shall not easily forget thine, +my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B.--E.B. lived +opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his +parlour window in C--e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, +and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a +temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humour. +E.B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of +designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom +of many a well executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no +further; for E.B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. E.B. +meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which +she had done him unknown; for when a kindly face greets us, though but +passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as +an obligation; and E.B. did. This good artist set himself at work to +please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years +since. He wrought, unseen and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need +not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders--full, not of +common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories +of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E.B. is a scholar.) +There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor +Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottos +and fanciful devices, such as beseemed,--a work in short of magic. +Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the +all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice--(O ignoble trust!)--of the +common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful +stand, the next morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by +and by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl +unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one +the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with +light love, or foolish expectations, for she had no lover; or, if she +had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which +delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as +our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the +benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good +for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a +specimen of E.B. and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness. + +Good-morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, +but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not +too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves +humble diocesans of old Bishop Valentine, and his true church. + + + + +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES + + + I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathized + with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any + thing. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with + prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch.--_Religio Medici_. + + +That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts +of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences; +in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of +the actual; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities +of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. +It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he +should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For +myself--earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities,-- + + Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, + +I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or +individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent +eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste +or distaste; or when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be +disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices--made up +of likings and dislikings--the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, +antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am +a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot +feel towards all equally. The more purely-English word that expresses +sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy +man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or _fellow_. I cannot +_like_ all people alike.[1] + +I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to +desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me--and in +truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There +is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. +We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect +intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its +constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the +sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than +comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision +in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their +intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. +They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She +presents no full front to them--a feature or side-face at the most. +Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost +they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure--and leave +it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. +The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and +shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. +They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content +to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as +if they were upon their oath--but must be understood, speaking +or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a +proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They +delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without +waiting for their full developement. They are no systematizers, and +would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, +are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not +mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is +born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their +growth--if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon +principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He +never hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his stock of ideas +in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into +company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He +never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence, to +share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or +not. You cannot cry _halves_ to any thing that he finds. He does not +find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. +His understanding is always at its meridian--you never see the first +dawn, the early streaks.--He has no falterings of self-suspicion. +Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, +partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no +place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls +upon him. Is he orthodox--he has no doubts. Is he an infidel--he has +none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no +border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of +truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps +the path. You cannot make excursions with him--for he sets you right. +His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot +compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right +and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the +sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops +a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy +book!"--said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give +that appellation to John Buncle,--"did I catch rightly what you said? +I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I +do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above +all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. +Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest +with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print +of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing +off to Mr. ****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to +ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my +friends)--when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable +respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but +had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal +pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much +to disconcert him.--Persons of this nation are particularly fond +of affirming a truth--which nobody doubts. They do not so properly +affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of +truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth +becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that contains it be +new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of +disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, +where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly +expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father +instead of the son--when four of them started up at once to inform +me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable +wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. Swift has hit off +this part of their character, namely their love of truth, in his +biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the +passage to the margin.[2] The tediousness of these people is certainly +provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another!--In my early life +I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes +foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing +it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration +of his compatriot, even more than he would your contempt of him. The +latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the +words which he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presumption +in you to suppose that you can admire him.--Thomson they seem to have +forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his +delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction +to our metropolis.--peak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will +retort upon you Hume's History compared with _his_ Continuation of it. +What if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? + +I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of +stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. +They date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits +of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I +have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cling +about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries +of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side,--of cloaked revenge, +dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and their fathers, +must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I cannot believe +it can run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as +candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up +the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial +to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change--for the mercantile spirit +levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly +confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, +which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to +me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see +the Church and Synagogue kissing and congeeing in awkward postures of +an affected civility. If _they_ are converted, why do they not come +over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the +life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they +keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites. Jews +christianizing--Christians judaizing--puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. +A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly than a wet +Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially _separative_. B---- +would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his +forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to +be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of +his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, +when he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!" +The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides +over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him.--B---- has a +strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by +his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings +with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the +Commandments, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. +His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How +should they?--but you seldom see a silly expression among them. +Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard +of an idiot being born among them.--Some admire the Jewish female +physiognomy. I admire it--but with trembling. Jael had those full dark +inscrutable eyes. + +In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of +benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these +faces--or rather masks--that have looked out kindly upon one in casual +encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully +calls--these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like +to associate with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with +them--because they are black. + +I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker +principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any +of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any +occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a +ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. +But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with +them." I am all over sophisticated--with humours, fancies, craving +hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, +scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their +simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive +banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to +Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited + + To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a +question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar +assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than +other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and +are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar +character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their +veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom +of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all +religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into +the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth--the one +applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the +common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the +conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirmations +of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected, and conceded +upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than truth +satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to +speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness +and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary +conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, +where clergy-truth--oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, +is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple +affirmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without +any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use +upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, +with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He +knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, +for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows +that his syllables are weighed--and how far a consciousness of this +particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to +produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest +means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more +sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The +admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all +contingencies, might be traced to this imposed self-watchfulness--if +it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock +of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive +Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of +judge or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. "You will +never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till +midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been +putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers +may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people +is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances.--I was +travelling in a stagecoach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the +straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, +where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before +us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way +took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my +companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was +resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild +arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated +mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard +came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out +their money, and formally tendered it.--so much for tea--I, in humble +imitation, tendering mine--for the supper which I had taken. She +would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their +silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and +gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought +I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and +warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove +off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously +pronounced, became after a time inaudible--and now my conscience, +which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give +some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be +offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their +conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the +subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of +them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour, "Hast thee +heard how indigos go at the India House?" and the question operated as +a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. + +[Footnote 1: I would be understood as confining myself to the subject +of _imperfect sympathies_. To nations or classes of men there can be +no direct _antipathy_. There may be individuals born and constellated +so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot +hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the +story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in +their lives) and instantly fighting. + + --We by proof find there should be + Twixt man and man such an antipathy, + That though he can show no just reason why + For any former wrong or injury, + Can neither find a blemish in his fame, + Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, + Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, + Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. + +The lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," and he +subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted +to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack +could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy +which he had taken to the first sight of the King. + + --The cause which to that act compell'd him + Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.] + +[Footnote 2: There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit +themselves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no +consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as +happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the +Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the +minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if +it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as +well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly +tolerable.--_Hints towards an Essay on Conversation_.] + + + + +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS + + +We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for +fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved +in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible +world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an +historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world +was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits +assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fitness, or +proportion--of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable +absurd--could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission +of any particular testimony?--That maidens pined away, wasting +inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire--that corn was +lodged, and cattle lamed--that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry +the oaks of the forest--or that spits and kettles only danced a +fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no wind +was stirring--were all equally probable where no law of agency was +understood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the +flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to the +weak fantasy of indigent eld--has neither likelihood nor unlikelihood +_a priori_ to us, who have no measure to guess at his policy, or +standard to estimate what rate those anile souls may fetch in the +devil's market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolized by +a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that _he_ should come +sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor.--That the intercourse +was opened at all between both worlds was perhaps the mistake--but +that once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested story +of this nature more than another on the score of absurdity. There +is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be +criticised. + +I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in the days of +received witchcraft; that I could not have slept in a village where +one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more +obtuse. Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in +league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their +muttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled +issuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon them--as if they +should subpoena Satan!--Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand +about him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy of his +enemies to an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or two, we +think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in exact analogy to the +non-resistance of witches to the constituted powers.--What stops the +Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces--or who had made it a +condition of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious +bait--we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that country. + +From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and +witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good +store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity +originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History +of the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. The +pictures with which it abounds--one of the ark, in particular, +and another of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity +of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the +spot--attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of +the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen. We +shall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes--and +there was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, with +infinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from the situation +which they occupied upon an upper shelf. I have not met with the work +from that time to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament +stories, orderly set down, with the _objection_ appended to each +story, and the _solution_ of the objection regularly tacked to that. +The _objection_ was a summary of whatever difficulties had been +opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness of +ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimentary +excess of candour. The _solution_ was brief, modest, and satisfactory. +The bane and antidote were, both before you. To doubts so put, and so +quashed, there seemed to be an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, for +the foot of the veriest babe to trample on. But--like as was rather +feared than realised from that slain monster in Spenser--from the womb +of those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, exceeding the +prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to vanquish. The habit +of expecting objections to every passage, set me upon starting more +objections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own for them. I +became staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. The pretty +Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their +purity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so many +historic or chronologic theses to be defended against whatever +impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but--the next thing to +that--I was to be quite sure that some one or other would or had +disbelieved them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the letting +him know that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man's +weakness, but the child's strength. O, how ugly sound scriptural +doubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling!--I should have lost +myself in these mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfit +sustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of +ill-fortune, which about this time befel me. Turning over the picture +of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in its +ingenious fabric--driving my inconsiderate fingers right through the +two larger quadrupeds--the elephant, and the camel--that stare (as +well they might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in +that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was henceforth +locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the book, the +_objections_ and _solutions_ gradually cleared out of my head, and +have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.--But there was +one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or +bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish nerves +rather more seriously.--That detestable picture! + +I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-time solitude, +and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature +would justify 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 as memory serves in things so long ago--without an assurance, +which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be +old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture +of the Witch raising up Samuel--(O that old man covered with a +mantle!) I owe--not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy--but +the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for +me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow--a sure bed-fellow, when +my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, while the book was +permitted me, I dreamed waking over his delineation, and at night +(if I may use so bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found +the vision true. I durst not, even in the day-light, once enter the +chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the window, aversely +from the bed where my witch-ridden pillow was.--Parents do not know +what they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the +dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm--the hoping for a familiar +voice--when they wake screaming--and find none to soothe them--what a +terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves! The keeping them up till +midnight, through candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are +called,--would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the +better caution.--That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the +fashion to my dreams--if dreams they were--for the scene of them was +invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never met with the picture, +the fears would 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, +or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these +terrors in children. They can at most but give them a direction. Dear +little T.H. who of all children has been brought up with the most +scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition--who was never +allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad +men, or to read or hear of any distressing story--finds all this world +of fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded _ab extra_, in his +own "thick-coming fancies;" and from his little midnight pillow, this +nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, +in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer are +tranquillity. + +Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras--dire stories of Celaeno and the +Harpies--may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition--but +they were there before. They are transcripts, types--the archetypes +are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which we +know 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, considered +in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?--O, +least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond +body--or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the +cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante--tearing, mangling, +choking, stifling, scorching demons--are they one half so fearful +to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied +following 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.[1] + +That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual--that it +is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth--that it +predominates in the period of sinless infancy--are difficulties, +the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our +antemundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of +pre-existence. + +My night-fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess an +occasional night-mare; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of +them. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished taper, will come and look +at me; but I know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude their +presence, and I fight and grapple with them. For the credit of my +imagination, I am almost ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreams +are grown. They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of +architecture and of buildings--cities abroad, which I have never seen, +and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, for the seeming length +of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon--their churches, +palaces, squares, market-places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an +inexpressible sense of delight--a map-like distinctness of trace--and +a day-light vividness of vision, that was all but being awake.--I have +formerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells--my highest Alps,--but +they are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recognition; +and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual struggles of the +inner eye, to make out a shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. +Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. The +poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Coleridge, at his will +can conjure up icy domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and +Abyssinian maids, and songs of Abara, and caverns, + + Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, + +to solace his night solitudes--when I cannot muster a fiddle. Barry +Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling before him in +nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune--when my +stretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, +raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat a +mortifying light--it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet, +that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and the poor +plastic power, such as it is, within me set to work, to humour my +folly in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was upon the +ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the +customary train sounding their conchs before me, (I myself, you may be +sure, the _leading god_,) and jollily we went careering over the main, +till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think it was +Ino) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell from +a sea-roughness to a sea-calm, and thence to a river-motion, and that +river (as happens in the familiarization of dreams) was no other than +the gentle Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave +or two, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth +palace. + +The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish no +whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resident in the +same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humorist, +used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of +his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first question +would be,--"Young man, what sort of dreams have you?" I have so much +faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein +returning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of +prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious +inland landing. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.] + + + + +MY RELATIONS + + +I am arrived at that point of life, at which a man may account it a +blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either of his parents +surviving. I have not that felicity--and sometimes think feelingly of +a passage in Browne's Christian Morals, where he speaks of a man that +hath lived sixty or seventy years in the world. "In such a compass of +time," he says, "a man may have a close apprehension what it is to +be forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could remember his +father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may sensibly see +with what a face in no long time OBLIVION will look upon himself." + +I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom single +blessedness had soured to the world. She often used to say, that I +was the only thing in it which she loved; and, when she thought I was +quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality +quite so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She was from +morning till night poring over good books, and devotional exercises. +Her favourite volumes were Thomas a Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; +and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the _matins_ and _complines_ +regularly set down,--terms which I was at that time too young to +understand. She persisted in reading them, although admonished daily +concerning their Papistical tendency; and went to church every +Sabbath, as a good Protestant should do. These were the only books +she studied; though, I think, at one period of her life, she told me, +she had read with great satisfaction the Adventures of an Unfortunate +Young Nobleman. Finding the door of the chapel in Essex-street open +one day--it was in the infancy of that heresy--she went in, liked the +sermon, and the manner of worship, and frequented it at intervals +for some time after. She came not for doctrinal points, and never +missed them. With some little asperities in her constitution, which +I have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly being, and a +fine _old Christian_. She was a woman of strong sense, and a shrewd +mind--extraordinary at a _repartee;_ one of the few occasions of her +breaking silence--else she did not much value wit. The only secular +employment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was, the splitting +of French beans, and dropping them into a China basin of fair water. +The odour of those tender vegetables to this day comes back upon my +sense, redolent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most +delicate of culinary operations. + +Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none--to remember. By the +uncle's side I may be said to have been born an orphan. Brother, or +sister, I never had any--to know them. A sister, I think, that should +have been Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort, +or what a care, may I not have missed in her!--But I have cousins, +sprinkled about in Hertfordshire--besides _two_, with whom I have been +all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may term +cousins _par excellence_. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are +older than myself by twelve, and ten, years; and neither of them seems +disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the +prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in +the same mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, +years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my +grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or younger brother! + +James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, which not +every critic can penetrate; or, if we feel, we cannot explain them. +The pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have drawn J.E. +entire--those fine Shandian lights and shades, which make up his +story. I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates +have given me grace and talent. J.E. then--to the eye of a common +observer at least--seemeth made up of contradictory principles.--The +genuine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence--the +phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his +temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new project +in his brain, J.E. is the systematic opponent of innovation, and crier +down of every thing that has not stood the test of age and experiment. +With a hundred fine notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, +he is startled at the least approach to the romantic in others; and, +determined by his own sense in every thing, commends _you_ to the +guidance of common sense on all occasions.--With a touch of the +eccentric in all which he does, or says, he is only anxious that _you_ +should not commit yourself by doing any thing absurd or singular. +On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a certain +popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to _say_ so--for the world +would think me mad. He disguises a passionate fondness for works of +high art (whereof he hath amassed a choice collection), under the +pretext of buying only to sell again--that his enthusiasm may give no +encouragement to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece of +tender, pastoral Dominichino hang still by his wall?--is the ball of +his sight much more dear to him?--or what picture-dealer can talk like +him? + +Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp their speculative +conclusions to the bent of their individual humours, _his_ theories +are sure to be in diametrical opposition to his constitution. He is +courageous as Charles of Sweden, upon instinct; chary of his person, +upon principle, as a travelling Quaker.--He has been preaching up to +me, all my life, the doctrine of bowing to the great--the necessity +of forms, and manner, to a man's getting on in the world. He himself +never aims at either, that I can discover,--and has a spirit, that +would stand upright in the presence of the Cham of Tartary. It is +pleasant to hear him discourse of patience--extolling it as the truest +wisdom--and to see him during the last seven minutes that his dinner +is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless +piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous cousin--and +Art never turned out a more elaborate orator than he can display +himself to be, upon his favourite topic of the advantages of quiet, +and contentedness in the state, whatever it may be, that we are +placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he has you safe in +one of those short stages that ply for the western road, in a very +obstructing manner, at the foot of John Murray's street--where you get +in when it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath +completed her just freight--a trying three quarters of an hour to some +people. He wonders at your fidgetiness,--"where could we be better +than we are, _thus silting, thus consulting_?"--"prefers, for his +part, a state of rest to locomotion,"--with an eye all the while upon +the coachman--till at length, waxing out of all patience, at _your +want of it_, he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow +for detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, and +declares peremptorily, that "the gentleman in the coach is determined +to get out, if he does not drive on that instant." + +Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a sophistry, he is +incapable of attending _you_ in any chain of arguing. Indeed he makes +wild work with logic; and seems to jump at most admirable conclusions +by some process, not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this, +he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists +such a faculty at all in man as _reason_; and wondereth how man came +first to have a conceit of it--enforcing his negation with all the +might of _reasoning_ he is master of. He has some speculative notions +against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural +to _him_--when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall crow +like Chanticleer. He says some of the best things in the world--and +declareth that wit is his aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing +the Eton boys at play in their grounds--_What a pity to think, that +these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into +frivolous Members of Parliament!_ + +His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous--and in age he discovereth +no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate +people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that +inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.--It does +me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some +fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, +with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that +indicates some purchase in his eye--a Claude--or a Hobbima--for much +of his enviable leisure is consumed at Christie's, and Phillips's--or +where not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these occasions +he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a +person like me possesses above himself, in having his time occupied +with business which he _must do_--assureth me that he often feels +it hang heavy on his hands--wishes he had fewer holidays--and goes +off--Westward Ho!--chanting a tune, to Pall Mall--perfectly convinced +that he has convinced me--while I proceed in my opposite direction +tuneless. + +It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indifference doing the +honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly housed it. You must +view it in every light, till _he_ has found the best--placing it at +this distance, and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight +to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the +aerial perspective--though you assure him that to you the landscape +shows much more agreeable without that artifice. Wo be to the luckless +wight, who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who should +drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of his anterior +bargains to the present!--The last is always his best hit--his +"Cynthia of the minute."--Alas! how many a mild Madonna have I +known to _come in_--a Raphael!--keep its ascendancy for a few brief +moons--then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the front +drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the dark parlour,--adopted +in turn by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions +of filiation, mildly breaking its fall--consigned to the oblivious +lumber-room, _go out_ at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo +Maratti!--which things when I beheld--musing upon the chances and +mutabilities of fate below, hath made me to reflect upon the altered +condition of great personages, or that woful Queen of Richard the +Second-- + + --set forth in pomp, + She came adorned hither like sweet May. + Sent back like Hollowmass or shortest day. + +With great love for _you_, J.E. hath but a limited sympathy with what +you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, and makes slender +guesses at what passes in your mind. He never pierces the marrow of +your habits. He will tell an old established play-goer, that Mr. +Such-a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very +lively comedian--as a piece of news! He advertised me but the other +day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, +_knowing me to be a great walker_, in my own immediate vicinity--who +have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years! He has +not much respect for that class of feelings which goes by the name +of sentimental. He applies the definition of real evil to bodily +sufferings exclusively--and rejecteth all others as imaginary. He +is affected by the sight, or the bare supposition, of a creature in +pain, to a degree which I have never witnessed out of womankind. A +constitutional acuteness to this class of sufferings may in part +account for this. The animal tribe in particular he taketh under his +especial protection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to +find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for ever. He +is the apostle to the brute kind--the never-failing friend of those +who have none to care for them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, +or eels skinned _alive_, will wring him so, that "all for pity he +could die." It will take the savour from his palate, and the rest from +his pillow, for days and nights. With the intense feeling of Thomas +Clarkson, he wanted only the steadiness of pursuit, and unity of +purpose, of that "true yolk-fellow with Time," to have effected as +much for the _Animal_, as _he_ hath done for the _Negro Creation_. But +my uncontrollable cousin is but imperfectly formed for purposes which +demand co-operation. He cannot wait. His amelioration-plans must be +ripened in a day. For this reason he has cut but an equivocal figure +in benevolent societies, and combinations for the alleviation of human +sufferings. His zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his +coadjutors. He thinks of relieving,--while they think of debating. +He was black-balled out of a society for the Relief of **********, +because the fervor of his humanity toiled beyond the formal +apprehension, and creeping processes, of his associates. I shall +always consider this distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia +family! Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at, or +upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all good manners, and +the understanding that should be between kinsfolk, forbid!--With all +the strangenesses of this _strangest of the Elias_--I would not have +him in one jot or tittle other than he is; neither would I barter or +exchange my wild kinsman for the most exact, regular, and everyway +consistent kinsman breathing. + +In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some account of my cousin +Bridget--if you are not already surfeited with cousins--and take you +by the hand, if you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which +we made a summer or two since, in search of _more cousins_-- + + Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. + + + + +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE + + +Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have +obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We +house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; +with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in +myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the +rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well +in our tastes and habits--yet so, as "with a difference." We are +generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings--as it should be +among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood, than +expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind +than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was +altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am +hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or +one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern +tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with +assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teazes me. I have little concern +in the progress of events. She must have a story--well, ill, or +indifferently told--so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of +good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction--and +almost in real life--have ceased to interest, or operate but dully +upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions--heads with some +diverting twist in them--the oddities of authorship please me most. My +cousin has a native disrelish of any thing that sounds odd or bizarre. +Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the +road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I can pardon +her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici; but +she must apologise to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which +she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals +of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one--the thrice +noble, chaste, and virtuous,--but again somewhat fantastical, and +original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle. + +It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I +could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, +free-thinkers--leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies and +systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. +That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its +authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with +her understanding. + +We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have +observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this--that +in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out, that I was +in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed +upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone; +whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out +with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way +of thinking. + +I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, +for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an +awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which +times she will answer _yes_ or _no_ to a question, without fully +understanding its purport--which is provoking, and derogatory in the +highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her +presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but +will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose +requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; +but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been +known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. + +Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily +missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name +of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into +a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection +or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome +pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in +this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be +diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst +come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. + +In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the +teazing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the +_will_ to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess +of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon +the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your +satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; +but best, when she goes a journey with you. + +We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, +to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that +fine corn country. + +The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it +is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; +a farm-house,--delightfully situated within a gentle walk from +Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a +great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I +have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could +throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might +share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at +that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married +my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a +Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still +flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost +extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; +and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the +other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery +End--kindred or strange folk--we were afraid almost to conjecture, but +determined some day to explore. + +By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in +our way from Saint Alban's, we arrived at the spot of our anxious +curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every +trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a +pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though _I_ +had forgotten it, _we_ had never forgotten being there together, and +we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my +part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the +aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to _that_, +which I had conjured up so many times instead of it! + +Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart +of June," and I could say with the poet, + + But them, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her delicate creation! + +Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered +her old acquaintance again--some altered features, of course, a little +grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; +but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections--and she +traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the +orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds +were alike flown)--with a breathless impatience of recognition, which +was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But +Bridget in some things is behind her years. + +The only thing left was to get into the house--and that was a +difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I +am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date +kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without +me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to +a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the +Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the +old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, +were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this +adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all--more comely. She +was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early +life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing +a style. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those +slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere +of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, +loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted +as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to +the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should +call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her--it was like the +meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, +an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this +farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace--or so we thought +it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally--we, and our +friend that was with us--I had almost forgotten him--but B.F. will not +so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the +far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made +ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; +and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget +with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to +Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her +mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of +us, at a time when she almost knew nothing.--With what corresponding +kindness we were received by them also--how Bridget's memory, exalted +by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections +of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own--and to +the astoundment of B.F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not +a cousin there,--old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names +and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in +lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth,--when I forget +all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more +remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender +charge--as I have been her care in foolish manhood since--in those +pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. + + + + +MODERN GALLANTRY + + +In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment +ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or +deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as +females. + +I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can +forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date +our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent +practice of whipping females in public, in common with the coarsest +male offenders. + +I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the +fact, that in England women are still occasionally--hanged. + +I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be +hissed off a stage by gentlemen. + +I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the +kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, +which some unlucky dray has just dissipated. + +I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would +be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act +upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not +observed--when I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part +with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders +of the poor woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the +same stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain--when I shall no +longer see a woman standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till +she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated +at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till one, that seems to +have more manners or conscience than the rest, significantly declares +"she should be welcome to his seat, if she were a little younger and +handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle +of their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not +seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury. + +Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle +influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and +coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women. + +Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be +any thing more than a conventional fiction; a pageant got up between +the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which +both find their account equally. + +I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of +life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid +to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse +complexions as to clear--to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she +is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. + +I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a +well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the +topic of _female old age_ without exciting, and intending to excite, +a sneer:--when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one +has "overstoocl her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise +immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken. + +Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, merchant, and one of the Directors +of the South-Sea company--the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare +commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet--was the only pattern of +consistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at +an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts +and example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not +much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit +more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was +the finest gentleman of his time. He had not _one_ system of attention +to females in the drawing-room, and _another_ in the shop, or at the +stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction. But he never lost +sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous +situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed--smile if you please--to +a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to +some street--in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to +embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He +was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women: +but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before +him, _womanhood_. I have seen him--nay, smile not--tenderly escorting +a marketwoman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his +umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no +damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the +reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to +an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show +our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, +or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend +them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in +those withered and yellow cheeks. + +He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the +beautiful Susan Winstanley--old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton--who +dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the +resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short +courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress +with a profusion of civil speeches--the common gallantries--to which +kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance--but in +this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent +acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. +He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown +herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, +finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her +coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that +she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even +endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her +situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to +her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of +insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young +women: but that--a little before he had commenced his compliments--she +had overheard him by accident, in rather rough language, rating +a young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to the +appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan +Winstanley, and a young lady--a reputed beauty, and known to be a +fortune,--I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth +of this very fine gentleman who is courting me--but if I had been poor +Mary Such-a-one (_naming the milliner_),--and had failed of bringing +home the cravats to the appointed hour--though perhaps I had sat up +half the night to forward them--what sort of compliments should I have +received then?--And my woman's pride came to my assistance; and I +thought, that if it were only to do _me_ honour, a female, like +myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined +not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the +belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and title to +them." + +I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of +thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have +sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which +through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards +all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this +seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. + +I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these +things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something +of the spirit of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the +anomaly of the same man--a pattern of true politeness to a wife--of +cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister--the idolater of his female +mistress--the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or +unfortunate--still female--maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a +woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed--her +handmaid, or dependent--she deserves to have diminished from herself +on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and +beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their +attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after +it, is first--respect for her as she is a woman;--and next to that--to +be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon +her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions, +incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and +ornaments--as many, and as fanciful, as you please--to that main +structure. Let her first lesson be--with sweet Susan Winstanley--to +_reverence her sex_. + + + + +THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE + + +I was born, and passed the first seven years of my life, in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, +I had almost said--for in those young years, what was this king of +rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are +of my oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself +more frequently, or with kindlier emotion, than those of Spenser, +where he speaks of this spot. + + There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, + The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, + Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, + There whylome wont the Templer knights to bide; + Till they decayd through pride. + +Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a +transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time--the +passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet-street, by unexpected +avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its classic green +recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it, +which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden: that goodly +pile + + Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, + +confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more +fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful +Crown-office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the +stately stream, which washes the garden-foot with her yet scarcely +trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from her Twickenham +Naiades! a man would give something to have been born in such places. +What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the +fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times! +to the astoundment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, +not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost +tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic! What an antique air had +the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, +seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take +their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding +correspondence with the fountain of light! How would the dark line +steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to +detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or +the first arrests of sleep! + + Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand + Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived! + +What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead +and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with +the simple altar-like structure, and silent heart-language of the +old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it +almost every where vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more +elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded +for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not +protracted after sun-set, of temperance, and good-hours. It was the +primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce +have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet +plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their +silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The +shepherd "carved it out quaintly in the sun;" and, turning philosopher +by the very occupation, provided it with mottos more touching than +tombstones. It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by +Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out of +herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, for +they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. +They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and +sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes: + + What wondrous life in this I lead! + Ripe apples drop about my head. + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon my mouth do crush their wine. + The nectarine, and curious peach, + Into my hands themselves do reach. + Stumbling on melons, as I pass, + Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. + Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less + Withdraws into its happiness. + The mind, that ocean, where each kind + Does straight its own resemblance find; + Yet it creates, transcending these, + Far other worlds, and other seas; + Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade. + Here at the fountain's sliding foot, + Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, + Casting the body's vest aside, + My soul into the boughs does glide: + There, like a bird, it sits and sings, + Then whets and claps its silver wings; + And, till prepared for longer flight, + Waves in its plumes the various light. + How well the skilful gardener drew, + Of flowers and herbs, this dial new! + Where, from above, the milder sun + Does through a fragrant zodiac run: + And, as it works, the industrious bee + Computes its time as well as we. + How could such sweet and wholesome hours + Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers?[1] + +The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, fast +vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or bricked over. Yet, where one +is left, as in that little green nook behind the South-Sea House, +what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile! Four little winged +marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever +fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of +Lincoln's-inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured. They are +gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by, +and these things are esteemed childish. Why not then gratify children, +by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They +are awakening images to them at least. Why must every thing smack of +man, and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is +there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the child's +heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments? The figures were +grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still flitter and +chatter about that area, less gothic in appearance? or is the splutter +of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent as the +little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered? + +They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner Temple-hall, and +the library front, to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the +hall, which they do not at all resemble. What is become of the winged +horse that stood over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed +those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized the end of the +Paper-buildings?--my first hint of allegory! They must account to me +for these things, which I miss so greatly. + +The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the parade; but +the traces are passed away of the footsteps which made its pavement +awful! It is become common and profane. The old benchers had it almost +sacred to themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They might +not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. +You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you passed them. We walk on +even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J----ll, ever +ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie +a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated +Thomas Coventry?--whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and +elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and +path-keeping, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the +scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and superiors, +who made a solitude of children wherever he came, for they fled his +insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear. His +growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth +or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the most +repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, aggravating the natural terrors +of his speech, broke from each majestic nostril, darkening the air. He +took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under +the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat +red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by +adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. + +By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive +gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had nothing but +that and their benchership in common. In politics Salt was a whig, +and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter +cast out--for Coventry had a rough spinous humour--at the political +confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom +of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel +Salt. + +S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent +discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I suspect his +knowledge did not amount to much. When a case of difficult disposition +of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily +handed it over with a few instructions to his man Lovel, who was +a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the +light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. +It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere +trick of gravity. He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a +minute--indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet men would +give him credit for vast application in spite of himself. He was not +to be trusted with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a +dinner party but he forgot his sword--they wore swords then--or some +other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on +all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was +anything which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it.--He +was to dine at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day +of her execution;--and L. who had a wary foresight of his probable +hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him with great anxiety not +in any possible manner to allude to her story that day. S. promised +faithfully to observe the injunction. He had not been seated in the +parlour, where the company was expecting the dinner summons, four +minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked +out of window, and pulling down his ruffles--an ordinary motion with +him--observed, "it was a gloomy day," and added, "Miss Blandy must +be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were +perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time +a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the +law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct--from +force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had the same good +fortune among the female world,--was a known toast with the ladies, +and one or two are said to have died for love of him--I suppose, +because he never trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, +indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and person, but +wanted, methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with +advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre.--Not so, thought Susan +P----; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold +evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of B----d Row, with +tears that fell in drops which might be heard, because her friend had +died that day--he, whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for +the last forty years--a passion, which years could not extinguish or +abate; nor the long resolved, yet gently enforced, puttings off of +unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild +Susan P----, thou hast now thy friend in heaven! + +Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that name. He +passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early +those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so +that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was +master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, +or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite +the pump in Serjeant's-inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is doing +self-imposed penance in it, for what reason I divine not, at this day. +C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he seldom spent above +a day or two at a time in the summer; but preferred, during the hot +months, standing at his window in this damp, close, well-like mansion, +to watch, as he said, "the maids drawing water all day long." I +suspect he had his within-door reasons for the preference. _Hic currus +et arma fuere_. He might think his treasures more safe. His house had +the aspect of a strong box. C. was a close hunks--a hoarder rather +than a miser--or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes breed, who have +brought discredit upon a character, which cannot exist without certain +admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a +true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking +care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, +upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an +immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away 30,000_l_. at once in his +life-time to a blind charity. His house-keeping was severely looked +after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He would know who came +in and who went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never +suffered to freeze. + +Salt was his opposite in this, as in all--never knew what he was worth +in the world; and having but a competency for his rank, which his +indolent habits were little calculated to improve, might have suffered +severely if he had not had honest people about him. Lovel took care of +every thing. He was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, +his friend, his "flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. +He did nothing without consulting Lovel, or failed in any thing +without expecting and fearing his admonishing. He put himself almost +too much in his hands, had they not been the purest in the world. He +resigned his title almost to respect as a master, if L. could ever +have forgotten for a moment that he was a servant. + +I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. +A good fellow withal, and "would strike." In the cause of the +oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number +of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of +quality that had drawn upon him; and pommelled him severely with the +hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female--an occasion +upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference +of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed to the same person, +modestly to excuse his interference--for L. never forgot rank, where +something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow +breathing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly +to resemble (I have a portrait of him which confirms it), possessed a +fine turn for humorous poetry--next to Swift and Prior--moulded heads +in clay or plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural +genius merely; turned cribbage boards, and such small cabinet toys, +to perfection; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility; +made punch better than any man of his degree in England; had the +merriest quips and conceits, and was altogether as brimful of +rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the +angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. +Isaac Walton would have chosen to go a fishing with. I saw him in his +old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad +stage of human weakness--"a remnant most forlorn of what he was,"--yet +even then his eye would light up upon the mention of his favourite +Garrick. He was greatest, he would say, in Bayes--"was upon the stage +nearly throughout the whole performance, and as busy as a bee." At +intervals, too, he would speak of his former life, and how he came up +a little boy from Lincoln to go to service, and how his mother cried +at parting with him, and how he returned, after some few years' +absence, in his smart new livery to see her, and she blessed herself +at the change, and could hardly be brought to believe that it was "her +own bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he would weep, till I +have wished that sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay +its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us all in no long time +after received him gently into hers. + +With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the terrace, most +commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make up a third. They did not +walk linked arm in arm in those days--"as now our stout triumvirs +sweep the streets,"--but generally with both hands folded behind them +for state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a cane. +P. was a benevolent, but not a pre-possessing man. He had that in +his face which you could not term unhappiness; it rather implied +an incapacity of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, even to +whiteness. His look was uninviting, resembling (but without his +sourness) that of our great philanthropist. I know that he _did_ good +acts, but I could never make out what _he_ was. Contemporary with +these, but subordinate, was Daines Barrington--another oddity--he +walked burly and square--in imitation, I think, of Coventry--howbeit +he attained not to the dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he +did pretty well, upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, +and having a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's +treasurership came to be audited, the following singular charge was +unanimously disallowed by the bench: "Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the +gardener, twenty shillings, for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my +orders." Next to him was old Barton--a jolly negation, who took upon +him the ordering of the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, +where the benchers dine--answering to the combination rooms at +college--much to the easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know +nothing more of him.--Then Read, and Twopenny--Read, good-humoured +and personable--Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and felicitous in +jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and +fleeting. Many must remember him (for he was rather of later date) +and his singular gait, which was performed by three steps and a jump +regularly succeeding. The steps were little efforts, like that of a +child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vigorous, as a foot to +an inch. Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could +never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor seemed to +answer the purpose any better than common walking. The extreme tenuity +of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. +Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him as +Brother Lusty; but W. had no relish of a joke. His features were +spiteful. I have heard that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, +when any thing had offended him. Jackson--the omniscient Jackson he +was called--was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing +more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. He was the +Friar Bacon of the less literate portion of the Temple. I remember a +pleasant passage, of the cook applying to him, with much formality of +apology, for instructions how to write down _edge_ bone of beef in his +bill of commons. He was supposed to know, if any man in the world did. +He decided the orthography to be--as I have given it--fortifying his +authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the manciple (for +the time) learned and happy. Some do spell it yet perversely, _aitch_ +bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its shape, and that of the +aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron +hand--but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some +accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he wielded +with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was +old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember +the astonishment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking +person; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of +power--somewhat like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo's +Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in the +costume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect +recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple. + +Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of you exist, +why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable, half-understood +appearances, why comes in reason to tear away the preternatural mist, +bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure +in my relation, who made up to me--to my childish eyes--the mythology +of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as "old men covered with a +mantle," walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry +perish,--extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary +fabling,--in the heart of childhood, there will, for ever, spring up a +well of innocent or wholesome superstition--the seeds of exaggeration +will be busy there, and vital--from every-day forms educing the +unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light, +when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and +materiality. While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, +shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings +totally to fly the earth. + + * * * * * + +P.S. I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel Salt. See +what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the erring notices of +childhood! Yet I protest I always thought that he had been a bachelor! +This gentleman, R.N. informs me, married young, and losing his lady +in child-bed, within the first year of their union, fell into a deep +melancholy, from the effects of which, probably, he never thoroughly +recovered. In what a new light does this place his rejection (O +call it by a gentler name!) of mild Susan P----, unravelling +into beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring +character!--Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for +true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact-verisimilitudes, +not verities--or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of +history. He is no such honest chronicler as R.N., and would have done +better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, before he sent these +incondite reminiscences to press. But the worthy sub-treasurer--who +respects his old and his new masters--would but have been puzzled +at the indecorous liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, +peradventure, of the license which _Magazines_ have arrived at in this +plain-speaking age, or hardly dreams of their existence beyond the +_Gentleman's_--his furthest monthly excursions in this nature having +been long confined to the holy ground of honest _Urban's_ obituary. +May it be long before his own name shall help to swell those columns +of unenvied flattery!--Meantime, O ye New Benchers of the Inner +Temple, cherish him kindly, for he is himself the kindliest of human +creatures. Should infirmities over-take him--he is yet in green and +vigorous senility--make allowances for them, remembering that "ye +yourselves are old." So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge +and cognisance, still flourish! so may future Hookers and Seldens +illustrate your church and chambers! so may the sparrows, in default +of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your walks! so may +the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery maid, who, by leave, airs her +playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing +curtsy as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion! so may the +younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with +the same superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on +the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye! + +[Footnote 1: From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.] + + + + +GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + +The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the +early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners +were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a +common blessing; when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like +a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, +after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's +flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of +the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the +blessing of food--the act of eating--should have had a particular +expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied +and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon +the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of +existence. + +I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in +the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out +upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, +or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual +repasts--a grace before Milton--a grace before Shakspeare--a +devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy +Queen?--but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the +solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to +the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called; +commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand +philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now +compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a certain snug +congregation of Utopian Rabelaesian Christians, no matter where +assembled. + +The form then of the benediction before eating has its beauty at +a poor man's table, or at the simple and unprovocative repasts of +children. It is here that the grace becomes exceedingly graceful. +The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the +next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of the +blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose +minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some +extreme theory, have entered. The proper end of food--the animal +sustenance--is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's bread is +his daily bread, literally his bread for the day. Their courses are +perennial. + +Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the +grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind +most free for foreign considerations. A man may feel thankful, +heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and have +leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating; +when he shall confess a perturbation o f mind, inconsistent with the +purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I +have sate (a _rarus hospes_) at rich men's tables, with the savoury +soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips +of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the +introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous +orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious +sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a +mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of +devotion. The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly-god +intercepts it for his own. The very excess of the provision beyond the +needs, takes away all sense of proportion between the end and means. +The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice +of returning thanks--for what?--for having too much, while so many +starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. + +I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously perhaps, +by the good man who says the grace. I have seen it in clergymen and +others--a sort of shame--a sense of the co-presence of circumstances +which unhallow the blessing. After a devotional tone put on for a few +seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice, +helping himself or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy +sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was +not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt in +his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and the viands before +him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude. + +I hear somebody exclaim,--Would you have Christians sit down at table, +like hogs to their troughs, without remembering the Giver?--no--I +would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, +and less like hogs. Or if their appetites must run riot, and they +must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are +ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter +season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be +heard, and the reason of the grace returns--with temperate diet and +restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for +thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil +knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celasno +any thing but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the +deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a +meaner and inferior gratitude: but the proper object of the grace is +sustenance, not relishes; daily bread, not delicacies; the means of +life, and not the means of pampering the carcass. With what frame or +composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction +at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding +pious word--and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he +preaches--is but the signal for so many impatient harpies to commence +their foul orgies, with as little sense of true thankfulness (which +is temperance) as those Virgilian fowl! It is well if the good man +himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy +sensuous steams mingling with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice. + +The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the banquet which +Satan, in the Paradise Regained, provides for a temptation in the +wilderness: + + A table richly spread in regal mode, + With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort + And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, + In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, + Gris-amber-steamed; all fish from sea or shore, + Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained + Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. + +The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without +the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short +graces where the devil plays the host.--I am afraid the poet wants his +usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury, +or of a gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a temptation fitter for a +Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and the +accompaniments altogether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy +scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend conjures +up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the +guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have +been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of +God, what sort of feasts presented themselves?--He dreamed indeed, + + --As appetite is wont to dream, + Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. + +But what meats?-- + + Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, + And saw the ravens with their horny beaks + Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn; + Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought: + He saw the prophet also how he fled + Into the desert, and how there he slept + Under a juniper; then how awaked + He found his supper on the coals prepared, + And by the angel was bid rise and eat, + And ate the second time after repose, + The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: + Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, + Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. + +Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of +the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think +you, would the introduction of what is called the grace have been most +fitting and pertinent? + +Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically I own that +(before meat especially) they seem to involve something awkward and +unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another kind, are excellent +spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the +great ends of preserving and continuing the species. They are fit +blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude; +but the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will apprehend me) +is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers who +go about their business, of every description, with more calmness +than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I +have always admired their silent grace, and the more because I have +observed their applications to the meat and drink following to be +less passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor +wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopt hay, +with indifference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They neither +grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and +tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. + +I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the +kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to +be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows +it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in +higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to +like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes +for food. C---- holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses +apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of +my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those +innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with +me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle +thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappointments, +as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some +savoury mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter +ill melted--that commonest of kitchen failures--puts me beside my +tenour.--The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal +noises over a favourite food. Was this the music quite proper to +be preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have done better +to postpone his devotions to a season when the blessing plight be +contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, +nor would set my thin face against those excellent things, in their +way, jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable, +have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should be sure, +before he ventures so to grace them, that while he is pretending his +devotions otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some +great fish--his Dagon--with a special consecration of no ark but the +fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the +banquets of angels and children; to the roots and severer repasts +of the Chartreuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, +refection of the poor and humble man: but at the heaped-up boards of +the pampered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less +timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those +better befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, at +Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in +the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or +engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be +common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To +be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add +hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes +the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most +tables. In houses where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, +who has not seen that never settled question arise, as to _who shall +say it_; while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or +some other guest belike of next authority from years or gravity, shall +be bandying about the office between them as a matter of compliment, +each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an +equivocal duty from his own shoulders? + +I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different +persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce to each other for the +first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of +these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, +whether he chose to _say any thing_. It seems it is the custom with +some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His +reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an +explanation, with little less importance he made answer, that it was +not a custom known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other +acquiescing for good manner's sake, or in compliance with a weak +brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With +what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of _his_ +religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing +or omitting a sacrifice,--the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his +incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and +(as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. + +A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long +one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do +not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that +equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C.V.L., when importuned +for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is +there no clergyman here?"--significantly adding, "thank G----." Nor do +I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to +preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, connecting +with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful +and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. _Non +tunc illis erat locus._ I remember we were put to it to reconcile the +phrase "good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the +fare set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low +and animal sense,--till some one recalled a legend, which told how +in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to +have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till +some pious benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the +palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave +us--_horresco referens_--trowsers instead of mutton. + + + + +MY FIRST PLAY + + +At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some +architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at +present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if +you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance +to old Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it +without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring +to the evening when I passed through it to see _my first play_. The +afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder +folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating +heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of +which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to +remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it. + +We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the +oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone-building, +in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had +pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John +Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if +John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of +his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, +Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought +his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at +Bath--the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a +quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious +charge.--From either of these connexions it may be inferred that +my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane +theatre at pleasure--and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those +cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say +was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years' +nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that +theatre--and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's +familiarity--or supposed familiarity--was better to my godfather than +money. + +F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. +His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had +two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin +from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled +me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded +_vice versa_--but in those young years they impressed me with more awe +than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro--in his own +peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicized, +into something like _verse verse_. By an imposing manner, and the help +of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the +highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow. + +He is dead--and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for +my first orders (little wondrous talismans!--slight keys, and +insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian +paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came +into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call +my own--situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in +Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted +foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon +me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over +my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion +in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all +betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more +prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it. + +In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who +abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at +the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door +in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again!--with the cry +of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those +days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of +the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase +some numparels, chase a bill of the play;"--chase _pro_ chuse. But +when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven +to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed--the breathless +anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate +prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakspeare--the tent scene +with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a +measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full +of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the +pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance +(I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling--a homely +fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised +imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a +glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those +"fair Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once +again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in +a sort 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 was +Artaxerxes! + +I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of +it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight +of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for +I understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was +in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous +vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not +players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol +of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was +awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more +than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such +pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin's Invasion +followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates +into 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 the +legend of St. Denys. + +The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of +which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left +in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost--a +satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my +apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of +antiquity as Lud--the father, of a line of Harlequins--transmitting +his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw +the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of +white patch-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 the +World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I +remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me +like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in which +Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in +the story.--The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have +clean 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 the +grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout +meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old +Round Church (my church) of the Templars. + +I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven +years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for +at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors +of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in +my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same +occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, +than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! +At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated +nothing. 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. The +same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, +was gone!--The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two +worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present +"a royal ghost,"--but a certain quantity of green baize, which was +to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their +fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The +lights--the orchestra lights--came up a clumsy machinery. The first +ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's +bell--which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a +voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. +The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in +them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many +centuries--of six short twelve-months--had wrought in me.--Perhaps +it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an +indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable +expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions +with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance +to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon +yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became +to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations. + + + + +DREAM-CHILDREN + +A REVERIE + + +Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when _they_ +were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a +traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in +this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to +hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house +in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa +lived) which had been the scene--so at least it was generally believed +in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which they had +lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the +Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their +cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the +chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin +Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a +marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. +Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be +called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good +their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by every +body, though she was not indeed 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 it too) committed to her by the owner, who +preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had +purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it +in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the +great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, +and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and +carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and +looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they +had seen lately at the 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 by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the +gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their +respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious +woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, +and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread +her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their +great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was +esteemed the best dancer--here Alice's little right foot played an +involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted--the +best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called +a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend +her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, +because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used +to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and +how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen +at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she +slept, but she said, "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how +frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep +with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she--and +yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eye-brows and +tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her +grand-children, having us to the great-house in the holydays, where I +in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the +old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till +the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into +marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that +huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, +fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost +rubbed out--sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I +had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening +man would cross me--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the +walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were +forbidden fruit, unless now and then,--and because I had more pleasure +in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the +firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were +good for nothing but to look at--or in lying about upon the fresh +grass, with all the fine garden smells around me--or basking in the +orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the +oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth--or in watching the dace +that 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 water +in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings,--I +had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet +flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits +of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch +of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing +with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present +as irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, +though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, +yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John +L----, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to +the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like +some 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 half +over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any +out--and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had +too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries--and how +their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to +the admiration of every body, but of their great-grandmother Field +most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was +a lame-footed boy--for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile +when I could not walk for pain;--and how in after life he became +lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough +for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently +how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how +when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he +had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and +death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but +afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take +it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had +died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much +I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, +and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for +we quarreled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as +uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the +doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked +if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, +and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but +to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told +how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, +yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W--n; and, as much as +children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and +difficulty, and denial meant in maidens--when suddenly, turning to +Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a +reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood +there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood +gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, +and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features +were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely +impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor +of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called +Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We +are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores +of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name"--and +immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor +arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget +unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. + + + + +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS + +IN A LETTER TO B.F. ESQ. AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES + + +My dear F.--When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the +world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which +you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at +my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a +correspondence at our distance. The weary world of waters between us +oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl +of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption +to expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing +for posterity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's superscriptions, +"Alcander to Strephon, in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel is no more +than would be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at +Lombard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets +it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a +long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself +at one end, and _the man_ at the other; it would be some balk to the +spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with +that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a +higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some +parasangs nigher that primitive idea--Plato's man--than we in England +here have the honour to reckon ourselves. + +Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; news, sentiment, +and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or +subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, +non-seriously.--And first, for news. In them the most desirable +circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be true. But what security +can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not before you +get it unaccountably turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend +P. is at this present writing--_my Now_--in good health, and enjoys +a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is +natural and friendly. But at this present reading--_your Now_--he may +possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in reason ought +to abate something of your transport (_i.e._ at hearing he was well, +&c.), or at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the play +this evening, to have a laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, I +think you told me, in your land of d----d realities. You naturally +lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you +will correct the hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning with +you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of _two +presents_, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent you +word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat +this evening, though at the moment you received the intelligence my +full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two +after, as you would well know, a smack, a relish left upon my mental +palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a +portion at least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my +intention to produce. But ten months hence your envy or your sympathy +would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does +truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is +harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction for the fear that it may +ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I +put upon you, some three years since ---- of Will Weatherall having +married a servant-maid! I remember gravely consulting you how we +were to receive her--for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected; +and your no less serious replication in the matter; how tenderly you +advised an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady, +with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters +more within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, +or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks, and spits, and +mops, could with propriety be introduced as subjects; whether the +conscious avoiding of all such matters in discourse would not have a +worse look than the taking of them casually in our way; in what manner +we should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall +being by; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of +respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chiding +before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky as +to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a +humble station. There were difficulties, I remember, on both sides, +which you did me the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, +united to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your +solemn pleadings, when lo! while I was valuing myself upon this +flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous +possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, +has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the +commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your +diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to +take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news from +me must become history to you; which I neither profess to write, nor +indeed care much for reading. No person, under a diviner, can with any +prospect of veracity conduct a correspondence at such an arm's length. +Two prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; +the epoch of the writer (Habbakuk) falling in with the true present +time of the receiver (Daniel); but then we are no prophets. + +Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind +of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot; or sent off in +water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself. +If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. +I have often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems that +travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, +or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so fantastically and +invitingly over a stream--was it?--or a rock?--no matter--but the +stillness and the repose, after a weary journey 'tis likely, in a +languid moment of his lordship's hot restless life, so took his fancy, +that he could imagine no place so proper, in the event of his death, +to lay his bones in. This was all very natural and excusable as a +sentiment, and shows his character in a very pleasing light. But when +from a passing sentiment it came to be an act; and when, by a positive +testamentary disposal, his remains were actually carried all that way +from England; who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, +that did not ask the question, Why could not his lordship have found +a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, +with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or +in Devon? Conceive the sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the +Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted +into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and handled between the rude +jests of tarpaulin ruffians--a thing of its delicate texture--the +salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. +Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about +sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory +shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign +to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy +consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing--at Lyons shall +we say?--I have not the map before me--jostled upon four men's +shoulders--baiting at this town--stopping to refresh at t'other +village--waiting a passport here, a license there; the sanction of the +magistracy in this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in +that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out +and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or +tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am +afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite sea-worthy. + +Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though contemptible +in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a +right friendly epistle--your puns and small jests are, I apprehend, +extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. They are so far +from a capacity of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will +scarce endure to be transported by hand from this room to the next. +Their vigour is as the instant of their birth. Their nutriment +for their brief existence is the intellectual atmosphere of the +bystanders: or this last, is the fine slime of Nilus--the _melior +Lutis_,--whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the _sol pater_ +to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present +ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more transmit it in its pristine +flavour, than you can send a kiss.--Have you not tried in some +instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has +it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem +to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like picking up +at a village ale-house a two days old newspaper. You have not seen +it before, but you resent the stale thing as an affront. This sort +of merchandise above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its +recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The one is the brisk +lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the +link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a +mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface +were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve-months, my dear F.) +in giving back its copy? + +I cannot image to myself where about you are. When I try to fix it, +Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Sometimes you seem to be in +the _Hades_ of _Thieves_. I see Diogenes prying among you with his +perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to +give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten +how _we_ look. And tell me, what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng +all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such +a depredation! The kangaroos--your Aborigines--do they keep their +primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short +fore-puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! +Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided _a +priori_; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair +a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony.--We +hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that +the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils +their scanning?--It must look very odd; but use reconciles. For their +scansion, it is less to be regretted, for if they take it into their +heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the greater part of +them, vile plagiarists.--Is there much difference to see to between +the son of a th**f, and the grandson? or where does the taint stop? Do +you bleach in three or in four generations?--I have many questions to +put, but ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it +will take to satisfy my scruples.--Do you grow your own hemp?--What is +your staple trade, exclusive of the national profession, I mean? Your +lock-smiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists. + +I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used +to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous windows, in +pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet +corner?--Why did I?--with its complement of four poor elms, from whose +smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first +lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in +a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a +length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English +letters before they can reach you. But while I talk, I think you hear +me,--thoughts dallying with vain surmise-- + + Aye me! while thee the seas and sounding shores + Hold far away. + +Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall +hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you +left children have become sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. +The blooming Miss W----r (you remember Sally W----r) called upon us +yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die off every year. +Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,--I stood ramparted +about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J.W., two springs +back corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. +If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet +you, of me, or mine. + + + + +THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS + + +I like to meet a sweep--understand me--not a grown sweeper--old +chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive--but one of those tender +novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings +not quite effaced from the cheek--such as come forth with the dawn, or +somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like +the _peep peep_ of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should +I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the +sun-rise? + +I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks--poor +blots--innocent blacknesses-- + +I reverence these young Africans of our own growth--these almost +clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from +their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a +December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. + +When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their +operation! to see a chit no bigger than one's-self enter, one knew not +by what process, into what seemed the _fauces Averni_--to pursue him +in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling +caverns, horrid shades!--to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, +he must be lost for ever!"--to revive at hearing his feeble shout of +discovered day-light--and then (O fulness of delight) running out of +doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in +safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag +waved 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 indicate +which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much +unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of a +child crowned with a tree in his hand rises." + +Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early +rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him +two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of +his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) +be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a +tester. + +There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to +be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind +of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some +tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate +may 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 he +avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant +beverage, on the south side of Fleet-street, as thou approachest +Bridge-street--_the only Salopian house_,"--I have never yet +adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended +ingredients--a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly +whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due +courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not +uninstructed 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 surprisingly +gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper--whether the oily +particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften +the 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 bitter +wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth +her sassafras for a sweet lenitive--but so it is, that no possible +taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a +delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they +will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify +one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic +animals--cats--when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. +There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can +inculcate. + +Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the +_only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art +one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant +of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from +stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler +customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the +rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan +leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, +not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the +honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the +expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our +fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake, +who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in more grateful +coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stops +to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. + +This is _Saloop_--the precocious herb-woman's darling--the delight of +the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of +day from Hammersmith to Covent-garden's famed piazzas--the delight, +and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him +shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the +grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee +but three half-pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an +added halfpenny)--so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged +secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter +volume to the welkin--so may the descending soot never taint thy +costly well-ingredienced soups--nor the odious cry, quickreaching from +street to street, of the _fired chimney_, invite the rattling engines +from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy +peace and pocket! + +I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers +and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over +the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I +endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than +forgiveness.--In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with +my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide +brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and +shame enough--yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had +happened--when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered +me. 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 +the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked +themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a +previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with +such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has +got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, +grinning at the pye-man--there he stood, as he stands in the picture, +irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever--with such a maximum +of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth--for the grin of a +genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it--that I could have +been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have +remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. + +I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine +set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is +a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should +take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or +fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must +I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to +ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as +an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It +is, 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 +better days; a hint of nobility:--and, doubtless, under the obscuring +darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes +lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, +and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender +victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and +almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, +so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be +accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble +Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the +fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and +the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of, good +fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless _defiliations_. + +In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since--under a +ducal canopy--(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to +visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially +a connoisseur)--encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with +starry coronets inwoven--folded between a pair of sheets whiter and +softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius--was discovered by +chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast +asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow +confounded 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 the +delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, +creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the +pillow, and slept like a young Howard. + +Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.--But I cannot +help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted +at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am +mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with +whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under +such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets +of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, +when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far +above his pretensions--is this probable, I would ask, if the great +power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within +him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for +such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, +not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, +when he was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such +sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as +into his proper _incunabula_, and resting-place.--By no other theory, +than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can +I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so +indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. + +My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief of +metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to +reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted +an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure +to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in +Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. +Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the +metropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and +then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly +winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, +indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into +our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be +no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out +of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the +wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The +place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side +of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable +hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the +interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled +about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were +spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a +comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils +of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head +waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty +companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was +clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first +table--for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the +humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some +general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, +his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame +Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, +half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint upon her +chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a +shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled +the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the +sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with _his_ more unctuous +sayings--how he would fit the tit bits to the puny mouths, reserving +the lengthier links for the seniors--how he would intercept a morsel +even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to +the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's +eating"--how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or +that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them +all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best +patrimony,--how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it +were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, +he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe +the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts--"The King,"--the +"Cloth,"--which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting +and flattering;--and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, +"May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other +fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, +would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment +with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a +prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then stuffing +into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) +indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them +mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the +entertainment. + + 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 +my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, +missing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the +glory of Smithfield departed for ever. + + + + +A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS + + +The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation--your only +modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses--is uplift with +many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the +bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags--staves, +dogs, and crutches--the whole mendicant fraternity with all their +baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh +persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets +and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing +sent." + +I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent +crusado, or _bellum ad exterminationem_, proclaimed against a species. +Much good might be sucked from these Beggars. + +They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their +appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to an ingenuous mind +than to be a suppliant to the particular humours or caprice of any +fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. +Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the +assessment. + +There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; +as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go +in livery. + +The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and when +Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards +him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a picture of him, swaying +a ferula for a sceptre, which would have affected our minds with the +same heroic pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we +regard his Belisarius begging for an _obolum_? Would the moral have +been more graceful, more pathetic? + +The Blind Beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy--whose +story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or +attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit will shine +through the disguisements--this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he +was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence +of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green +of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side, +illumining his rags and his beggary--would the child and parent have +cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating +their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some +sempstering shop-board? + +In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King. +The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would +call them) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse +of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good +earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates +the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented +to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. +Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till +he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, +must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, +supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish. + +The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when +they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us +an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up +foul linen. + +How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined +his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the +imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King +Cophetua wooes the beggar maid? + +Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed +with contempt. No one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a +comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour +grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. +Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts +to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his +trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the +streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a +shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally +comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. +He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of +property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No +one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him +of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him +for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour +seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes +to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, +rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a +poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness +of my mind, to be a Beggar. + +Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and +graceful _insignia_ of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the +suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never +out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required +to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His +costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only +man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups +and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth +in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The +fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, +or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become +bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his +religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The +Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I +can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. No corner of +a street is complete without them. They are as indispensable as the +Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the +Signs of old London. They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos, +dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary +checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry-- + + --Look + Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there. + +Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of +Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled them, +casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible) +of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet,--whither are +they fled? or into what corners, blind as themselves, have they been +driven, out of the wholesome air and sun-warmth? immersed between +four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the penalty +of double darkness, where the chink of the dropt half-penny no more +consoles their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful +and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their useless +staves? and who will farm their dogs?--Have the overseers of St. L---- +caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into +the Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----? + +Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most classical, and +at the same time, most English, of the Latinists!--who has treated +of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship, +in the sweetest of his poems, the _Epitaphium in Canem_, or, _Dog's +Epitaph_. Reader, peruse it; and say, if customary sights, which could +call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more +harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily +thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis. + + Pauperis hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, + Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectae, + Dux caeco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat, + Praetenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum + Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus, + Quae dubios regerent passus, vestigia tuta + Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile + In nudo nactus saxo, qua praetereuntium + Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras + Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam. + Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter, + Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. + Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, + Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa + Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice + Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei + Taedia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. + + Hi mores, haec vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, + Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senecta; + Quae tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite caecum + Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti + Ne tola intereat, longos deleta per annos, + Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, + Etsi inopis, non ingratae, munuscula dextrae; + Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque + Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum. + + * * * * * + + Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, + That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, + His guide and guard: nor, while my service lasted, + Had he occasion for that staff, with which + He now goes picking out his path in fear + Over the highways and crossings; but would plant, + Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, + A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd + His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide + Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd: + To whom with loud and passionate laments + From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. + Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, + The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. + I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; + Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear + Prick'd up at his least motion; to receive + At his kind hand ray customary crums, + And common portion in his feast of scraps; + Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent + With our long day and tedious beggary. + + These were my manners, this my way of life, + Till age and slow disease me overtook, + And sever'd from my sightless master's side. + But lest the grace of so good deeds should die. + Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, + This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, + Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand, + And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, + In long and lasting union to attest, + The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. + +These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well-known +figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to glide his comely +upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling along with most +ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood; a spectacle to natives, +to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a +florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and +sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the scientific, +a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man +brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise his +own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart, +of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the +accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780, +and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, +and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He +was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which +should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only +retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a +tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, +and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that +had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his +just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was +as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been +cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could +have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left +him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly +countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this +out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service, +but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to +exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house, +he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically +christened) of Correction. + +Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called +for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a +touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? Among her shows, +her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but +an accumulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for +what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not +_Naturae_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years' +going about, the man had scraped together enough to give a portion +to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he +injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their +_sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the +heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly +trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to +retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over +a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought +against him by a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons' +Committee--was _this_, or was his truly paternal consideration, which +(if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is +inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which +he has been slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his +chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in hoary +age for a sturdy vagabond?-- + +There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed to have sate +down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction, +ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost +thy breed."-- + +Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by begging +are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in +the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable inferences +deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announcement of +a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a +stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham +(or some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had +been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half-penny +duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms +by the way-side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his +daily benefactor by the voice only; and, when he died, left all the +amassings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the +accumulating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up +people's hearts, and pennies, against giving an alms to the blind?--or +not rather a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, +and noble gratitude upon the other? + +I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. + +I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, and +looking up with his no eyes in the sun--Is it possible I could have +steeled my purse against him? + +Perhaps I had no small change. + +Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, +imposture--_give, and ask no questions_. Cast thy bread upon the +waters. Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels. + +Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a +charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) +comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small +children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable +existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save +a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he +pretendeth, _give_, and under a personate father of a family, think +(if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent bachelor. When +they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, think them +players. You pay your money to see a comedian feign these things, +which, concerning these poor people, thou canst not certainly tell +whether they are feigned or not. + + + + +A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG + + +Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging +enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages +ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just +as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely +hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his +Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the +term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on +to say, that the art of roasting, 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 his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who +being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, +let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, +spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, +till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry +antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of +much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than +nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all +over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in +the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake +of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again +with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any +time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he +should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking +remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his +nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What +could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he had smelt that +smell before--indeed this was by no means the first accident of the +kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young +fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, +or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his +nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel +the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, +and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. +Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, +and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for +before him no man had known it) he tasted--_crackling_! Again he felt +and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he +licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke +into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and +the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the +newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched +skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in +his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, +armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to +rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, +which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The +tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had +rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in +those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat +him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming +a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following +dialogue ensued. + +"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not +enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's +tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know +not what--what have you got there, I say?" + +"O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig +eats." + +The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he +cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt +pig. + +Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since moming, soon raked +out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser +half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out "Eat, +eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste--O Lord,"--with such like +barbarous ejaculations, 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 unnatural +young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had +done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn +tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for +a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion +(for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son +fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had +despatched all that remained of the litter. + +Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the +neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable +wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which +God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was +observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than +ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out +in 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, seemed +to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, +the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take +their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was +given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about +to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the +burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into +the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their +fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature +prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all +the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,--to +the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and +all present--without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation +whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. + +The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity +of the decision: and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and +bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few +days his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing +took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every +direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. +The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter +and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of +architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this +custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my +manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that +the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked +(_burnt_, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a +whole 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, +I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the +manuscript, 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 must +be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as +setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in +favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found +in ROAST PIG. + +Of all the delicacies in the whole _mundus edibilis_, I will maintain +it to be the most delicate--_princeps obsoniorum_. + +I speak not of your grown porkers--things between pig and pork--those +hobbydehoys--but a young and tender suckling--under a moon +old--guiltless as yet of the sty--with no original speck of the +_amor immunditiae_, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet +manifest--his voice as yet not broken, but something between a +childish treble, and a grumble--the mild forerunner, or _praeludium_, +of a grunt. + +_He must be roasted._ I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them +seethed, 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 well +called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure +at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance--with the +adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but an indefinable sweetness +growing up to it--the tender blossoming of fat--fat cropped in the +bud--taken in the shoot--in the first innocence--the cream and +quintessence 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 be so) so +blended and running into each other, that both together make but 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 he +twirleth round the string!--Now he is just done. To see the extreme +sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty +eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars-- + +See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!--wouldst +thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility +which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would +have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable +animal--wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation--from these +sins 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 half +rejecteth, the rank bacon--no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking +sausages--he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the +judicious epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die. + +He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost +too transcendent--a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, +that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause--too +ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips +that approach her--like lovers' kisses, she biteth--she is a pleasure +bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish--but +she stoppeth at the palate--she meddleth not with the appetite--and +the 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 the weakling refuseth not his +mild juices. + +Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, +inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he +is--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 the +least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. + +I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the +good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in +this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my +friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine +own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, +partridges, snipes, barn-door chicken (those "tame villatic fowl"), +capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as +I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue +of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like +Lear, "give every thing." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an +ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, +or send out of the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, +or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I +may say, to my individual palate--It argues an insensibility. + +I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good +old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without +stuffing a sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had +dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the +oven. In my way to school (it was over London bridge) a grey-headed +old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was +a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity +of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, +I made him a present of--the whole cake! I walked on a little, +buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of +self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, +my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how +ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift +away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a +bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt +would be taking in thinking that I--I myself, and not another--would +eat her nice cake--and what should I say to her the next time I saw +her--how naughty I was to part with her pretty present--and the odour +of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure +and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy +when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel +that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last--and I blamed +my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of +goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that +insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. + +Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender +victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, +as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is +gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light +merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and +dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh +of young, pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be +cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom +of the practice. It might impart a gusto-- + +I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I +was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on +both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained +his death by whipping (_per flagellationem extremam_) superadded a +pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible +suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using +that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision. + +His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crums, done up +with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear +Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole +hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with +plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or +make them stronger than they are--but consider, he is a weakling--a +flower. + + + + +A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE + + +As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in noting down +the infirmities of Married People, to console myself for those +superior pleasures, which they tell me I have lost by remaining as I +am. + +I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever made any +great impression upon me, or had much tendency to strengthen me in +those anti-social resolutions, which I took up long ago upon more +substantial considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses +of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different +description;--it is that they are too loving. + +Not too loving neither: that does not explain my meaning. Besides, +why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from +the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's +society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world. + +But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so +undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so +shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being +made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that _you_ are not +the object of this preference. Now there are some things which give +no offence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but expressed, +there is much offence in them. If a man were to accost the first +homely-featured or plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and +tell her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, +and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill +manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and +opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought +fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it +were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of +making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a +married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less +plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,--the lady's choice. +It is enough that I know I am not: I do not want this perpetual +reminding. + +The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently +mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is +brought out to insult me, may accidentally improve me; and in the rich +man's houses and pictures,--his parks and gardens, I have a temporary +usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of +these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified +insult. + +Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least +invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive +privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, +that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, +may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married +monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our +faces. + +Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and +satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple, +in that of the lady particularly: it tells you, that her lot is +disposed of in this world: that _you_ can have no hopes of her. +It is true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps: but this is +one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for +granted, not expressed. The excessive airs which those people give +themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be +more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them to +understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better than we +who have not had the happiness to be made free of the company: but +their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person +presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most +indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent +person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best +of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight +before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from +her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London +market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old +Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about such matters. + +But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these +creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, +to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children +are,--that every street and blind alley swarms with them,--that the +poorest people commonly have them in most abundance,--that there +are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these +bargains,--how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes +of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, +disgrace, the gallows, &c.--I cannot for my life tell what cause +for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young +phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a +pretext. But when they are so common-- + +I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their +husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. But why _we_, who +are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our +spices, myrrh, and incense,--our tribute and homage of admiration,--I +do not see. + +"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young +children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed +for the churching of women. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver +full of them:" So say I; but then don't let him discharge his +quiver upon us that are weaponless;--let them be arrows, but not to +gall and stick us. I have generally observed that these arrows are +double-headed: they have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the +other. As for instance, when you come into a house which is full of +children, if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking +of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent +caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of +children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually +engaging,--if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about +in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure +to be found for sending them out of the room: they are too noisy or +boisterous, or Mr. ---- does not like children. With one or other of +these forks the arrow is sure to hit you. + +I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their +brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be +called upon to _love_ them, where I see no occasion,--to love a whole +family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,--to love all +the pretty dears, because children are so engaging. + +I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always +so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease +you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,--any +inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or +the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long +absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing +that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and +apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a +real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable +or unamiable _per se_; I must love or hate them as I see cause for +either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to +admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and +to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own +stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is +an attractive age,--there is something in the tender years of infancy +that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice +about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, +not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the +prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it +should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another +in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.--I was +always rather squeamish in my women and children. + +But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity +at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, +and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom +you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,--if you did not +come in on the wife's side,--if you did not sneak into the house in +her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before +their courtship was so much as thought on,--look about you--your +tenure is precarious--before a twelve-month shall roll over your head, +you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards +you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have +scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I +can rely, whose friendship did not commence _after the period of his +marriage_. With some limitations they can endure that: but that the +good man should have dared to enter into a solemn league of friendship +in which they were not consulted, though it happened before they +knew him,--before they that are now man and wife ever met,--this +is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic +intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with +their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that +was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new +marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will +let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally +befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these _new mintings_. + +Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm you out +of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you say with a kind of +wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, +_but an oddity_, is one of the ways;--they have a particular kind of +stare for the purpose;--till at last the husband, who used to defer to +your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of understanding +and manner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite +vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to suspect whether you are +not altogether a humorist,--a fellow well enough to have consorted +with in his bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced +to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is that which has +oftenest been put in practice against me. + +Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony: that is, +where they find you an object of especial regard with their husband, +who is not so easily to be shaken from the lasting attachment founded +on esteem which he has conceived towards you; by never-qualified +exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, +who understands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him, +grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so much candour, +and by relaxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two +in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level of moderate +esteem,--that "decent affection and complacent kindness" towards you, +where she herself can join in sympathy with him without much stretch +and violence to her sincerity. + +Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable +a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, +continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond +of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your moral character +was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, upon any +imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she +will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, Mr. ---- as +a great wit." If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm +in your conversation that he first grew to like you, and was content +for this to overlook some trifling irregularities in your moral +deportment, upon the first notice of any of these she as readily +exclaims, "This, my dear, is your good Mr. ----." One good lady whom +I took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me quite so +much respect as I thought due to her husband's old friend, had the +candour to confess to me that she had often heard Mr. ---- speak +of me before marriage, and that she had conceived a great desire +to be acquainted with me, but that the sight of me had very much +disappointed her expectations; for from her husband's representations +of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, +officer-like looking man (I use her very words); the very reverse of +which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility +not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of +personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so +much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible +approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which +I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no more than +myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character in his air or +countenance. + +These are some of the mortifications which I have encountered in the +absurd attempt to visit at their houses. To enumerate them all would +be a vain endeavour: I shall therefore just glance at the very common +impropriety of which married ladies are guilty,--of treating us as if +we were their husbands, and _vice versa_. I mean, when they use us +with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony. _Testacea_, for +instance, kept me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual +time of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. ---- did not come +home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be +guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was +reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an invention to +take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to +be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some +other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in +little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to +deny in the greater. Had _Testacea_ kept the oysters back for me, and +withstood her husband's importunities to go to supper, she would have +acted according to the strict rules of propriety. I know no ceremony +that ladies are bound to observe to their husbands, beyond the point +of a modest behaviour and decorum: therefore I must protest against +the vicarious gluttony of _Cerasia_, who at her own table sent away a +dish of Morellas, which I was applying to with great good will, to her +husband at the other end of the table, and recommended a plate of +less extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in their stead. +Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of ----. + +But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaintance by Roman +denominations. Let them amend and change their manners, or I promise +to record the full-length English of their names, to the terror of all +such desperate offenders in future. + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + + +The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which I picked up the other +day--I know not by what chance it was preserved so long--tempts me to +call to mind a few of the Players, who make the principal figure in +it. It presents the cast of parts in the Twelfth Night, at the old +Drury-lane Theatre two-and-thirty years ago. There is something very +touching in these old remembrances. They make us think how we _once_ +used to read a Play Bill--not, as now peradventure, singling out a +favorite performer, and casting a negligent eye over the rest; but +spelling out every name, down to the very mutes and servants of +the scene;--when it was a matter of no small moment to us whether +Whitfield, or Packer, took the part of Fabian; when Benson, and +Burton, and Phillimore--names of small account--had an importance, +beyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best +actors.--"Orsino, by Mr. Barrymore."--What a full Shakspearian sound +it carries! how fresh to memory arise the image, and the manner, of +the gentle actor! + +Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten or fifteen +years, can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as +Ophelia; Helena, in All's Well that Ends Well; and Viola in this play. +Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough +with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steady +melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts--in which her memory now +chiefly lives--in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There +is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her +love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to +weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line, +to make up the music--yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather _read_, +not without its grace and beauty--but, when she had declared her +sister's history to be a "blank," and that she "never told her love," +there was a pause, as if the story had ended--and then the image of +the "worm in the bud" came up as a new suggestion--and the heightened +image of "Patience" still followed after that, as by some growing (and +not mechanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would +almost say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine +lines-- + + Write loyal cantos of contemned love-- + Hollow your name to the reverberate hills-- + +there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which +was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature's +own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without +rule or law. + +Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the pride of her beauty, made +an admirable Olivia. She was particularly excellent in her unbending +scenes in conversation with the Clown. I have seen some Olivias--and +those very sensible actresses too--who in these interlocutions have +seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him +in downright emulation. But she used him for her sport, like what +he was, to trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then to be +dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady still. She touched the +imperious fantastic humour of the character with nicety. Her fine +spacious person filled the scene. + +The part of Malvolio has in my judgment been so often misunderstood, +and the _general merits_ of the actor, who then played it, so unduly +appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon, if I am a little prolix +upon these points. + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which he +threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports of +the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city. His voice had +the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. +His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by affectation; +and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in every movement. He +seized the moment of passion with the greatest truth; like a faithful +clock, never striking before the time; never anticipating or leading +you to anticipate. He was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He +seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and he +did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios in Homer deliver the +errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment do its own +work without prop or bolstering. He would have scorned to mountebank +it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which is the bane of +serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only endurable one +which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his action could +divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to do. His +confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the mystery. +There were no by-intimations to make the audience fancy their own +discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who commonly stands +like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, and a quantity of +barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago of Bensley did +not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone about the +character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but none of +that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon any +little successful stroke of its knavery--as is common with your small +villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not clap or crow +before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a child, and +winking all the while at other children who are mightily pleased at +being let into the secret; but a consummate villain entrapping a noble +nature into toils, against which no discernment was available, where +the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed dark, and without +motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, was performed by +Bensley, with a richness and a dignity, of which (to judge from some +recent castings of that character) the very tradition must be worn out +from the stage. No manager in those days would have dreamed of giving +it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley was occasionally +absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it no derogation to +succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially ludicrous. He becomes +comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, repelling; but dignified, +consistent, and, for what appears, rather of an over-stretched +morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; and he might have +worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old round-head families, +in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. But his morality and +his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed to the proper +_levities_ of the piece, and falls in the unequal contest. Still his +pride, or his gravity, (call it which you will) is inherent, and +native to the man, not mock or affected, which latter only are the +fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at the best unlovely, +but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing is lofty, a little +above his station, but probably not much above his deserts. We see no +reason why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished. +His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he was +commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity of birth +and feeling. His dialect on all occasions is that of a gentleman, and +a man of education. We must not confound him with the eternal old, low +steward of comedy. He is master of the household to a great Princess; +a dignity probably conferred upon him for other respects than age or +length of service. Olivia, at the first indication of his supposed +madness, declares that she "would not have him miscarry for half of +her dowry." Does this look as if the character was meant to appear +little or insignificant? Once, indeed, she accuses him to his face--of +what?--of being "sick of self-love,"--but with a gentleness and +considerateness which could not have been, if she had not thought +that this particular infirmity shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the +knight, and his sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when +we take into consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, +and the strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled +mourning would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, +Malvolio might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his +keeping; as it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or +kinsmen, to look to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice +respects at the buttery hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be +represented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression of the +Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost infers. "Pursue +him, and entreat him to a peace." Even in his abused state of chains +and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert him. He +argues highly and well with the supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises +gallantly upon his straw.[1] There must have been some shadow of worth +about the man; he must have been something more than a mere vapour--a +thing of straw, or Jack in office--before Fabian and Maria could have +ventured sending him upon a courting-errand to Olivia. There was some +consonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the jest would +have been too bold even for that house of misrule. + +Bensley, accordingly, threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. +He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, +spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed +upon a sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. +It was big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. +You might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's affection, gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, who +came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few seasons +ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, as it +came out of Nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in puris +naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom, from +his grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning +full upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon +close inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[2] + +If few can remember Dodd, many yet living will not easily forget the +pleasant creature, who in those days enacted the part of the Clown +to Dodd's Sir Andrew.--Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in +his life-time he delighted to be called, and time hath ratified the +appellation--lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy +Paul, to whose service his nonage and tender years were dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable to +an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I could +never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one +of us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype of,--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt +or a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose and shambling gait, a slippery +tongue, this last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; +in words, light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest +rhymes tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, +or Sir Toby at the buttery-hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as Shakspeare says of Love, too +young to know what conscience is. He put us into Vesta's days. Evil +fled before him--not as from Jack, as from an antagonist,--but because +it could not touch him, any more than a cannon-ball a fly. He was +delivered from the burthen of that death; and, when Death came +himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is recorded of him by +Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he received the +last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, nor tune, +with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in his +epitaph--_O La! O La! Bobby!_ + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[3] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied +the handsome fellow in his topknot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personas were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson._ Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben._ Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all.--Well, father, +and how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson._ Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben._ Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gives us--but a piece of satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as +a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to it +a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personae, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain but in the first or second gallery. + +[Footnote 1:_Clown_. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild + fowl? +_Mal_. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. +_Clown_. What thinkest thou of his opinion? +_Mal_. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 2: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 3: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years +only, to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear +them. Is it for a few wild speeches, an occasional license of +dialogue? I think not altogether. The business of their dramatic +characters will not stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to +that. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of +an evening, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications +of profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent +or guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic interests +left. We see a stage libertine playing his loose pranks of two hours' +duration, and of no after consequence, with the severe eyes which +inspect real vices with their bearings upon two worlds. We are +spectators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to the point +of strict morality) and take it all for truth. We substitute a real +for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. We try him in our +courts, from which there is no appeal to the _dramatis personae_, his +peers. We have been spoiled with--not sentimental comedy--but a tyrant +far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the +exclusive and all devouring drama of common life; where the moral +point is every thing; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed +personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy) we recognise +ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, +enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in what is going on +so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our moral judgment, +in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise or slumber for +a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no modification is made +to affect us in any other manner than the same events or characters +would do in our relationships of life. We carry our fire-side concerns +to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, like our ancestors, +to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our +experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. +We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful +privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral +ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in +fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in +question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual +moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted +casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to the +interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer +for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of +the strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the +law-courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a +world with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired +the breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as fairy-land. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of the right and the wrong. The standard of _police_ +is the measure of _political justice_. The atmosphere will blight +it, it cannot live here. It has got into a moral world, where it has +no business, from which it must needs fall headlong; as dizzy, and +incapable of making a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or Angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?--The +Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact they do not +appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They +break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. +They have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call +it?--of cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, +and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene +of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No +good person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good +person suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in +in these plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike +essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is +especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from his +scenes,--some little generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps +excepted,--not only any thing like a faultless character, but any +pretensions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did +this designedly, or instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the +design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder at the strange power +which his Way of the World in particular possesses of interesting you +all along in the pursuits of characters, for whom you absolutely care +nothing--for you neither hate nor love his personages--and I think it +is owing to this very indifference for any, that you endure the whole. +He has spread a privation of moral light, I will call it, rather +than by the ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations; and +his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. Had +he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a +revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual duties, the +impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the discovery of +deformities, which now are none, because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children. + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But, like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite +as impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out +of which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that it +should be now _acted_, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +play-goers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did not +believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed in +Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities: the gaiety +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealise, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to say have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Church-yard memory--(an exhibition +as venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has past from the stage +in good time, that he did not live to this our age of seriousness. +The pleasant old Teazle _King_, too, is gone in good time. His +manner would scarce have past current in our day. We must love or +hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our detestable +coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph Surface, to go +down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no compromise--his +first appearance must shock and give horror--his specious +plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our fathers +welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm (dramatic +harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must inspire a +cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person of the +scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate ends, +but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in downright +self-satisfaction) must be _loved_ and Joseph _hated_. To balance one +disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must be no longer +the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, whose teasings +(while King acted it) were evidently as much played off at you, as +they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must be a real +person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person towards whom +duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con antagonist of the +villanous seducer Joseph. To realise him more, his sufferings under +his unfortunate match must have the downright pungency of life--must +(or should) make you not mirthful but uncomfortable, just as the same +predicament would move you in a neighbour or old friend. The delicious +scenes which give the play its name and zest, must affect you in +the same serious manner as if you heard the reputation of a dear +female friend attacked in your real presence. Crabtree, and Sir +Benjamin--those poor snakes that live but in the sunshine of your +mirth--must be rippened by this hot-bed process of realization +into asps or amphisbaenas; and Mrs. Candour--O! frightful! become a +hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and Dodd--the wasp and +butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two characters; and +charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as distinguished +from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would forego +the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But, as far as I could +judge, the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal +incapacity than he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part +came steeped and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a +grace. His exact declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served +to convey the points of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed +to head the shafts to carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling +sentences was lost. I remember minutely how he delivered each in +succession, and cannot by any effort imagine how any of them could be +altered for the better. No man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the +dialogue of Congreve or of Wycherley--because none understood it--half +so well as John Kemble. His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my +recollection, faultless. He flagged sometimes in the intervals of +tragic passion. He would slumber over the level parts of an heroic +character. His Macbeth has been known to nod. But he always seemed +to me to be particularly alive to pointed and witty dialogue. The +relaxing levities of tragedy have not been touched by any since +him--the playful court-bred spirit in which he condescended to the +players in Hamlet--the sportive relief which he threw into the darker +shades of Richard--disappeared with him. He had his sluggish moods, +his torpors--but they were the halting-stones and resting-places of +his tragedy-politic savings, and fetches of the breath--husbandry of +the lungs, where nature pointed him to be an economist--rather, I +think, than errors of the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful +than the eternal tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless +dragon eyes," of present fashionable tragedy. + + + + +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN + + +Not many nights ago I had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when I retired to my pillow, his whimsical +image still stuck by me, in a manner as to threaten sleep. In vain +I tried to divest myself of it, by conjuring up the most opposite +associations. I resolved to be serious. I raised up the gravest topics +of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod, swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But I was not to escape so easily. No sooner did I fall into slumbers, +than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed me in the shape +of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing before me, +like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when you have been +taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this strangest of +all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance into, from the +day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the town for the loss +of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power of the pencil +to have fixed them when I awoke! A season or two since there was +exhibited a Hogarth gallery. I do not see why there should not be a +Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not fall far +short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but what a one +it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin down, +and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, +in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an +entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion. +Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied +like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, +literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the phrase is a +mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human countenance. +Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his friend +Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. I should not be +surprised to see him some day put out the head of a river horse; or +come forth a pewitt, or lapwing, some feathered metamorphosis. + +I have seen this gifted actor, in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. I have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in the grand grotesque of farce, Munden stands out as single and +unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had no followers. +The school of Munden began, and must end with himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--"SESSA"--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobbler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him. Who like him +can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over +the commonest daily-life objects? A table, or a joint stool, in his +conception, rises into a dignity equivalent to Cassiopeia's chair. It +is invested with constellatory importance. You could not speak of it +with more deference, if it were mounted into the firmament. A beggar +in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose the Patriarch of +Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and ennobles what it +touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal as the +seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. A tub of butter, +contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg +of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the common-place +materials of life, like primaeval man with the sun and stars about him. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + +(_From the 1st Edition_, 1833) + + + + +PREFACE + +BY A FRIEND OF THE LATE ELIA + + +This poor gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining +way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. + +To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humour of the thing, if +there was ever much in it, was pretty well exhausted; and a two years' +and a half existence has been a tolerable duration for a phantom. + +I am now at liberty to confess, that much which I have heard objected +to my late friend's writings was well-founded. Crude they are, I grant +you--a sort of unlicked, incondite things--villainously pranked in an +affected array of antique modes and phrases. They had not been _his_, +if they had been other than such; and better it is, that a writer +should be natural in a self-pleasing quaintness, than to affect a +naturalness (so called) that should be strange to him. Egotistical +they have been pronounced by some who did not know, that what he tells +us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) of another; as +in a former Essay (to save many instances)--where under the _first +person_ (his favourite figure) he shadows forth the forlorn estate +of a country-boy placed at a London school, far from his friends and +connections--in direct opposition to his own early history. If it +be egotism to imply and twine with his own identity the griefs and +affections of another--making himself many, or reducing many unto +himself--then is the skilful novelist, who all along brings in his +hero, or heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; +who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that narrowness. And how +shall the intenser dramatist escape being faulty, who doubtless, under +cover of passion uttered by another, oftentimes gives blameless vent +to his most inward feelings, and expresses his own story modestly? + +My late friend was in many respects a singular character. Those who +did not like him, hated him; and some, who once liked him, afterwards +became his bitterest haters. The truth is, he gave himself too little +concern what he uttered, and in whose presence. He observed neither +time nor place, and would e'en out with what came uppermost. With the +severe religionist he would pass for a free-thinker; while the other +faction set him down for a bigot, or persuaded themselves that he +belied his sentiments. Few understood him; and I am not certain that +at all times he quite understood himself. He too much affected that +dangerous figure--irony. He sowed doubtful speeches, and reaped +plain, unequivocal hatred.--He would interrupt the gravest discussion +with some light jest; and yet, perhaps, not quite irrelevant in ears +that could understand it. Your long and much talkers hated him. The +informal habit of his mind, joined to an inveterate impediment of +speech, forbade him to be an orator; and he seemed determined that, +no one else should play that part when he was present. He was _petit_ +and ordinary in his person and appearance. I have seen him sometimes +in what is called good company, but where he has been a stranger, sit +silent, and be suspected for an odd fellow; till some unlucky occasion +provoking it, he would stutter out some senseless pun (not altogether +senseless perhaps, if rightly taken), which has stamped his character +for the evening. It was hit or miss with him; but nine times out of +ten, he contrived by this device to send away a whole company his +enemies. His conceptions rose kindlier than his utterance, and his +happiest _impromptus_ had the appearance of effort. He has been +accused of trying to be witty, when in truth he was but struggling +to give his poor thoughts articulation. He chose his companions for +some individuality of character which they manifested.--Hence, not +many persons of science, and few professed _literati_, were of his +councils. They were, for the most part, persons of an uncertain +fortune; and, as to such people commonly nothing is more obnoxious +than a gentleman of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with +most of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was a mistake. +His _intimados_, to confess a truth, were in the world's eye a ragged +regiment. He found them floating on the surface of society; and the +colour, or something else, in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck +to him--but they were gbod and loving burrs for all that. He never +greatly cared for the society of what are called good people. If any +of these were scandalised (and offences were sure to arise), he could +not help it. When he has been remonstrated with for not making more +concessions to the feelings of good people, he would retort by asking, +what one point did these good people ever concede to him? He was +temperate in his meals and diversions, but always kept a little on +this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he +might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as +a solvent of speech. Marry--as the friendly vapour ascended, how +his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which +tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist! + +I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that my old friend +is departed. His jests were beginning to grow obsolete, and his +stories to be found out. He felt the approaches of age; and while he +pretended to cling to life, you saw how slender were the ties left to +bind him. Discoursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed +himself with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him. In our +walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at Shacklewell, +some children belonging to a school of industry had met us, and bowed +and curtseyed, as he thought, in an especial manner to _him_. "They +take me for a visiting governor," he muttered earnestly. He had +a horror, which he carried to a foible, of looking like anything +important and parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to that +stamp daily.. He had a general aversion from being treated like a +grave or respectable character, and kept a wary eye upon the advances +of age that should so entitle him. He herded always, while it was +possible, with people younger than himself. He did not conform to the +march of time, but was dragged along in the procession. His manners +lagged behind his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The _toga +virilis_ never sate gracefully on his shoulders. The impressions +of infancy had burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence of +manhood. These were weaknesses; but such as they were, they are a key +to explicate some of his writings. + + + + +BLAKESMOOR IN H-----SHIRE + + +I do not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will +over the deserted apartments of some fine old family mansion. The +traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy: and +contemplations on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession +to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible +with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present +aristocracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us +between entering an empty and a crowded church. In the latter it is +chance but some present human frailty--an act of inattention on the +part of some of the auditory--or a trait of affectation, or worse, +vain-glory, on that of the preacher--puts us by our best thoughts, +disharmonising the place and the occasion. But would'st thou know the +beauty of holiness?--go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys of +good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church: +think of the piety that has kneeled there--the congregations, old +and young, that have found consolation there--the meek pastor--the +docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting +comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself +become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and +weep around thee. + +Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles +out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with +which I had been impressed in this way in infancy. I was apprised that +the owner of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague notion +that it could not all have perished, that so much solidity with +magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere +dust and rubbish which I found it. + +The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand indeed, and the +demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to--an antiquity. + +I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood +the great gates? What bounded the court-yard? Whereabout did the +out-houses commence? a few bricks only lay as representatives of that +which was so stately and so spacious. + +Death does not shrink up his human victim at this rate. The burnt +ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion. + +Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process of +destruction, at the plucking of every pannel I should have felt the +varlets at my heart. I should have cried out to them to spare a plank +at least out of the cheerful store-room, in whose hot window-seat I +used to sit and read Cowley, with the grass-plat before, and the hum +and flappings of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it about +me--it is in mine ears now, as oft as summer returns; or a pannel of +the yellow room. + +Why, every plank and pannel of that house for me had magic in it. +The tapestried bed-rooms--tapestry so much better than painting--not +adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots--at which childhood ever +and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as +quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter +with those stern bright visages, staring reciprocally--all Ovid on the +walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Actaeon in mid sprout, +with the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still more provoking, +and almost culinary coolness of Dan Phoebus, eel-fashion, deliberately +divesting of Marsyas. + +Then, that haunted room--in which old Mrs. Battle died--whereinto I +have crept, but always in the day-time, with a passion of fear; and +a sneaking curiosity, terror-tainted, to hold communication with the +past.--_How shall they build it up again?_ + +It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but that +traces of the splendour of past inmates were everywhere apparent. +Its furniture was still standing--even to the tarnished gilt leather +battledores, and crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, +which told that children had once played there. But I was a lonely +child, and had the range at will of every apartment, knew every nook +and corner, wondered and worshipped everywhere. + +The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as +it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration, So strange a +passion for the place possessed me in those years, that, though there +lay--I shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion--half hid +by trees, what I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which +bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to pass its strict +and proper precincts, that the idle waters lay unexplored for me; and +not till late in life, curiosity prevailing over elder devotion, I +found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawling brook had been the Lacus +Incognitus of my infancy. Variegated views, extensive prospects--and +those at no great distance from the house--I was told of such--what +were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my Eden?--So far from +a wish to roam, I would have drawn, methought, still closer the fences +of my chosen prison; and have been hemmed in by a yet securer cincture +of those excluding garden walls. I could have exclaimed with that +garden-loving poet-- + + Bind me, ye woodbines, in your 'twines, + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh so close your circles lace, + That I may never leave this place; + But, lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briars, nail me through! + +I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides--the low-built +roof--parlours ten feet by ten--frugal boards, and all the homeliness +of home--these were the condition of my birth--the wholesome soil +which I was planted in. Yet, without impeachment to their tenderest +lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of something beyond; +and to have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting +accidents of a great fortune. + +To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to have been +born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be had on cheaper terms than +to be obliged to an importunate race of ancestors; and the coatless +antiquary in his unemblazoned cell, revolving the long line of a +Mowbray's or De Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding names may warm +himself into as gay a vanity as those who do inherit them. The claims +of birth are ideal merely, and what herald shall go about to strip me +of an idea? Is it trenchant to their swords? can it be hacked off as a +spur can? or torn away like a tarnished garter? + +What, else, were the families of the great to us? what pleasure should +we take in their tedious genealogies, or their capitulatory brass +monuments? What to us the uninterrupted current of their bloods, +if our own did not answer within us to a cognate and correspondent +elevation? + +Or wherefore, else, O tattered and diminished 'Scutcheon that hung +upon the time-worn walls of thy princely stairs, BLAKESMOOR! have +I in childhood so oft stood poring upon thy mystic characters--thy +emblematic supporters, with their prophetic "Resurgam"--till, every +dreg of peasantry purging off, I received into myself Very Gentility? +Thou wert first in my morning eyes; and of nights, hast detained my +steps from bedward, till it was but a step from gazing at thee to +dreaming on thee. + +This is the only true gentry by adoption; the veritable change of +blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by transfusion. + +Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid trophy, I know not, +I inquired not; but its fading rags, and colours cobweb-stained, told +that its subject was of two centuries back. + +And what if my ancestor at that date was some Damoetas--feeding +flocks, not his own, upon the hills of Lincoln--did I in less +earnest vindicate to myself the family trappings of this once proud +AEgon?--repaying by a backward triumph the insults he might possibly +have heaped in his life-time upon my poor pastoral progenitor. + +If it were presumption so to speculate, the present owners of the +mansion had least reason to complain. They had long forsaken the +old house of their fathers for a newer trifle; and I was left to +appropriate to myself what images I could pick up, to raise my fancy, +or to soothe my vanity. + +I was the true descendant of those old W----s; and not the present +family of that name, who had fled the old waste places. + +Mine was that gallery of good old family portraits, which as I have +gone over, giving them in fancy my own family name, one--and then +another--would seem to smile, reaching forward from the canvas, to +recognise the new relationship; while the rest looked grave, as +it seemed, at the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts of fled +posterity. + +That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and a lamb--that hung +next the great bay window--with the bright yellow H----shire hair, and +eye of watchet hue--so like my Alice!--I am persuaded she was a true +Elia--Mildred Elia, I take it. + +Mine too, BLAKESMOOR, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic +pavements, and its Twelve Caesars--stately busts in marble--ranged +round: of whose countenances, young reader of faces as I was, the +frowning beauty of Nero, I remember, had most of my wonder; but the +mild Galba had my love. There they stood in the coldness of death, yet +freshness of immortality. + +Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority, +high-backed and wickered, once the terror of luckless poacher, or +self-forgetful maiden--so common since, that bats have roosted in it. + +Mine too--whose else?--thy costly fruit-garden, with its sun-baked +southern wall; the ampler pleasure-garden, rising backwards from the +house in triple terraces, with flower-pots now of palest lead, save +that a speck here and there, saved from the elements, bespeak their +pristine state to have been gilt and glittering; the verdant quarters +backwarder still; and, stretching still beyond, in old formality, +thy firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day-long +murmuring woodpigeon, with that antique image in the centre, God or +Goddess I wist not; but child of Athens or old Rome paid never a +sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus in their native groves, than I +to that fragmental mystery. + +Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too fervently in your +idol worship, walks and windings of BLAKESMOOR! for this, or what sin +of mine, has the plough passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes +think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their +extinguished habitations there may be a hope--a germ to be revivified. + + + + +POOR RELATIONS + + +A poor relation--is the most irrelevant thing in nature,--a piece of +impertinent correspondency,--an odious approximation,--a haunting +conscience,--a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of +your prosperity,--an unwelcome remembrancer,--a perpetually recurring +mortification,--a drain on your purse,--a more intolerable dun upon +your pride,--a drawback upon success,--a rebuke to your rising,--a +stain in your blood,--a blot on your scutcheon,--a rent in your +garment,--a death's head at your banquet,--Agathocles' pot,--a +Mordecai in your gate,--a Lazarus at your door,--a lion in your +path,--a frog in your chamber,--a fly in your ointment,--a mote in +your eye,--a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,--the +one thing not needful,--the hail in harvest,--the ounce of sour in a +pound of sweet. + +He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. +----." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, +at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth +smiling, and--embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, +and--draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner +time--when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you +have company--but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your +visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never +cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, +"My dear, perhaps Mr. ---- will drop in to-day." He remembereth +birth-days--and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. +He declareth against fish, the turbot being small--yet suffereth +himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. +He sticketh by the port--yet will be prevailed upon to empty the +remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is +a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, +or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him +before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part +take 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 +familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the +familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness +he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too +humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a +client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he +bringeth up no rent--yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that +your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist +table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and--resents being left +out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach--and +lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust +in some mean, and quite unimportant anecdote of--the family. He +knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in +seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what +he calleth--favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of +congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and +insults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He +is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, +there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle--which +you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in +having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not +so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did +not know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the +family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk +a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss +his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly +rid of two nuisances. + +There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is--a female Poor +Relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off +tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is +an old humourist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His +circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are +fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But +in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No +woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without +shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L----s; or what does she at +their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine +times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something +between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently +predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously +sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed +sometimes--_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_--but there is no raising +her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped--after the +gentlemen. Mr. ---- requests the honour of taking wine with her; she +hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former--because +he does. She calls the servant _Sir_; and insists on not troubling +him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's +governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the +piano for a harpsichord. + +Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the +disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity +constituting a claim to acquaintance_, may subject the spirit of a +gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and +a lady of great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the +malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him +"her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his +indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under +which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink +him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amlet +in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W---- +was of my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of +promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality +was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and +serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off +derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried +as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he +would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have +you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had +with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us +more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not +thread 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 this +sneering 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 a +passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion from the +society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to +him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under +which Latimer must have walked erect; and in which Hooker, in his +young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. +In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor +student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which +insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. +He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond +his domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, +to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when the +waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse +malignity. The father of W---- had hitherto exercised the humble +profession of house-painter at N----, near Oxford. A supposed interest +with some of the heads of the colleges had now induced him to take +up his abode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some +public works which were talked of. From that moment I read in the +countenance of the young man, the determination which at length tore +him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with +our Universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, +as they are called--the trading part of the latter especially--is +carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The +temperament of W----'s father was diametrically the reverse of his +own. Old W---- was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his +son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to +any-thing that wore the semblance of a gown--insensible to the winks +and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or +equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously +ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W---- must change +the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the +sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high +as they can bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the +struggle. I stood with W----, the last afternoon I ever saw him, under +the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading +from the High-street to the back of ***** college, where W---- kept +his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to +rally him--finding him in a better mood--upon a representation of the +Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to +flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his +really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge of +gratitude 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 +the next morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in a +regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who +perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. + +I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating half +seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful; +but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for +tragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep +the account distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which +I received on this matter, are certainly not attended with anything +painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my father's table +(no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious +figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet +comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his +words few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I +had little inclination to have done so--for my cue was to admire in +silence. A particular elbow chair was appropriated to him, which was +in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which +appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. +I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of +him was, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at +Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place +where all the money was coined--and I thought he was the owner of +all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his +presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort +of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I +fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a +captive--a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often +have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an +habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards +him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some +argument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient +city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the +dwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked distinction +formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however +brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal +residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in +the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading +Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in +skill and hardihood, of the _Above Boys_ (his own faction) over the +_Below Boys_ (so were they called), of which party his contemporary +had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this +topic--the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought +out--and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement +(so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to +insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation +upon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the general +preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the +dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating +level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw +the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the +thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." +He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have +already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He +had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigour--when my aunt, +an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with +my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of +season--uttered the following memorable application--"Do take another +slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old +gentleman said nothing at the time--but he took occasion in the course +of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to +utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me +now as I write it--"Woman, you are superannuated." John Billet did not +survive long, after the digesting of this affront; but he survived +long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I +remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the +place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint +(Anno 1781) where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable +independence; 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 never +been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was--a Poor Relation. + + + + +STAGE ILLUSION + + +A play is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the scenical +illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect, +is not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is, when +the actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators. +In tragedy--in all which is to affect the feelings--this undivided +attention to his stage business, seems indispensable. Yet it is, in +fact, dispensed with every day by our cleverest tragedians; and while +these references to an audience, in the shape of rant or sentiment, +are not too frequent or palpable, a sufficient quantity of illusion +for the purposes of dramatic interest may be said to be produced in +spite of them. But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in +certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little +extravagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral +sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when, +without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit +understanding with them; and makes them, unconsciously to themselves, +a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of +doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession. + +The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, +or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward +_done to the life_ upon a stage would produce anything but mirth. +Yet we most of us remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could any thing +be more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues. How was +this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual +sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in the extremity of the +shaking fit, that he was not half such a coward as we took him for? We +saw all the common symptoms of the malady upon him; the quivering lip, +the cowering knees, the teeth chattering; and could have sworn "that +man was frightened." But we forgot all the while--or kept it almost a +secret to ourselves--that he never once lost his self-possession; that +he let out by a thousand droll looks and gestures--meant at _us_, and +not at all supposed to be visible to his fellows in the scene, that +his confidence in his own resources had never once deserted him. Was +this a genuine picture of a coward? or not rather a likeness, which +the clever artist contrived to palm upon us instead of an original; +while we secretly connived at the delusion for the purpose of greater +pleasure, than a more genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, +helplessness, and utter self-desertion, which we know to be +concomitants of cowardice in real life, could have given us? + +Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, +but because the skilful actor, by a sort of sub-reference, rather than +direct appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its +odiousness, by seeming to engage _our_ compassion for the insecure +tenure by which he holds his money bags and parchments? By this subtle +vent half of the hatefulness of the character--the self-closeness +with which in real life it coils itself up from the sympathies of +men--evaporates. The miser becomes sympathetic; _i.e._ is no genuine +miser. Here again a diverting likeness is substituted for a very +disagreeable reality. + +Spleen, irritability--the pitiable infirmities of old men, which +produce only pain to behold in the realities, counterfeited upon a +stage, divert not altogether for the comic appendages to them, but in +part from an inner conviction that they are _being acted_ before us; +that a likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They +please by being done under the life, or beside it; not _to the life_. +When Gatty acts an old man, is he angry indeed? or only a pleasant +counterfeit, just enough of a likeness to recognise, without pressing +upon us the uneasy sense of reality? + +Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too natural. It was the +case with a late actor. Nothing could be more earnest or true than the +manner of Mr. Emery; this told excellently in his Tyke, and characters +of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of +attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion of +everything before the curtain into his comedy, it produced a harsh and +dissonant effect. He was out of keeping with the rest of the _Personae +Dramatis_. There was as little link between him and them as betwixt +himself and the audience. He was a third estate, dry, repulsive, and +unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execution was masterly. +But comedy is not this unbending thing; for this reason, that the same +degree of credibility is not required of it as to serious scenes. The +degrees of credibility demanded to the two things may be illustrated +by the different sort of truth which we expect when a man tells us a +mournful or a merry story. If we suspect the former of falsehood in +any one tittle, we reject it altogether. Our tears refuse to flow at a +suspected imposition. But the teller of a mirthful tale has latitude +allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth. 'Tis the +same with dramatic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see an +audience naturalised behind the scenes, taken in into the interest +of the drama, welcomed as by-standers however. There is something +ungracious in a comic actor holding himself aloof from all +participation or concern with those who are come to be diverted by +him. Macbeth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of +it; but an old fool in farce may think he _sees something_, and by +conscious words and looks express it, as plainly as he can speak, to +pit, box, and gallery. When an impertinent in tragedy, an Osric, for +instance, breaks in upon the serious passions of the scene, we approve +of the contempt with which he is treated. But when the pleasant +impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and +raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, worries the studious man +with taking up his leisure, or making his house his home, the same +sort of contempt expressed (however _natural_) would destroy the +balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion comic, +the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature; he +must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much +dissatisfaction and peevishness as is consistent with the pleasure of +comedy. In other words, his perplexity must seem half put on. If he +repel the intruder with the sober set face of a man in earnest, and +more especially if he deliver his expostulations in a tone which in +the world must necessarily provoke a duel; his real-life manner will +destroy the whimsical and purely dramatic existence of the other +character (which to render it comic demands an antagonist comicality +on the part of the character opposed to it), and convert what was +meant for mirth, rather than belief, into a downright piece of +impertinence indeed, which would raise no diversion in us, but rather +stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest upon any unworthy person. A +very judicious actor (in most of his parts) seems to have fallen into +an error of this sort in his playing with Mr. Wrench in the farce of +Free and Easy. + +Many instances would be tedious; these may suffice to show that comic +acting at least does not always demand from the performer that strict +abstraction from all reference to an audience, which is exacted of +it; but that in some cases a sort of compromise may take place, and +all the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by a judicious +understanding, not too openly announced, between the ladies and +gentlemen--on both sides of the curtain. + + + + +TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON + + +Joyousest of once embodied spirits, whither at length hast thou flown? +to what genial region are we permitted to conjecture that thou has +flitted. + +Art thou sowing thy WILD OATS yet (the harvest time was still to come +with thee) upon casual sands of Avernus? or art thou enacting ROVER +(as we would gladlier think) by wandering Elysian streams? + +This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us, +was in truth any thing but a prison to thee, as the vain Platonist +dreams of this _body_ to be no better than a county gaol, forsooth, or +some house of durance vile, whereof the five senses are the fetters. +Thou knewest better than to be in a hurry to cast off those gyves; and +had notice to quit, I fear, before thou wert quite ready to abandon +this fleshly tenement. It was thy Pleasure House, thy Palace of Dainty +Devices; thy Louvre, or thy White Hall. + +What new mysterious lodgings dost thou tenant now? or when may we +expect thy aerial house-warming? + +Tartarus we know, and we have read of the Blessed Shades; now cannot I +intelligibly fancy thee in either. + +Is it too much to hazard a conjecture, that (as the school-men +admitted a receptacle apart for Patriarchs and un-chrisom Babes) there +may exist--not far perchance from that storehouse of all vanities, +which Milton saw in visions--a LIMBO somewhere for PLAYERS? and that + + Up thither like aerial vapours fly + Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things + Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame? + All the unaccomplish'd works of Authors' hands, + Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, + Damn'd upon earth, fleet thither-- + Play, Opera, Farce, with all their trumpery-- + +There, by the neighbouring moon (by some not improperly supposed +thy Regent Planet upon earth) mayst thou not still be acting thy +managerial pranks, great disembodied Lessee? but Lessee still, and +still a Manager. + +In Green Rooms, impervious to mortal eye, the muse beholds thee +wielding posthumous empire. + +Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) circle thee in +endlessly, and still their song is _Fye on sinful Phantasy_. + +Magnificent were thy capriccios on this globe of earth, ROBERT WILLIAM +ELLISTON! for as yet we know not thy new name in heaven. + +It irks me to think, that, stript of thy regalities, thou shouldst +ferry over, a poor forked shade, in crazy Stygian wherry. Methinks I +hear the old boatman, paddling by the weedy wharf, with raucid voice, +bawling "SCULLS, SCULLS:" to which, with waving hand, and majestic +action, thou deignest no reply, other than in two curt monosyllables, +"No: OARS." + +But the laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king, +and cobbler; manager, and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life +were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by +cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently +departed candle-snuffer. + +But mercy! what strippings, what tearing off of histrionic robes, +and private vanities! what denudations to the bone, before the surly +Ferryman will admit you to set a foot within his battered lighter! + +Crowns, sceptres; shield, sword, and truncheon; thy own coronation +robes (for thou hast brought the whole property man's wardrobe with +thee, enough to sink a navy); the judge's ermine; the coxcomb's wig; +the snuff-box _a la Foppington_--all must overboard, he positively +swears--and that ancient mariner brooks no denial; for, since the +tiresome monodrame of the old Thracian Harper, Charon, it is to be +believed, hath shown small taste for theatricals. + +Aye, now 'tis done. You are just boat weight; _pura et puta anima_. + +But bless me, how _little_ you look! + +So shall we all look--kings, and keysars--stript for the last voyage. + +But the murky rogue pushes off. Adieu, pleasant, and thrice pleasant +shade! with my parting thanks for many a heavy hour of life lightened +by thy harmless extravaganzas, public or domestic. + +Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below, leaving to his +two brethren the heavy calendars--honest Rhadamanth, always partial +to players, weighing their parti-coloured existence here upon +earth,--making account of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy +_real life_ as we call it, (though, substantially, scarcely less a +vapour than thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury,) as but of +so many echoes, natural repercussions, and results to be expected from +the assumed extravagancies of thy _secondary_ or _mock life_, nightly +upon a stage--after a lenient castigation, with rods lighter than +of those Medusean ringlets, but just enough to "whip the offending +Adam out of thee"--shall courteously dismiss thee at the right +hand gate--the O.P. side of Hades--that conducts to masques, and +merry-makings, in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine. + +PLAUDITO, ET VALETO + + + + +ELLISTONIANA + + +My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we all deplore, +was but slight. + +My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into an +acquaintance a little on this side of intimacy, was over a counter +of the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered upon by a branch +of his family. E., whom nothing misbecame--to auspicate, I suppose, +the filial concern, and set it a going with a lustre--was serving in +person two damsels fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to +inquire for some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of +the illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an air did +he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his opinion upon the +worth of the work in question, and launching out into a dissertation +on its comparative merits with those of certain publications of a +similar stamp, its rivals! his enchanted customers fairly hanging on +his lips, subdued to their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a +gentleman in comedy _acting_ the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves +in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he contrived to +carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from the occupation he had +so generously submitted to; and from that hour I judged him, with no +after repentance, to be a person, with whom it would be a felicity to +be more acquainted. + +To descant upon his merits as a Comedian would be superfluous. With +his blended private and professional habits alone I have to do; +that harmonious fusion of the manners of the player into those of +every day life, which brought the stage boards into streets, and +dining-parlours, and kept up the play when the play was ended.--"I +like Wrench," a friend was saying to him one day, "because he is the +same natural, easy creature, _on_ the stage, that he is _off_." "My +case exactly," retorted Elliston--with a charming forgetfulness, +that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same +conclusion--"I am the same person _off_ the stage that I am _on_." The +inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, +and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the other +always, _acting_. + +And in truth this was the charm of Elliston's private deportment. +You had a spirited performance always going on before your eyes, +with nothing to pay. As where a monarch takes up his casual abode for +a night, the poorest hovel which he honours by his sleeping in it, +becomes _ipso facto_ for that time a palace; so where-ever Elliston +walked, sate, or stood still, there was the theatre. He carried about +with him his pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his portable +playhouse at corners of streets, and in the market-places. Upon +flintiest pavements he trod the boards still; and if his theme chanced +to be passionate, the green baize carpet of tragedy spontaneously rose +beneath his feet. Now this was hearty, and showed a love for his art. +So Apelles _always_ painted--in thought. So G.D. _always_ poetises. +I hate a lukewarm artist. I have known actors--and some of them of +Elliston's own stamp--who shall have agreeably been amusing you in +the part of a rake or a coxcomb, through the two or three hours of +their dramatic existence; but no sooner does the curtain fall with +its leaden clatter, but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their +faculties. They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their +families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding your heart +with generous deeds and sentiments, till it even beats with yearnings +of universal sympathy; you absolutely long to go home, and do some +good action. The play seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of +the house, and realise your laudable intentions. At length the final +bell rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable +in human breasts steps forth--a miser. Elliston was more of a piece. +Did he _play_ Ranger? and did Ranger fill the general bosom of the +town with satisfaction? why should _he_ not be Ranger, and diffuse +the same cordial satisfaction among his private circles? with _his_ +temperament, _his_ animal spirits, _his_ good-nature, _his_ follies +perchance, could he do better than identify himself with his +impersonation? Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the +stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical character +presented to us in actual life? or what would the performer have +gained by divesting himself of the impersonation? Could the man +Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he +had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the +airy briskness, the forwardness, and 'scape goat trickeries of his +prototype? + +"But there is something not natural in this everlasting _acting_; we +want the real man." + +Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom you cannot, or +will not see, under some adventitious trappings, which, nevertheless, +sit not at all inconsistently upon him? What if it is the nature of +some men to be highly artificial? The fault is least reprehensible in +_players_. Cibber was his own Foppington, with almost as much wit as +Vanburgh could add to it. + +"My conceit of his person,"--it is Ben Jonson speaking of Lord +Bacon,--"was never increased towards him by his _place_ or _honours_. +But I have, and do reverence him for the _greatness_, that was only +proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever one of the _greatest_ +men, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that +heaven would give him strength; for _greatness_ he could not want." + +The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicuous in the +subject of these idle reminiscences, than in my Lord Verulam. Those +who have imagined that an unexpected elevation to the direction of a +great London Theatre, affected the consequence of Elliston, or at all +changed his nature, knew not the essential _greatness_ of the man whom +they disparage. It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan's +Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more than dust +and a shadow), on the morning of his election to that high office. +Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,--"Have +you heard the news?"--then with another look following up +the blow, he subjoined, "I am the future Manager of Drury Lane +Theatre."--Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation +or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his +new-blown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could be said to +it. Expressive silence alone could muse his praise. This was in his +_great_ style. + +But was he less _great_, (be witness, O ye Powers of Equanimity, +that supported in the ruins of Carthage the consular exile, and +more recently transmuted for a more illustrious exile the barren +constableship of Elba into an image of Imperial France), when, in +melancholy after-years, again, much near the same spot, I met him, +when that sceptre had been wrested from his hand, and his dominion was +curtailed to the petty managership, and part proprietorship, of the +small Olympic, _his Elba?_ He still played nightly upon the boards +of Drury, but in parts alas! allotted to him, not magnificently +distributed by him. Waiving his great loss as nothing, and +magnificently sinking the sense of fallen _material_ grandeur in +the more liberal resentment of depreciations done to his more +lofty _intellectual_ pretensions, "Have you heard" (his customary +exordium)--"have you heard," said he, "how they treat me? they put me +in _comedy_." Thought I--but his finger on his lips forbade any verbal +interruption--"where could they have put you better?" Then, after a +pause--"Where I formerly played Romeo, I now play Mercutio,"--and so +again he stalked away, neither staying, nor caring for, responses. + +O, it was a rich scene,--but Sir A---- C----, the best of +story-tellers and surgeons, who mends a lame narrative almost as +well as he sets a fracture, alone could do justice to it--that I was +witness to, in the tarnished room (that had once been green) of that +same little Olympic. There, after his deposition from Imperial Drury, +he substituted a throne. That Olympic Hill was his "highest heaven;" +himself "Jove in his chair." There he sat in state, while before +him, on complaint of prompter, was brought for judgment--how shall +I describe her?--one of those little tawdry things that flirt at +the tails of choruses--a probationer for the town, in either of its +senses--the pertest little drab--a dirty fringe and appendage of the +lamps' smoke--who, it seems, on some disapprobation expressed by a +"highly respectable" audience, had precipitately quitted her station +on the boards, and withdrawn her small talents in disgust. + +"And how dare you," said her Manager--assuming a censorial severity +which would have crushed the confidence of a Vestris, and disarmed +that beautiful Rebel herself of her professional caprices--I verily +believe, he thought _her_ standing before him--"how dare you, Madam, +withdraw yourself, without a notice, from your theatrical duties?" "I +was hissed, Sir." "And you have the presumption to decide upon the +taste of the town?" "I don't know that, Sir, but I will never stand +to be hissed," was the subjoinder of young Confidence--when gathering +up his features into one significant mass of wonder, pity, and +expostulatory indignation--in a lesson never to have been lost upon a +creature less forward than she who stood before him--his words were +these: "They have hissed _me_." + +'Twas the identical argument _a fortiori_, which the son of Peleus +uses to Lycaon trembling under his lance, to persuade him to take his +destiny with a good grace. "I too am mortal." And it is to be believed +that in both cases the rhetoric missed of its application, for want +of a proper understanding with the faculties of the respective +recipients. + +"Quite an Opera pit," he said to me, as he was courteously conducting +me over the benches of his Surrey Theatre, the last retreat, and +recess, of his every-day waning grandeur. + +Those who knew Elliston, will know the _manner_ in which he pronounced +the latter sentence of the few words I am about to record. One proud +day to me he took his roast mutton with us in the Temple, to which +I had superadded a preliminary haddock. After a rather plentiful +partaking of the meagre banquet, not unrefreshed with the humbler sort +of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of the fare, +observing that for my own part I never ate but of one dish at dinner. +"I too never eat but one thing at dinner"--was his reply--then after +a pause--"reckoning fish as nothing." The manner was all. It was as +if by one peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all +the savory esculents, which the pleasant and nutritious-food-giving +Ocean pours forth upon poor humans from her watery bosom. This was +_greatness_, tempered with considerate _tenderness_ to the feelings of +his scanty but welcoming entertainer. + +_Great_ wert thou in thy life, Robert William Elliston! and _not +lessened_ in thy death, if report speak truly, which says that +thou didst direct that thy mortal remains should repose under no +inscription but one of pure _Latinity_. Classical was thy bringing +up! and beautiful was the feeling on thy last bed, which, connecting +the man with the boy, took thee back in thy latest exercise +of imagination, to the days when, undreaming of Theatres and +Managerships, thou wert a scholar, and an early ripe one, under the +roofs builded by the munificent and pious Colet. For thee the Pauline +Muses weep. In elegies, that shall silence this crude prose, they +shall celebrate thy praise. + + + + +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING + + + To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with + the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of + quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts + of his own. + + _Lord Foppington in the Relapse._ + + +An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this +bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, +to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of +losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no +inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream +away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other +men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and +think. Books think for me. + +I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor +Jonathan Wild too low. I can read any thing which I call a _book_. +There are things in that shape which I cannot allow for such. + +In this catalogue of _books which are no books--biblia a-biblia_--I +reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught Boards +bound and lettered at the back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, +Statutes at Large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, +Soame Jenyns, and, generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's +library should be without:" the Histories of Flavins Josephus (that +learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I +can read almost any thing. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, +so unexcluding. + +I confess that it moves my spleen to see these _things in books' +clothing_ perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true +shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate +occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and +hope it is some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what "seem its +leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a +Steele, or a Farquhar, and find--Adam Smith. To view a well-arranged +assortment of blockheaded Encyclopaedias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) +set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that +good leather would comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios; would +renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like +himself again in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to +strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. + +To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. +Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be +lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress +a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or +half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is _our_ costume. A Shakespeare, +or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were mere foppery to trick +out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinction. The +exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to +say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the +owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little +torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading +are the sullied leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the very +odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in +fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones, or Vicar +of Wakefield! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned +over their pages with delight!--of the lone sempstress, whom they may +have cheered (milliner, or harder-working mantua-maker) after her long +day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an +hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean +cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a +whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them +in? + +In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from +binding. Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually +self-reproductive volumes--Great Nature's Stereotypes--we see them +individually perish with less regret, because we know the copies +of them to be "eterne." But where a book is at once both good and +rare--where the individual is almost the species, and when _that_ +perishes, + + We know not where is that Promethean torch + That can its light relumine-- + +such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by +his Duchess--no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, +to honour and keep safe such a jewel. + +Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to +be reprinted; but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sydney, +Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose-works, Fuller--of whom we _have_ +reprints, yet the books themselves, though they go about, and are +talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened themselves +(nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to become stock +books--it is good to possess these in durable and costly covers. I do +not care for a First Folio of Shakspeare. I rather prefer the common +editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with _plates_, which, +being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the +text; and without pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are +so much better than the Shakspeare gallery _engravings_, which _did_. +I have a community of feeling with my countrymen about his Plays, and +I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled +about and handled.--On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and +Fletcher but in Folio. The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I +have no sympathy with them. If they were as much read as the current +editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the +older one. I do not know a more heartless sight than the reprint of +the Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones +of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of +the newest fashion to modern censure? what hapless stationer could +dream of Burton ever becoming popular?--The wretched Malone could not +do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him +white-wash the painted effigy of old Shakspeare, which stood there, +in rude but lively fashion depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, +the eye, the eye-brow, hair, the very dress he used to wear--the only +authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, of these curious parts +and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of white paint. +By ----, if I had been a justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would +have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair +of meddling sacrilegious varlets. + +I think I see them at their work--these sapient trouble-tombs. + +Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some +of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear--to +mine, at least--than that of Milton or of Shakspeare? It may be, that +the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The +sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit +Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. + +Much depends upon _when_ and _where_ you read a book. In the five or +six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would +think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of +Bishop Andrewes' sermons? + +Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before +you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, +had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. + +Winter evenings--the world shut out--with less of ceremony the gentle +Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's +Tale-- + +These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud--to yourself, or (as +it chances) to some single person listening. More than one--and it +degenerates into an audience. + +Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye +to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never +listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme +irksomeness. + +A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices +it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the +clerks--who is the best scholar--to commence upon the Times, or the +Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud _pro bono publico_. +With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly +vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will get up, +and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. +Another follows with _his_ selection. So the entire journal transpires +at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without +this expedient no one in the company would probably ever travel +through the contents of a whole paper. + +Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without +a feeling of disappointment. + +What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the +paper! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, "the +Chronicle is in hand, Sir." + +Coming in to an inn at night--having ordered your supper--what can be +more delightful than to find lying in the window-seat, left there time +out of mind by the carelessness of some former guest--two or three +numbers of the old Town and Country Magazine, with its amusing +_tete-a-tete_ pictures--"The Royal Lover and Lady G----;" "The Melting +Platonic and the old Beau,"--and such like antiquated scandal? Would +you exchange it--at that time, and in that place--for a better book? + +Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so much for the +weightier kinds of reading--the Paradise Lost, or Comus, he could have +_read_ to him--but he missed the pleasure of skimming over with his +own eye a magazine, or a light pamphlet. + +I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some +cathedral alone, and reading _Candide_. + +I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having been once +detected--by a familiar damsel--reclined at my ease upon the grass, on +Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading--_Pamela_. There was nothing in +the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she +seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, +I could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very +sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her +taste, she got up, and--went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee +to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was +the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you +shall never get the secret. + +I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my +spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who was generally to be +seen upon Snow-hill (as yet Skinner's-street _was not_), between the +hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. +I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I +used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular contacts. +An illiterate encounter with a porter's knot, or a bread basket, would +have quickly put to flight all the theology I am master of, and have +left me worse than indifferent to the five points. + +There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate +without affection--the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy +or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls--the owner, +with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and +thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after +page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, +and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they "snatch +a fearful joy." Martin B----, in this way, by daily fragments, +got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped +his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) +whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares, that under no +circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the +satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess +of our day has moralised upon this subject in two very touching but +homely stanzas. + + I saw a boy with eager eye + Open a book upon a stall, + And read, as he'd devour it all; + Which when the stall-man did espy, + Soon to the boy I heard him call, + "You, Sir, you never buy a book, + Therefore in one you shall not look." + The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh + He wish'd he never had been taught to read, + Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. + + Of sufferings the poor have many, + Which never can the rich annoy: + I soon perceiv'd another boy, + Who look'd as if he'd not had any + Food, for that day at least--enjoy + The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. + This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, + Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, + Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat: + No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat. + + + + +THE OLD MARGATE HOY + + +I am fond of passing my vacations (I believe I have said so before) at +one or other of the Universities. Next to these my choice would fix +me at some woody spot, such as the neighbourhood of Henley affords in +abundance, upon the banks of my beloved Thames. But somehow or other +my cousin contrives to wheedle me once in three or four seasons to a +watering place. Old attachments cling to her in spite of experience. +We have been dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton another, +dullest at Eastbourn a third, and are at this moment doing dreary +penance at--Hastings!--and all because we were happy many years ago +for a brief week at--Margate. That was our first sea-side experiment, +and many circumstances combined to make it the most agreeable holyday +of my life. We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been +from home so long together in company. + +Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, +sun-burnt captain, and his rough accommodations--ill exchanged for the +foppery and fresh-water niceness of the modern steam-packet? To the +winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage, and didst +ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons. With +the gales of heaven thou wentest swimmingly; or, when it was their +pleasure, stoodest still with sailor-like patience. Thy course was +natural, not forced, as in a hot-bed; nor didst thou go poisoning +the breath of ocean with sulphureous smoke--a great sea-chimaera, +chimneying and furnacing the deep; or liker to that fire-god parching +up Scamander. + +Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy reluctant +responses (yet to the suppression of anything like contempt, to the +raw questions, which we of the great city would be ever and anon +putting to them, as to the uses of this or that strange naval +implement?) 'Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade +of refuge between us and them, conciliating interpreter of their skill +to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador between sea and land!--whose +sailor-trowsers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted +denizen of the former, than thy white cap, and whiter apron over them, +with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee +to have been of inland nurture heretofore--a master cook of Eastcheap? +How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, +attendant, chamberlain; here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at +once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier ministrations--not +to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our +infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might +haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing +billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we +had stiff and blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, +still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more +cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of +thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, nor very inviting, little +cabin! + +With these additaments to boot, we had on board a fellow-passenger, +whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we +meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. +He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, remarkably handsome, +with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of +assertion. He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, +or since. He was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most +painful description of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and +only giving you as much as they see you can swallow at a time--the +nibbling pickpockets of your patience--but one who committed +downright, daylight depredations upon his neighbour's faith. He did +not stand shivering upon the brink, but was a hearty thoroughpaced +liar, and plunged at once into the depths of your credulity. I partly +believe, he made pretty sure of his company. Not many rich, not +many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common stowage +of a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set of as unseasoned +Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse name) as Aldermanbury, or +Watling-street, at that time of day could have supplied. There might +be an exception or two among us, but I scorn to make any invidious +distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's company, as +those were whom I sailed with. Something too must be conceded to the +_Genius Loci_. Had the confident fellow told us half the legends on +land, which he favoured us with on the other element, I flatter myself +the good sense of most of us would have revolted. But we were in a new +world, with everything unfamiliar about us, and the time and place +disposed us to the reception of any prodigious marvel whatsoever. Time +has obliterated from my memory much of his wild fablings; and the +rest would appear but dull, as written, and to be read on shore. He +had been Aid-de-camp (among other rare accidents and fortunes) to +a Persian prince, and at one blow had stricken off the head of the +King of Carimania on horseback. He, of course, married the Prince's +daughter. I forget what unlucky turn in the politics of that court, +combining with the loss of his consort, was the reason of his quitting +Persia; but with the rapidity of a magician he transported himself, +along with his hearers, back to England, where we still found +him in the confidence of great ladies. There was some story of a +Princess--Elizabeth, if I remember--having intrusted to his care an +extraordinary casket of jewels, upon some extraordinary occasion--but +as I am not certain of the name or circumstance at this distance of +time, I must leave it to the Royal daughters of England to settle the +honour among themselves in private. I cannot call to mind half his +pleasant wonders; but I perfectly remember, that in the course of his +travels he had seen a phoenix; and he obligingly undeceived us of +the vulgar error, that there is but one of that species at a time, +assuring us that they were not uncommon in some parts of Upper Egypt. +Hitherto he had found the most implicit listeners. His dreaming +fancies had transported us beyond the "ignorant present." But when +(still hardying more and more in his triumphs over our simplicity) he +went on to affirm that he had actually sailed through the legs of the +Colossus at Rhodes, it really became necessary to make a stand. And +here I must do justice to the good sense and intrepidity of one of our +party, a youth, that had hitherto been one of his most deferential +auditors, who, from his recent reading, made bold to assure the +gentleman, that there must be some mistake, as "the Colossus in +question had been destroyed long since;" to whose opinion, delivered +with all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede thus much, +that "the figure was indeed a little damaged." This was the only +opposition he met with, and it did not at all seem to stagger him, for +he proceeded with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swallow +with still more complacency than ever,--confirmed, as it were, by the +extreme candour of that concession. With these prodigies he wheedled +us on till we came in sight of the Reculvers, which one of our own +company (having been the vogage before) immediately recognising, and +pointing out to us, was considered by us as no ordinary seaman. + +All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a different +character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, very infirm, and very +patient. His eye was ever on the sea, with a smile: and, if he caught +now and then some snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, +and they seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whispered more +pleasant stories. He was as one, being with us, but not of us. He +heard the bell of dinner ring without stirring; and when some of +us pulled out our private stores--our cold meat and our salads--he +produced none, and seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had +laid in; provision for the one or two days and nights, to which these +vessels then were oftentimes obliged to prolong their voyage Upon a +nearer acquaintance with him, which he seemed neither to court nor +decline, we learned that he was going to Margate, with the hope of +being admitted into the Infirmary there for sea-bathing. His disease +was a scrofula, which appeared to have eaten all over him. He +expressed great hopes of a cure; and when we asked him, whether he had +any friends where he was going, he replied, "he _had_ no friends." + +These pleasant, and some mournful passages, with the first sight +of the sea, co-operating with youth, and a sense of holydays, and +out-of-door adventure, to me that had been pent up in populous cities +for many months before,--have left upon my mind the fragrance as of +summer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for +cold and wintry hours to chew upon. + +Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some unwelcome +comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the _dissatisfaction_ +which I have heard so many persons confess to have felt (as I did +myself feel in part on this occasion), _at the sight of the sea for +the first time?_ I think the reason usually given--referring to the +incapacity of actual objects for satisfying our preconceptions of +them--scarcely goes deep enough into the question. Let the same person +see a lion, an elephant, a mountain, for the first time in his life, +and he shall perhaps feel himself a little mortified. The things do +not fill up that space, which the idea of them seemed to take up in +his mind. But they have still a correspondency to his first notion, +and in time grow up to it, so as to produce a very similar impression: +enlarging themselves (if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the sea +remains a disappointment.--Is it not, that in _the latter_ we had +expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but, I am afraid, by the law of +imagination unavoidably) not a definite object, as those wild beasts, +or that mountain compassable by the eye, but _all the sea at once_, +THE COMMENSURATE ANTAGONIST OF THE EARTH! I do not say we, tell +ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is to be satisfied with +nothing less. I will suppose the case of a young person of fifteen +(as I then was) knowing nothing of the sea, but from description. He +comes to it for the first time--all that he has been reading of it all +his life, and _that_ the most enthusiastic part of life,--all he has +gathered from narratives of wandering seamen; what he has gained from +true voyages, and what he cherishes as credulously from romance and +poetry; crowding their images, and exacting strange tributes from +expectation.--He thinks of the great deep, and of those who go down +unto it; of its thousand isles, and of the vast continents it washes; +of its receiving the mighty Plata, or Orellana, into its bosom, +without disturbance, or sense of augmentation; of Biscay swells, and +the mariner + + For many a day, and many a dreadful night, + Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape; + +of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Bermoothes;" of great whirlpools, +and the water-spout; of sunken ships, and sumless treasures swallowed +up in the unrestoring depths: of fishes and quaint monsters, to which +all that is terrible on earth-- + + Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal, + Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral; + +of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and shells; of coral +beds, and of enchanted isles; of mermaids' grots-- + +I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be shown all these +wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny of a mighty faculty, +which haunts him with confused hints and shadows of all these; and +when the actual object opens first upon him, seen (in tame weather too +most likely) from our unromantic coasts--a speck, a slip of sea-water, +as it shows to him--what can it prove but a very unsatisfying and +even diminutive entertainment? Or if he has come to it from the mouth +of a river, was it much more than the river widening? and, even out +of sight of land, what had he but a flat watery horizon about him, +nothing comparable to the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his familiar +object, seen daily without dread or amazement?--Who, in similar +circumstances, has not been tempted to exclaim with Charoba, in the +poem of Gebir,-- + + Is this the mighty ocean?--is this _all_? + +I love town, or country; but this detestable Cinque Port is neither. I +hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting out their starved foliage from +between the horrid fissures of dusty innutritious rocks; which the +amateur calls "verdure to the edge of the sea." I require woods, and +they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and +pant for fresh streams, and inland murmurs. I cannot stand all day on +the naked beach, watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting +like the colours of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out at the +windows of this island-prison. I would fain retire into the interior +of my cage. While I gaze upon the sea, I want to be on it, over it, +across it. It binds me in with chains, as of iron. My thoughts are +abroad. I should not so feel in Staffordshire. There is no home for me +here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive +resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stock-brokers, +Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If +it were what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to +have remained, a fair honest fishing town, and no more, it were +something--with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, +artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it +were something. I could abide to dwell with Meschek; to assort with +fisher-swains, and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, many +of this latter occupation here. Their faces become the place. I like +a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the +revenue,--an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out +with them in their mackarel boats, or about their less ostensible +business, with some satisfaction. I can even tolerate those poor +victims to monotony, who from day to day pace along the beach, +in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their illicit +countrymen--townsfolk or brethren perchance--whistling to the +sheathing and unsheathing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who +under the mild name of preventive service, keep up a legitimated civil +warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, to show their +detestation of run hollands, and zeal for old England. But it is the +visitants from town, that come here to _say_ that they have been here, +with no more relish of the sea than a pond perch, or a dace might be +supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a foolish dace +in these regions, and have as little toleration for myself here, as +for them. What can they want here? if they had a true relish of the +ocean, why have they brought all this land luggage with them? or why +pitch their civilised tents in the desert? What mean these scanty +book-rooms--marine libraries as they entitle them--if the sea were, as +they would have us believe, a book "to read strange matter in?" what +are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain be +thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves? All is false and +hollow pretention. They come, because it is the fashion, and to +spoil the nature of the place. They are mostly, as I have said, +stockbrokers; but I have watched the better sort of them--now and +then, an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity of his +heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea +breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it +in their countenance. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, +picking up cockleshells, and thinking them great things; but, in a +poor week, imagination slackens: they begin to discover that cockles +produce no pearls, and then--O then!--if I could interpret for the +pretty creatures (I know they have not the courage to confess it +themselves) how gladly would they exchange their sea-side rambles +for a Sunday walk on the green-sward of their accustomed Twickenham +meadows! + +I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, who think they +truly love the sea, with its wild usages, what would their feelings +be, if some of the unsophisticated aborigines of this place, +encouraged by their courteous questionings here, should venture, on +the faith of such assured sympathy between them, to return the visit, +and come up to see--London. I must imagine them with their fishing +tackle on their back, as we carry our town necessaries. What a +sensation would it cause in Lothbury? What vehement laughter would it +not excite among + + The daughters of Cheapside, and wives of Lombard-street. + +I am sure that no town-bred, or inland-born subjects, can feel their +true and natural nourishment at these sea-places. Nature, where she +does not mean us for mariners and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The +salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. I am not half so good-natured +as by the milder waters of my natural river. I would exchange these +sea-gulls for swans, and scud a swallow for ever about the banks of +Thamesis. + + + + +THE CONVALESCENT + + +A pretty severe fit of indisposition which, under the name of a +nervous fever, has made a prisoner of me for some weeks past, and is +but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an incapacity of reflecting +upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy conclusions from +me this month, reader; I can offer you only sick men's dreams. + +And truly the whole state of sickness is such; for what else is it +but a magnificent dream for a man to lie a-bed, and draw day-light +curtains about him; and, shutting out the sun, to induce a total +oblivion of all the works which are going on under it? To become +insensible to all the operations of life, except the beatings of one +feeble pulse? + +If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the patient lords +it there! what caprices he acts without controul! how kinglike he +sways his pillow--tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, +and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it, to the ever varying +requisitions of his throbbing temples. + +He changes _sides_ oftener than a politician. Now he lies full length, +then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across +the bed; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four +curtains he is absolute. They are his Mare Clausum. + +How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he +is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon +him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has +nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or +within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. + +A little while ago he was greatly concerned in the event of a +law-suit, which was to be the making or the marring of his dearest +friend. He was to be seen trudging about upon this man's errand to +fifty quarters of the town at once, jogging this witness, refreshing +that solicitor. The cause was to come on yesterday. He is absolutely +as indifferent to the decision, as if it were a question to be tried +at Pekin. Peradventure from some whispering, going on about the +house, not intended for his hearing, he picks up enough to make him +understand, that things went cross-grained in the Court yesterday, +and his friend is ruined. But the word "friend," and the word "ruin," +disturb him no more than so much jargon. He is not to think of any +thing but how to get better. + +What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorbing +consideration! + +He has put on the strong armour of sickness, he is wrapped in the +callous hide of suffering; he keeps his sympathy, like some curious +vintage, under trusty lock and key, for his own use only. + +He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself; he yearneth +over himself; his bowels are even melted within him, to think what he +suffers; he is not ashamed to weep over himself. + +He is for ever plotting how to do some good to himself; studying +little stratagems and artificial alleviations. + +He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable +fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and +sorrowing members. Sometimes he meditates--as of a thing apart from +him--upon his poor aching head, and that dull pain which, dozing or +waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance +of pain, not to be removed without opening the very scull, as it +seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated +fingers. He compassionates himself all over; and his bed is a very +discipline of humanity, and tender heart. + +He is his own sympathiser; and instinctively feels that none can so +well perform that office for him. He cares for few spectators to his +tragedy. Only that punctual face of the old nurse pleases him, that +announces his broths, and his cordials. He likes it because it is +so unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations +before it as unreservedly as to his bed-post. + +To the world's business he is dead. He understands not what the +callings and occupations of mortals are; only he has a glimmering +conceit of some such thing, when the doctor makes his daily call: +and even in the lines of that busy face he reads no multiplicity of +patients, but solely conceives of himself as _the sick man_. To what +other uneasy couch the good man is hastening, when he slips out of +his chamber, folding up his thin douceur so carefully for fear of +rustling--is no speculation which he can at present entertain. He +thinks only of the regular return of the same phenomenon at the same +hour to-morrow. + +Household rumours touch him not. Some faint murmur, indicative of life +going on within the house, soothes him, while he knows not distinctly +what it is. He is not to know any thing, not to think of any thing. +Servants gliding up or down the distant staircase, treading as +upon velvet, gently keep his ear awake, so long as he troubles not +himself further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter +knowledge would be a burthen to him: he can just endure the pressure +of conjecture. He opens his eye faintly at the dull stroke of the +muffled knocker, and closes it again without asking "who was it?" He +is flattered by a general notion that inquiries are making after him, +but he cares not to know the name of the inquirer. In the general +stillness, and awful hush of the house, he lies in state, and feels +his sovereignty. + +To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare the silent +tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only, with which he is +served--with the careless demeanour, the unceremonious goings in +and out (slapping of doors, or leaving them open) of the very same +attendants, when he is getting a little better--and you will confess, +that from the bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the +elbow chair of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to a +deposition. + +How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature! where +is now the space, which he occupied so lately, in his own, in the +family's eye? The scene of his regalities, his sick room, which was +his presence chamber, where he lay and acted his despotic fancies--how +is it reduced to a common bedroom! The trimness of the very bed has +something petty and unmeaning about it. It is _made_ every day. +How unlike to that wavy, many-furrowed, oceanic surface, which it +presented so short a time since, when to _make_ it was a service not +to be thought of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when +the patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while +out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome neatness, and +decencies which his shaken frame deprecated; then to be lifted into it +again, for another three or four days' respite, to flounder it out of +shape again, while every fresh furrow was a historical record of some +shifting posture, some uneasy turning, some seeking for a little ease; +and the shrunken skin scarce told a truer story than the crumpled +coverlid. + +Hushed are those mysterious sighs--those groans--so much more awful, +while we knew not from what caverns of vast hidden suffering they +proceeded. The Lernean pangs are quenched. The riddle of sickness is +solved; and Philoctetes is become an ordinary personage. + +Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness survives in +the still lingering visitations of the medical attendant. But how +is he too changed with everything else! Can this be he--this man of +news--of chat--of anecdote--of every thing but physic--can this be he, +who so lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as on some +solemn embassy from Nature, erecting herself into a high mediating +party? Pshaw!'tis some old woman. + +Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous--the spell that +hushed the household--the desart-like stillness, felt throughout +its inmost chambers--the mute attendance--the inquiry by looks--the +still softer delicacies of self-attention--the sole and single eye of +distemper alonely fixed upon itself--world-thoughts excluded--the man +a world unto himself--his own theatre-- + + What a speck is he dwindled into! + +In this flat swamp of convalescence, left by the ebb of sickness, yet +far enough from the terra firma of established health, your note, +dear Editor, reached me, requesting--an article. In Articulo Mortis, +thought I; but it is something hard--and the quibble, wretched as it +was, relieved me. The summons, unseasonable as it appeared, seemed to +link me on again to the petty businesses of life, which I had lost +sight of; a gentle call to activity, however trivial; a wholesome +weaning from that preposterous dream of self-absorption--the puffy +state of sickness--in which I confess to have lain so long, insensible +to the magazines and monarchies, of the world alike; to its laws, and +to its literature. The hypochondriac flatus is subsiding; the acres, +which in imagination I had spread over--for the sick man swells in +the sole contemplation of his single sufferings, till he becomes +a Tityus to himself--are wasting to a span; and for the giant of +self-importance, which I was so lately, you have me once again in my +natural pretensions--the lean and meagre figure of your insignificant +Essayist. + + + + +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS + + +So far from the position holding true, that great wit (or genius, in +our modern way of speaking), has a necessary alliance with insanity, +the greatest wits, on the contrary, will ever be found to be the +sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad +Shakspeare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here +chiefly to be understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of +all the faculties. Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess +of any one of them. "So strong a wit," says Cowley, speaking of a +poetical friend, + + "--did Nature to him frame, + As all things but his judgment overcame, + His judgment like the heavenly moon did show, + Tempering that mighty sea below." + +The ground of the mistake is, that men, finding in the raptures of +the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no +parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of +it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the +poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by +his subject, but has dominion over it. In the groves of Eden he walks +familiar as in his native paths. He ascends the empyrean heaven, and +is not intoxicated. He treads the burning marl without dismay; he wins +his flight without self-loss through realms of chaos "and old night." +Or if, abandoning himself to that severer chaos of a "human mind +untuned," he is content awhile to be mad with Lear, or to hate mankind +(a sort of madness) with Timon, neither is that madness, nor this +misanthropy, so unchecked, but that,--never letting the reins of +reason wholly go, while most he seems to do so,--he has his better +genius still whispering at his ear, with the good servant Kent +suggesting saner counsels, or with the honest steward Flavius +recommending kindlier resolutions. Where he seems most to recede from +humanity, he will be found the truest to it. From beyond the scope of +Nature if he summon possible existences, he subjugates them to the +law of her consistency. He is beautifully loyal to that sovereign +directress, even when he appears most to betray and desert her. His +ideal tribes submit to policy; his very monsters are tamed to his +hand, even as that wild sea-brood, shepherded by Proteus. He tames, +and he clothes them with attributes of flesh and blood, till they +wonder at themselves, like Indian Islanders forced to submit to +European vesture. Caliban, the Witches, are as true to the laws of +their own nature (ours with a difference), as Othello, Hamlet, and +Macbeth. Herein the great and the little wits are differenced; that if +the latter wander ever so little from nature or actual existence, they +lose themselves, and their readers. Their phantoms are lawless; their +visions nightmares. They do not create, which implies shaping and +consistency. Their imaginations are not active--for to be active is to +call something into act and form--but passive, as men in sick dreams. +For the super-natural, or something super-added to what we know of +nature, they give you the plainly non-natural. And if this were all, +and that these mental hallucinations were discoverable only in the +treatment of subjects out of nature, or transcending it, the judgment +might with some plea be pardoned if it ran riot, and a little +wantonized: but even in the describing of real and every day life, +that which is before their eyes, one of these lesser wits shall more +deviate from nature--show more of that inconsequence, which has a +natural alliance with frenzy,--than a great genius in his "maddest +fits," as Withers somewhere calls them. We appeal to any one that is +acquainted with the common run of Lane's novels,--as they existed some +twenty or thirty years back,--those scanty intellectual viands of the +whole female reading public, till a happier genius arose, and expelled +for ever the innutritious phantoms,--whether he has not found his +brain more "betossed," his memory more puzzled, his sense of when and +where more confounded, among the improbable events, the incoherent +incidents, the inconsistent characters, or no-characters, of some +third-rate love intrigue--where the persons shall be a Lord Glendamour +and a Miss Rivers, and the scene only alternate between Bath and +Bond-street--a more bewildering dreaminess induced upon him, than +he has felt wandering over all the fairy grounds of Spenser. In the +productions we refer to, nothing but names and places is familiar; the +persons are neither of this world nor of any other conceivable one; an +endless string of activities without purpose, of purposes destitute +of motive:--we meet phantoms in our known walks; _fantasques_ only +christened. In the poet we have names which announce fiction; and we +have absolutely no place at all, for the things and persons of the +Fairy Queen prate not of their "whereabout." But in their inner +nature, and the law of their speech and actions, we are at home and +upon acquainted ground. The one turns life into a dream; the other to +the wildest dreams gives the sobrieties of every day occurrences. By +what subtile art of tracing the mental processes it is effected, we +are not philosophers enough to explain, but in that wonderful episode +of the cave of Mammon, in which the Money God appears first in the +lowest form of a miser, is then a worker of metals, and becomes the +god of all the treasures of the world; and has a daughter, Ambition, +before whom all the world kneels for favours--with the Hesperian +fruit, the waters of Tantalus, with Pilate washing his hands vainly, +but not impertinently, in the same stream--that we should be at one +moment in the cave of an old hoarder of treasures, at the next at the +forge of the Cyclops, in a palace and yet in hell, all at once, with +the shifting mutations of the most rambling dream, and our judgment +yet all the time awake, and neither able nor willing to detect the +fallacy,--is a proof of that hidden sanity which still guides the poet +in his widest seeming-aberrations. + +It is not enough to say that the whole episode is a copy of the mind's +conceptions in sleep; it is, in some sort--but what a copy! Let the +most romantic of us, that has been entertained all night with the +spectacle of some wild and magnificent vision, recombine it in the +morning, and try it by his waking judgment. That which appeared so +shifting, and yet so coherent, while that faculty was passive, when +it comes under cool examination, shall appear so reasonless and so +unlinked, that we are ashamed to have been so deluded; and to have +taken, though but in sleep, a monster for a god. But the transitions +in this episode are every whit as violent as in the most extravagant +dream, and yet the waking judgment ratifies them. + + + + +CAPTAIN JACKSON + + +Among the deaths in our obituary for this month, I observe with +concern "At his cottage on the Bath road, Captain Jackson." The +name and attribution are common enough; but a feeling like reproach +persuades me, that this could have been no other in fact than my dear +old friend, who some five-and-twenty years ago rented a tenement, +which he was pleased to dignify with the appellation here used, about +a mile from Westbourn Green. Alack, how good men, and the good turns +they do us, slide out of memory, and are recalled but by the surprise +of some such sad memento as that which now lies before us! + +He whom I mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a wife and two +grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with the port and notions of +gentlewomen upon that slender professional allowance. Comely girls +they were too. + +And was I in danger of forgetting this man?--his cheerful suppers--the +noble tone of hospitality, when first you set your foot in the +_cottage_--the anxious ministerings about you, where little or +nothing (God knows) was to be ministered.--Althea's horn in a poor +platter--the power of self-enchantment, by which, in his magnificent +wishes to entertain you, he multiplied his means to bounties. + +You saw with your bodily eyes indeed what seemed a bare scrag--cold +savings from the foregone meal--remnant hardly sufficient to send +a mendicant from the door contented. But in the copious will--the +revelling imagination of your host--the "mind, the mind, Master +Shallow," whole beeves were spread before you--hecatombs--no end +appeared to the profusion. + +It was the widow's cruse--the loaves and fishes; carving could not +lessen nor helping diminish it--the stamina were left--the elemental +bone still flourished, divested of its accidents. + +"Let us live while we can," methinks I hear the open-handed creature +exclaim; "while we have, let us not want," "here is plenty left;" +"want for nothing"--with many more such hospitable sayings, the +spurs of appetite, and old concomitants of smoaking boards, and +feast-oppressed chargers. Then sliding a slender ratio of Single +Gloucester upon his wife's plate, or the daughter's, he would convey +the remanent rind into his own, with a merry quirk of "the nearer the +bone," &c., and declaring that he universally preferred the outside. +For we had our table distinctions, you are to know, and some of us in +a manner sate above the salt. None but his guest or guests dreamed of +tasting flesh luxuries at night, the fragments were _vere hospilibus +sacra_. But of one thing or another there was always enough, and +leavings: only he would sometimes finish the remainder crust, to show +that he wished no savings. + +Wine he had none; nor, except on very rare occasions, spirits; +but the sensation of wine was there. Some thin kind of ale I +remember--"British beverage," he would say! "Push about, my boys;" +"Drink to your sweethearts, girls." At every meagre draught a toast +must ensue, or a song. All the forms of good liquor were there, with +none of the effects wanting. Shut your eyes, and you would swear +a capacious bowl of punch was foaming in the centre, with beams of +generous Port or Madeira radiating to it from each of the table +corners. You got flustered, without knowing whence; tipsy upon +words; and reeled under the potency of his unperforming Bacchanalian +encouragements. + +We had our songs--"Why, Soldiers, Why"--and the "British +Grenadiers"--in which last we were all obliged to bear chorus. Both +the daughters sang. Their proficiency was a nightly theme--the masters +he had given them--the "no-expence" which he spared to accomplish them +in a science "so necessary to young women." But then--they could not +sing "without the instrument." + +Sacred, and by me, never-to-be violated, Secrets of Poverty! Should +I disclose your honest aims at grandeur, your make-shift efforts +of magnificence? Sleep, sleep, with all thy broken keys, if one of +the bunch be extant; thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs; dear, +cracked spinnet of dearer Louisa! Without mention of mine, be dumb, +thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble! A veil be spread over +the dear delighted face of the well-deluded father, who now haply +listening to cherubic notes, scarce feels sincerer pleasure than when +she awakened thy time-shaken chords responsive to the twitterings of +that slender image of a voice. + +We were not without our literary talk either. It did not extend far, +but as far as it went, it was good. It was bottomed well; had good +grounds to go upon. In _the cottage_ was a room, which tradition +authenticated to have been the same in which Glover, in his occasional +retirements, had penned the greater part of his Leonidas. This +circumstance was nightly quoted, though none of the present inmates, +that I could discover, appeared ever to have met with the poem in +question. But that was no matter. Glover had written there, and the +anecdote was pressed into the account of the family importance. It +diffused a learned air through the apartment, the little side casement +of which (the poet's study window), opening upon a superb view as far +as to the pretty spire of Harrow, over domains and patrimonial acres, +not a rood nor square yard whereof our host could call his own, yet +gave occasion to an immoderate expansion of--vanity shall I call +it?--in his bosom, as he showed them in a glowing summer evening. It +was all his, he took it all in, and communicated rich portions of it +to his guests. It was a part of his largess, his hospitality; it was +going over his grounds; he was lord for the time of showing them, and +you the implicit lookers-up to his magnificence. + +He was a juggler, who threw mists before your eyes--you had no time +to detect his fallacies. He would say "hand me the _silver_ sugar +tongs;" and, before you could discover it was a single spoon, and +that _plated_, he would disturb and captivate your imagination by a +misnomer of "the urn" for a tea kettle; or by calling a homely bench +a sofa. Rich men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you +from it; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply assuming that +everything was handsome about him, you were positively at a demur what +you did, or did not see, at _the cottage_. With nothing to live on, he +seemed to live on everything. He had a stock of wealth in his mind; +not that which is properly termed _Content_, for in truth he was not +to be _contained_ at all, but overflowed all bounds by the force of a +magnificent self-delusion. + +Enthusiasm is catching; and even his wife, a sober native of North +Britain, who generally saw things more as they were, was not proof +against the continual collision of his credulity. Her daughters +were rational and discreet young women; in the main, perhaps, not +insensible to their true circumstances. I have seen them assume a +thoughtful air at times. But such was the preponderating opulence of +his fancy, that I am persuaded, not for any half hour together, did +they ever look their own prospects fairly in the face. There was no +resisting the vortex of his temperament. His riotous imagination +conjured up handsome settlements before their eyes, which kept them +up in the eye of the world too, and seem at last to have realised +themselves; for they both have married since, I am told, more than +respectably. + +It is long since, and my memory waxes dim on some subjects, or I +should wish to convey some notion of the manner in which the pleasant +creature described the circumstances of his own wedding-day. I faintly +remember something of a chaise and four, in which he made his entry +into Glasgow on that morning to fetch the bride home, or carry her +thither, I forget which. It so completely made out the stanza of the +old ballad-- + + When we came down through Glasgow town, + We were a comely sight to see; + My love was clad in black velve, + And I myself in cramasie. + +I suppose it was the only occasion, upon which his own actual +splendour at all corresponded with the world's notions on that +subject. In homely cart, or travelling caravan, by whatever humble +vehicle they chanced to be transported in less prosperous days, the +ride through Glasgow came back upon his fancy, not as a humiliating +contrast, but as a fair occasion for reverting to that one day's +state. It seemed an "equipage etern" from which no power of fate or +fortune, once mounted, had power thereafter to dislodge him. + +There is some merit in putting a handsome face upon indigent +circumstances. To bully and swagger away the sense of them, before +strangers, may be not always discommendable. Tibbs, and Bobadil, even +when detected, have more of our admiration than contempt. But for a +man to put the cheat upon himself; to play the Bobadil at home; and, +steeped in poverty up to the lips, to fancy himself all the while +chin-deep in riches, is a strain of constitutional philosophy, and a +mastery over fortune, which was reserved for my old friend Captain +Jackson. + + + + +THE SUPERANNUATED MAN + + + Sera tamen respexit + Libertas. + + VIRGIL. + + + A Clerk I was in London gay. + + O'KEEFE. + + +If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years +of thy life--thy shining youth--in the irksome confinement of an +office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to +decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to +have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to +remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then +only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance. + +It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in +Mincing-lane. Melancholy was the transition at fourteen from the +abundant play-time, and the frequently-intervening vacations of school +days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance +at a counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to anything. +I gradually became content--doggedly contented, as wild animals in +cages. + +It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays, admirable as the +institution of them is for purposes of worship, are for that very +reason the very worst adapted for days of unbending and recreation. In +particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a +weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, and +the ballad-singers--the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those +eternal bells depress me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, +all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, +and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which make a +week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so +delightful--are shut out. No book-stalls deliciously to idle over--No +busy faces to recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever passing +by--the very face of business a charm by contrast to his temporary +relaxation from it. Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances--or +half-happy at best--of emancipated 'prentices and little trades-folks, +with here and there a servant maid that has got leave to go out, who, +slaving all the week, with the habit has lost almost the capacity of +enjoying a free hour; and livelily expressing the hollowness of a +day's pleasuring. The very strollers in the fields on that day look +anything but comfortable. + +But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, +with a full week in the summer to go and air myself in my native +fields of Hertfordshire. This last was a great indulgence; and the +prospect of its recurrence, I believe, alone kept me up through the +year, and made my durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did +the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me? or rather +was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit +of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most +of them? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest? Before I had a +taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the desk again, counting upon +the fifty-one tedious weeks that must intervene before such another +snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something of +an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I +have said, I could scarcely have sustained my thraldom. + +Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have ever been haunted +with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of incapacity for business. +This, during my latter years, had increased to such a degree, that it +was visible in all the lines of my countenance. My health and my good +spirits flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which I +should be found unequal. Besides my daylight servitude, I served over +again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary +false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like. I was fifty years +of age, and no prospect of emancipation presented itself. I had grown +to my desk, as it were; and the wood had entered into my soul. + +My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon the trouble +legible in my countenance; but I did not know that it had raised the +suspicions of any of my employers, when, on the 5th of last month, +a day ever to be remembered by me, L----, the junior partner in the +firm, calling me on one side, directly taxed me with my bad looks, +and frankly inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made +confession of my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I should +eventually be obliged to resign his service. He spoke some words of +course to hearten me, and there the matter rested. A whole week I +remained labouring under the impression that I had acted imprudently +in my disclosure; that I had foolishly given a handle against myself, +and had been anticipating my own dismissal. A week passed in this +manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe, in my whole life, when +on the evening of the 12th of April, just as I was about quitting my +desk to go home (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful +summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled firm in the +formidable back parlour. I thought, now my time is surely come, I +have done for myself, I am going to be told that they have no longer +occasion for me. L----, I could see, smiled at the terror I was in, +which was a little relief to me,--when to my utter astonishment B----, +the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to me on the length of +my services, my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time +(the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I never +had the confidence to think as much). He went on to descant on the +expediency of retiring at a certain time of life (how my heart +panted!) and asking me a few questions as to the amount of my own +property, of which I have a little, ended with a proposal, to which +his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should accept from +the house, which I had served so well, a pension for life to the +amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary--a magnificent offer! I +do not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it was +understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was +free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, +and at just ten minutes after eight I went home--for ever. This noble +benefit--gratitude forbids me to conceal their names--I owe to the +kindness of the most munificent firm in the world--the house of +Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. + + +_Esto perpetua!_ + +For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only +apprehend my felicity; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I +wandered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing that I was not. I +was in the condition of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let +loose after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself +with myself. It was like passing out of Time into Eternity--for it +is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. +It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever +manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into +a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some +steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me. +And here let me caution persons grown old in active business, not +lightly, nor without weighing their own resources, to forego their +customary employment all at once, for there may be danger in it. I +feel it by myself, but I know that my resources are sufficient; and +now that those first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet +home-feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no hurry. +Having all holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time hung heavy +upon me, I could walk it away; but I do _not_ walk all day long, as +I used to do in those old transient holidays, thirty miles a day, to +make the most of them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it away, +but I do _not_ read in that violent measure, with which, having no +Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my head and +eyesight in by-gone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just +when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure; I let it come +to me. I am like the man + + --That's born, and has his years come to him, + In some green desart. + +"Years," you will say! "what is this superannuated simpleton +calculating upon? He has already told us, he is past fifty." + +I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the +hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you +will find me still a young fellow. For _that_ is the only true Time, +which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to +himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is +other people's time, not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or +short, is at least multiplied for me three-fold. My ten next years, if +I stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair +rule-of-three sum. + +Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the commencement of my +freedom, and of which all traces are not yet gone, one was, that a +vast tract of time had intervened since I quitted the Counting House. +I could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, +and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many +hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly +removed from them--they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, +which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert +Howard, speaking of a friend's death: + + --'Twas but just now he went away; + I have not since had time to shed a tear; + And yet the distance does the same appear + As if he had been a thousand years from me. + Time takes no measure in Eternity. + +To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go among them +once or twice since; to visit my old desk-fellows--my co-brethren of +the quill--that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the +kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that +pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them. +We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but +faintly. My old desk; the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated +to another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D----l +take me, if I did not feel some remorse--beast, if I had not,--at +quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six +and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums +the ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then +after all? or was I a coward simply? Well, it is too late to repent; +and I also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the +mind on such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken +the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some +time before I get quite reconciled to the separation. Farewell, old +cronies, yet not for long, for again and again I will come among +ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell Ch----, dry, sarcastic, +and friendly! Do----, mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly! Pl----, +officious to do, and to volunteer, good services!--and thou, thou +dreary pile, fit mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington of old, +stately House of Merchants; with thy labyrinthine passages, and +light-excluding, pent-up offices, where candles for one half the year +supplied the place of the sun's light; unhealthy contributor to my +weal, stern fosterer of my living, farewell! In thee remain, and not +in the obscure collection of some wandering bookseller, my "works!" +There let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy massy +shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas left, and full as +useful! My mantle I bequeath among ye. + +A fortnight has passed since the date of my first communication. At +that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but had not reached it. +I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of +the first flutter was left; an unsettling sense of novelty; the dazzle +to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, +as if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a +poor Carthusian, from strict cellular discipline suddenly by some +revolution returned upon the world. I am now as if I had never been +other than my own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, +to do what I please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in +Bond-street, and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there +at that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a +book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector. There is +nothing strange nor new in it. I find myself before a fine picture +in a morning. Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish-street +Hill? Where is Fenchurch-street? Stones of old Mincing-lane, which I +have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six and thirty years, to the +footsteps of what toil-worn clerk are your everlasting flints now +vocal? I indent the gayer flags of Pall Mall. It is Change time, and +I am strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole when I +ventured to compare the change in my condition to a passing into +another world. Time stands still in a manner to me. I have lost all +distinction of season. I do not know the day of the week, or of the +month. Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference +to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, +the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' +sensations. The genius of each day was upon me distinctly during the +whole of it, affecting my appetite, spirits, &c. The phantom of the +next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor +Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What +is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself--that +unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my +sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity +of pleasure out of it--is melted down into a week day. I can spare +to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used +to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I +can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt the man of much occupation +when he is busiest. I can insult over him with an invitation to take +a day's pleasure with me to Windsor this fine May-morning. It is +Lucretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I have left behind +in the world, carking and caring; like horses in a mill, drudging on +in the same eternal round--and what is it all for? A man can never +have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little +son, I would christen him NOTHING-TO-DO; he should do nothing. Man, I +verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am +altogether for the life contemplative. Will no kindly earthquake come +and swallow up those accursed cotton mills? Take me that lumber of a +desk there, and bowl it down + + As low as to the fiends. + +I am no longer ******, clerk to the Firm of &c. I am Retired Leisure. +I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by +my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace, +nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not to and from. They tell +me, a certain _cum dignitate_ air, that has been buried so long with +my other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my person. I grow +into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a newspaper, it is to read +the state of the opera. _Opus operatum est_. I have done all that I +came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest +of the day to myself. + + + + +THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING + + +It is an ordinary criticism, that my Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir William +Temple, are models of the genteel style in writing. We should prefer +saying--of the lordly, and the gentlemanly. Nothing can be more unlike +than the inflated finical rhapsodies of Shaftesbury, and the plain +natural chit-chat of Temple. The man of rank is discernible in both +writers; but in the one it is only insinuated gracefully, in the other +it stands out offensively. The peer seems to have written with his +coronet on, and his Earl's mantle before him; the commoner in his +elbow chair and undress.--What can be more pleasant than the way in +which the retired statesman peeps out in the essays, penned by the +latter in his delightful retreat at Shene? They scent of Nimeguen, +and the Hague. Scarce an authority is quoted under an ambassador. +Don Francisco de Melo, a "Portugal Envoy in England," tells him it +was frequent in his country for men, spent with age or other decays, +so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life, to ship +themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their arrival there to +go on a great length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, or more, +by the force of that vigour they recovered with that remove. "Whether +such an effect (Temple beautifully adds) might grow from the air, or +the fruits of that climate, or by approaching nearer the sun, which +is the fountain of light and heat, when their natural heat was so +far decayed: or whether the piecing out of an old man's life were +worth the pains; I cannot tell: perhaps the play is not worth the +candle."--Monsieur Pompone, "French Ambassador in his (Sir William's) +time at the Hague," certifies him, that in his life he had never +heard of any man in France that arrived at a hundred years of age; a +limitation of life which the old gentleman imputes to the excellence +of their climate, giving them such a liveliness of temper and humour, +as disposes them to more pleasures of all kinds than in other +countries; and moralises upon the matter very sensibly. The "late +Robert Earl of Leicester" furnishes him with a story of a Countess of +Desmond, married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and who +lived far in King James's reign. The "same noble person" gives him +an account, how such a year, in the same reign, there went about the +country a set of morrice-dancers, composed of ten men who danced, a +Maid Marian, and a tabor and pipe; and how these twelve, one with +another, made up twelve hundred years. "It was not so much (says +Temple) that so many in one small county (Herefordshire) should live +to that age, as that they should be in vigour and in humour to travel +and to dance." Monsieur Zulichem, one of his "colleagues at the +Hague," informs him of a cure for the gout; which is confirmed by +another "Envoy," Monsieur Serinchamps, in that town, who had tried +it.--Old Prince Maurice of Nassau recommends to him the use of +hammocks in that complaint; having been allured to sleep, while +suffering under it himself, by the "constant motion or swinging of +those airy beds." Count Egmont, and the Rhinegrave who "was killed +last summer before Maestricht," impart to him their experiences. + +But the rank of the writer is never more innocently disclosed, than +where he takes for granted the compliments paid by foreigners to his +fruit-trees. For the taste and perfection of what we esteem the best, +he can truly say, that the French, who have eaten his peaches and +grapes at Shene in no very ill year, have generally concluded that +the last are as good as any they have eaten in France on this side +Fontainebleau; and the first as good as any they have eat in Gascony. +Italians have agreed his white figs to be as good as any of that sort +in Italy, which is the earlier kind of white fig there; for in the +later kind and the blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, no +more than in the Frontignac or Muscat grape. His orange-trees too, are +as large as any he saw when he was young in France, except those of +Fontainebleau, or what he has seen since in the Low Countries; except +some very old ones of the Prince of Orange's. Of grapes he had the +honour of bringing over four sorts into England, which he enumerates, +and supposes that they are all by this time pretty common among some +gardeners in his neighbourhood, as well as several persons of quality; +for he ever thought all things of this kind "the commoner they are +made the better." The garden pedantry with which he asserts that 'tis +to little purpose to plant any of the best fruits, as peaches or +grapes, hardly, he doubts, beyond Northamptonshire at the furthest +northwards; and praises the "Bishop of Munster at Cosevelt," for +attempting nothing beyond cherries in that cold climate; is equally +pleasant and in character. "I may perhaps" (he thus ends his sweet +Garden Essay with a passage worthy of Cowley) "be allowed to know +something of this trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be +good for nothing else, which few men will do, or enjoy their gardens, +without often looking abroad to see how other matters play, what +motions in the state, and what invitations they may hope for into +other scenes. For my own part, as the country life, and this part of +it more particularly, were the inclination of my youth itself, so they +are the pleasure of my age; and I can truly say that, among many great +employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought +for any of them, but have often endeavoured to escape from them, into +the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own +way and his own pace, in the common paths and circles of life. The +measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen, +which I thank God has befallen me; and though among the follies of my +life, building and planting have not been the least, and have cost +me more than I have the confidence to own; yet they have been fully +recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, +since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public +employments, I have passed five years without ever once going to town, +though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready +to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have +thought it, but a mere want of desire or humour to make so small a +remove; for when I am in this corner, I can truly say with Horace, _Me +quoties reficit, &c._ + + "Me, when the cold Digentian stream revives, + What does my friend believe I think or ask? + Let me yet less possess, so I may live, + Whate'er of life remains, unto myself. + May I have books enough; and one year's store, + Not to depend upon each doubtful hour: + This is enough of mighty Jove to pray, + Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away." + +The writings of Temple are, in general, after this easy copy. On one +occasion, indeed, his wit, which was mostly subordinate to nature and +tenderness, has seduced him into a string of felicitous antitheses; +which, it is obvious to remark, have been a model to Addison and +succeeding essayists. "Who would not be covetous, and with reason," +he says, "if health could be purchased with gold? who not ambitious, +if it were at the command of power, or restored by honour? but, alas! +a white staff will not help gouty feet to walk better than a common +cane; nor a blue riband bind up a wound so well as a fillet. The +glitter of gold, or of diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of +curing them; and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a +crown, than a common night-cap." In a far better style, and more +accordant with his own humour of plainness, are the concluding +sentences of his "Discourse upon Poetry." Temple took a part in the +controversy about the ancient and the modern learning; and, with +that partiality so natural and so graceful in an old man, whose +state engagements had left him little leisure to look into modern +productions, while his retirement gave him occasion to look back upon +the classic studies of his youth--decided in favour of the latter. +"Certain it is," he says, "that, whether the fierceness of the Gothic +humours, or noise of their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or that +the unequal mixture of the modern languages would not bear it--the +great heights and excellency both of poetry and music fell with +the Roman learning and empire, and have never since recovered the +admiration and applauses that before attended them. Yet, such as they +are amongst us, they must be confessed to be the softest and sweetest, +the most general and most innocent amusements of common time and life. +They still find room in the courts of princes, and the cottages of +shepherds. They serve to revive and animate the dead calm of poor +and idle lives, and to allay or divert the violent passions and +perturbations of the greatest and the busiest men. And both these +effects are of equal use to human life; for the mind of man is like +the sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder nor the voyager, +in a calm or in a storm, but is so to both when a little agitated by +gentle gales; and so the mind, when moved by soft and easy passions or +affections. I know very well that many who pretend to be wise by the +forms of being grave, are apt to despise both poetry and music, as +toys and trifles too light for the use or entertainment of serious +men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to their charms, +would, I think, do well to keep their own counsel, for fear of +reproaching their own temper, and bringing the goodness of their +natures, if not of their understandings, into question. While this +world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and request of these two +entertainments will do so too; and happy those that content themselves +with these, or any other so easy and so innocent, and do no trouble +the world or other men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, +though nobody hurts them." "When all is done (he concludes), human +life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that +must be played with, and humoured a little, to keep it quiet, till it +falls asleep, and then the care is over." + + + + +BARBARA S---- + + +On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, +just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S----, with her accustomed +punctuality ascended the long rambling staircase, with awkward +interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort +of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few +of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island +it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the +players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not +much that Barbara had to claim. + +This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important +station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which +she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, +had given an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You +would have taken her to have been at least five years older. + +Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where +children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing +a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few +months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may +guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already +drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine +petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that +petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder +child in Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life; but as yet the +"Children in the Wood" was not. + +Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some +of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied +out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed +a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies +of the establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, +as for a child's use, she kept them all; and in the zenith of her +after reputation it was a delightful sight to behold them bound up in +costliest Morocco, each single--each small part making a _book_--with +fine clasps, gilt-splashed, &c. She had conscientiously kept them +as they had been delivered to her; not a blot had been effaced +or tampered with. They were precious to her for their affecting +remembrancings. They were her principia, her rudiments; the elementary +atoms; the little steps by which she pressed forward to perfection. +"What," she would say, "could Indian rubber, or a pumice stone, have +done for these darlings?" + +I am in no hurry to begin my story--indeed I have little or none to +tell--so I will just mention an observation of hers connected with +that interesting time. + +Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her on the +quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic performer +experiences during acting. I ventured to think, that though in the +first instance such players must have possessed the feelings which +they so powerfully called up in others, yet by frequent repetition +those feelings must become deadened in great measure, and the +performer trust to the memory of past emotion, rather than express a +present one. She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly +great tragedian the operation, by which such effects were produced +upon an audience, could ever degrade itself into what was purely +mechanical. With much delicacy, avoiding to instance in her +_self_-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when she used to +play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, (I think it +was) when that impressive actress has been bending over her in some +heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling +from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly +scalded her back. + +I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter; but it was some great +actress of that day. The name is indifferent; but the fact of the +scalding tears I most distinctly remember. + +I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an +impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) +even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got +over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from +adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to +have been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at +serious whist with Mr. Listen. I have chatted with ever good-humoured +Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her +accomplished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference +with Macready; and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery, at Mr. +Matthews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the +old actors (whom he loves so much) went over it with me, supplying +to his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give +them--voice; and their living motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd +and Parsons, and Baddeley, have lived again for me at his bidding. +Only Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with ----; but I +am growing a coxcomb. + +As I was about to say--at the desk of the then treasurer of the old +Bath theatre--not Diamond's--presented herself the little Barbara +S----. + +The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father +had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his +practice from causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that +way to arraign--or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies +some people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible to +lay at the door of imprudence--was now reduced to nothing. They were +in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew +and respected them in better days, took the little Barbara into his +company. + +At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole +support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw +a veil over some mortifying circumstances. Enough to say, that her +Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their +only) meal of meat. + +One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in +her theatrical character she was to sup off a roast fowl (O joy to +Barbara!) some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this +dainty--in the misguided humour of his part, threw over the dish +such a quantity of salt (O grief and pain of heart to Barbara!) that +when he crammed a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged +sputteringly to reject it; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, +and pain of real appetite at missing such a dainty, her little heart +sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which the well-fed +spectators were totally unable to comprehend, mercifully relieved her. + +This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old +Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. + +Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people besides +herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no +head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and +summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so +deficient, blest himself that it was no worse. + +Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea.--By mistake he +popped into her hand a--whole one. + +Barbara tripped away. + +She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake: God knows, +Ravenscroft would never have discovered it. + +But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth +landing-places, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal +pressing her little hand. + +Now mark the dilemma. + +She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her +she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught her +nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral +philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she +might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty +commended, but never dreamed of its application to herself. She +thought of it as something which concerned grown-up people--men +and women. She had never known temptation, or thought of preparing +resistance against it. + +Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain +to him his blunder. He was already so confused with age, besides a +natural want of punctuality, that she would have had some difficulty +in making him understand it. She saw _that_ in an instant. And then +it was such a bit of money! and then the image of a larger allowance +of butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till +her little eyes glistened, and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. +Ravenscroft had always been so good-natured, had stood her friend +behind the scenes, and even recommended her promotion to some of her +little parts. But again the old man was reputed to be worth a world +of money. He was supposed to have fifty pounds a year clear of the +theatre. And then came staring upon her the figures of her little +stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat +white cotton stockings, which her situation at the theatre had made it +indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining +and pinching from the family stock, and thought how glad she should +be to cover their poor feet with the same--and how then they could +accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hitherto been precluded +from doing, by reason of their unfashionable attire--in these thoughts +she reached the second landing-place--the second, I mean from the +top--for there was still another left to traverse. + +Now virtue support Barbara! + +And that never-failing friend did step in--for at that moment a +strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her--a +reason above reasoning--and without her own agency, as it seemed (for +she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to +the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand +of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and +who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, +which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell +upon her heart, and she knew the quality of honesty. + +A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened +up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole +family upon their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of +discussing moral dogmas upon a landing-place. + +I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of +mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man +pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes. + +This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of +the late Mrs. Crawford,[1] then sixty-seven years of age (she died +soon after); and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have +sometimes ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending +the heart in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in +after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the +part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. + +[Footnote 1: The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she +changed, by successive marriages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and +Crawford. She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third time a widow, when I +knew her.] + + + + +THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY + +IN A LETTER TO R---- S----, ESQ. + + +Though in some points of doctrine, and perhaps of discipline I am +diffident of lending a perfect assent to that church which you have +so worthily _historified_, yet may the ill time never come to me, +when with a chilled heart, or a portion of irreverent sentiment, I +shall enter her beautiful and time-hallowed Edifices. Judge then +of my mortification when, after attending the choral anthems of +last Wednesday at Westminster, and being desirous of renewing my +acquaintance, after lapsed years, with the tombs and antiquities +there, I found myself excluded; turned out like a dog, or some profane +person, into the common street, with feelings not very congenial to +the place, or to the solemn service which I had been listening to. It +was a jar after that music. + +You had your education at Westminster; and doubtless among those dim +aisles and cloisters, you must have gathered much of that devotional +feeling in those young years, on which your purest mind feeds +still--and may it feed! The antiquarian spirit, strong in you, and +gracefully blending ever with the religious, may have been sown in +you among those wrecks of splendid mortality. You owe it to the +place of your education; you owe it to your learned fondness for the +architecture of your ancestors; you owe it to the venerableness of +your ecclesiastical establishment, which is daily lessened and called +in question through these practices--to speak aloud your sense of +them; never to desist raising your voice against them, till they be +totally done away with and abolished; till the doors of Westminster +Abbey be no longer closed against the decent, though low-in-purse, +enthusiast, or blameless devotee, who must commit an injury against +his family economy, if he would be indulged with a bare admission +within its walls. You owe it to the decencies, which you wish to see +maintained in its impressive services, that our Cathedral be no longer +an object of inspection to the poor at those times only, in which they +must rob from their Attendance on the worship every minute which they +can bestow upon the fabric. In vain the public prints have taken up +this subject, in vain such poor nameless writers as myself express +their indignation. A word from you, Sir--a hint in your Journal--would +be sufficient to fling open the doors of the Beautiful Temple again, +as we can remember them when we were boys. At that time of life, what +would the imaginative faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have +suffered, if the entrance to so much reflection had been obstructed +by the demand of so much silver!--If we had scraped it up to gain an +occasional admission (as we certainly should have done) would the +sight of those old tombs have been as impressive to us (while we had +been weighing anxiously prudence against sentiment) as when the gates +stood open, as those of the adjacent Park; when we could walk in at +any time, as the mood brought us, for a shorter or longer time, as +that lasted? Is the being shown over a place the same as silently for +ourselves detecting the genius of it? In no part of our beloved Abbey +now can a person find entrance (out of service time) under the sum of +_two shillings_. The rich and the great will smile at the anticlimax, +presumed to lie in these two short words. But you can tell them, Sir, +how much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged feeling, how +much taste and genius, may coexist, especially in youth, with a purse +incompetent to this demand.--A respected friend of ours, during his +late visit to the metropolis, presented himself for admission to Saint +Paul's. At the same time a decently clothed man, with as decent a +wife, and child, were bargaining for the same indulgence. The price +was only two-pence each person. The poor but decent man hesitated, +desirous to go in; but there were three of them, and he turned away +reluctantly. Perhaps he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. +Perhaps the Interior of the Cathedral was his object. But in the state +of his finances, even sixpence might reasonably seem too much. Tell +the Aristocracy of the country (no man can do it more impressively); +instruct them of what value these insignificant pieces of money, these +minims to their sight, may be to their humbler brethren. Shame these +Sellers out of the Temple. Stifle not the suggestions of your better +nature with the pretext, that an indiscriminate admission would expose +the Tombs to violation. Remember your boy-days. Did you ever see, +or hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it was free to all? Do the +rabble come there, or trouble their heads about such speculations? +It is all that you can do to drive them into your churches; they do +not voluntarily offer themselves. They have, alas! no passion for +antiquities; for tomb of king or prelate, sage or poet. If they had, +they would be no longer the rabble. + +For forty years that I have known the Fabric, the only well-attested +charge of violation adduced, has been--a ridiculous dismemberment +committed upon the effigy of that amiable spy, Major Andre. And is it +for this--the wanton mischief of some schoolboy, fired perhaps with +raw notions of Transatlantic Freedom--or the remote possibility +of such a mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented +by stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are +incompetent to the duty--is it upon such wretched pretences, that +the people of England are made to pay a new Peter's Pence, so long +abrogated; or must content themselves with contemplating the ragged +Exterior of their Cathedral? The mischief was done about the time that +you were a scholar there. Do you know any thing about the unfortunate +relic?-- + + + + +AMICUS REDIVIVUS + + + Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep + Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? + + +I do not know when I have experienced a stranger sensation, than +on seeing my old friend G.D., who had been paying me a morning +visit a few Sundays back, at my cottage at Islington, upon taking +leave, instead of turning down the right hand path by which he had +entered--with staff in hand, and at noon day, deliberately march right +forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and totally +disappear. A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling +enough; but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such an unreserved +motion towards self-destruction in a valued friend, took from me all +power of speculation. + +How I found my feet, I know not. Consciousness was quite gone. Some +spirit, not my own, whirled me to the spot. I remember nothing but the +silvery apparition of a good white head emerging; nigh which a staff +(the hand unseen that wielded it) pointed upwards, as feeling for the +skies. In a moment (if time was in that time) he was on my shoulders, +and I--freighted with a load more precious than his who bore Anchises. + +And here I cannot but do justice to the officious zeal of sundry +passers by, who, albeit arriving a little too late to participate in +the honours of the rescue, in philanthropic shoals came thronging to +communicate their advice as to the recovery; prescribing variously +the application, or non-application, of salt, &c., to the person of +the patient. Life meantime was ebbing fast away, amidst the stifle of +conflicting judgments, when one, more sagacious than the rest, by a +bright thought, proposed sending for the Doctor. Trite as the counsel +was, and impossible, as one should think, to be missed on,--shall I +confess?--in this emergency, it was to me as if an Angel had spoken. +Great previous exertions--and mine had not been inconsiderable--are +commonly followed by a debility of purpose. This was a moment of +irresolution. + +MONOCULUS--for so, in default of catching his true name, I choose +to designate the medical gentleman who now appeared--is a grave, +middle-aged person, who, without having studied at the college, or +truckled to the pedantry of a diploma, hath employed a great portion +of his valuable time in experimental processes upon the bodies of +unfortunate fellow-creatures, in whom the vital spark, to mere +vulgar thinking, would seem extinct, and lost for ever. He omitteth +no occasion of obtruding his services, from a case of common +surfeit-suffocation to the ignobler obstructions, sometimes induced by +a too wilful application of the plant _Cannabis_ outwardly. But though +he declineth not altogether these drier extinctions, his occupation +tendeth for the most part to water-practice; for the convenience +of which, he hath judiciously fixed his quarters near the grand +repository of the stream mentioned, where, day and night, from his +little watch-tower, at the Middleton's-Head, he listeneth to detect +the wrecks of drowned mortality--partly, as he saith, to be upon the +spot--and partly, because the liquids which he useth to prescribe +to himself and his patients, on these distressing occasions, are +ordinarily more conveniently to be found at these common hostelries, +than in the shops and phials of the apothecaries. His ear hath arrived +to such finesse by practice, that it is reported, he can distinguish +a plunge at a half furlong distance; and can tell, if it be casual or +deliberate. He weareth a medal, suspended over a suit, originally of a +sad brown, but which, by time, and frequency of nightly divings, has +been dinged into a true professional sable. He passeth by the name of +Doctor, and is remarkable for wanting his left eye. His remedy--after +a sufficient application of warm blankets, friction, &c., is a simple +tumbler, or more, of the purest Cognac, with water, made as hot as +the convalescent can bear it. Where he findeth, as in the case of my +friend, a squeamish subject, he condescendeth to be the taster; and +showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the prescription. +Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure. It addeth +confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in +hand with himself in the remedy. When the doctor swalloweth his own +draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion? +In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender +pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out +in the endeavour to save the lives of others--his pretensions so +moderate, that with difficulty I could press a crown upon him, for the +price of restoring the existence of such an invaluable creature to +society as G.D. + +It was pleasant to observe the effect of the subsiding alarm upon +the nerves of the dear absentee. It seemed to have given a shake +to memory, calling up notice after notice, of all the providential +deliverances he had experienced in the course of his long and innocent +life. Sitting up in my couch--my couch which, naked and void of +furniture hitherto, for the salutary repose which it administered, +shall be honoured with costly valance, at some price, and henceforth +be a state-bed at Colebrooke,--he discoursed of marvellous escapes--by +carelessness of nurses--by pails of gelid, and kettles of the +boiling element, in infancy--by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs, +in schoolboy frolics--by descent of tiles at Trumpington, and of +heavier tomes at Pembroke--by studious watchings, inducing frightful +vigilance--by want, and the fear of want, and all the sore throbbings +of the learned head.--Anon, he would burst out into little fragments +of chaunting--of songs long ago--ends of deliverance-hymns, not +remembered before since childhood, but coming up now, when his +heart was made tender as a child's--for the _tremor cordis_, in the +retrospect of a recent deliverance, as in a case of impending danger, +acting upon an innocent heart, will produce a self-tenderness, which +we should do ill to christen cowardice; and Shakspeare, in the latter +crisis, has made his good Sir Hugh to remember the sitting by Babylon, +and to mutter of shallow rivers. + +Waters of Sir Hugh Middleton--what a spark you were like to have +extinguished for ever! Your salubrious streams to this City, for now +near two centuries, would hardly have atoned for what you were in a +moment washing away. Mockery of a river--liquid artifice--wretched +conduit! henceforth rank with canals, and sluggish aqueducts. Was +it for this, that, smit in boyhood with the explorations of that +Abyssinian traveller, I paced the vales of Amwell to explore your +tributary springs, to trace your salutary waters sparkling through +green Hertfordshire, and cultured Enfield parks?--Ye have no swans--no +Naiads--no river God--or did the benevolent hoary aspect of my friend +tempt ye to suck him in, that ye also might have the tutelary genius +of your waters? + +Had he been drowned in Cam there would have been some consonancy +in it; but what willows had ye to wave and rustle over his moist +sepulture?--or, having no _name_, besides that unmeaning assumption +of _eternal novity_, did ye think to get one by the noble prize, and +henceforth to be termed the STREAM DYERIAN? + + And could such spacious virtue find a grave + Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a wave? + +I protest, George, you shall not venture out again--no, not by +daylight--without a sufficient pair of spectacles--in your musing +moods especially. Your absence of mind we have borne, till your +presence of body came to be called in question by it. You shall not go +wandering into Euripus with Aristotle, if we can help it. Fie, man, +to turn dipper at your years' after your many tracts in favour of +sprinkling only! + +I have nothing but water in my head o' nights since this frightful +accident. Sometimes I am with Clarence in his dream. At others, I +behold Christian beginning to sink, and crying out to his good brother +Hopeful (that is to me), "I sink in deep waters; the billows go over +my head, all the waves go over me. Selah." Then I have before me +Palinurus, just letting go the steerage. I cry out too late to save. +Next follow--a mournful procession--_suicidal faces_, saved against +their wills from drowning; dolefully trailing a length of reluctant +gratefulness, with ropy weeds pendant from locks of watchet +hue-constrained Lazari--Pluto's half-subjects--stolen fees from the +grave-bilking Charon of his fare. At their head Arion--or is it +G.D.?--in his singing garments marcheth singly, with harp in hand, +and votive garland, which Machaon (or Dr. Hawes) snatcheth straight, +intending to suspend it to the stern God of Sea. Then follow dismal +streams of Lethe, in which the half-drenched on earth are constrained +to drown downright, by wharfs where Ophelia twice acts her muddy +death. + +And, doubtless, there is some notice in that invisible world, when one +of us approacheth (as my friend did so lately) to their inexorable +precincts. When a soul knocks once, twice, at death's door, the +sensation aroused within the palace must be considerable; and the grim +Feature, by modern science so often dispossessed of his prey, must +have learned by this time to pity Tantalus. + +A pulse assuredly was felt along the line of the Elysian shades, when +the near arrival of G.D. was announced by no equivocal indications. +From their seats of Asphodel arose the gentler and the graver +ghosts-poet, or historian--of Grecian or of Roman lore--to crown with +unfading chaplets the half-finished love-labours of their unwearied +scholiast. Him Markland expected--him Tyrwhitt hoped to encounter--him +the sweet lyrist of Peter House, whom he had barely seen upon +earth[1], with newest airs prepared to greet ----; and, patron of +the gentle Christ's boy,--who should have been his patron through +life--the mild Askew, with longing aspirations, leaned foremost from +his venerable AEsculapian chair, to welcome into that happy company the +matured virtues of the man, whose tender scions in the boy he himself +upon earth had so prophetically fed and watered. + +[Footnote 1: Graium _tantum vidit_.] + + + + +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY + + +Sydney's Sonnets--I speak of the best of them--are among the very best +of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, +and high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his +compositions of a similar structure. They are in truth what Milton, +censuring the Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort +of after-tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet the +things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the romance) may +be "full of worth and wit." They savour of the Courtier, it must be +allowed, and not of the Commonwealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier +when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still more a Courtier +when he composed the Arcades. When the national struggle was to begin, +he becomingly cast these vanities behind him; and if the order of time +had thrown Sir Philip upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, +there is no reason why he should not have acted the same part in that +emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Sydney. He did not +want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His letter on the French +match may testify, he could speak his mind freely to Princes. The +times did not call him to the scaffold. + +The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the +compositions of his maturest years. Those of Sydney, which I am about +to produce, were written in the very hey-day of his blood. They are +stuck full of amorous fancies--far-fetched conceits, befitting his +occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts +upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich +pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in +self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the +Beloved. We must be Lovers--or at least the cooling touch of time, +the _circum praecordia frigus_, must not have so damped our faculties, +as to take away our recollection that we were once so--before we can +duly appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles, of +the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though by some +accounted the only natural) are least natural for the high Sydnean +love to express its fancies by. They may serve for the loves of +Tibullus, or the dear Author of the Schoolmistress; for passions that +creep and whine in Elegies and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton +never loved at this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses (_ad +Leonoram_ I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the +poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when he could thus +apostrophise a singing-girl:-- + + Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes) + Obtigit aetheriis ales ab ordinibus. + Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi si gloria major, + Nam tua praesentem vox sonat ipsa Deum? + Aut Deus, aut vacui certe mens tertia coeli, + Per tua secreto guttura serpit agens; + Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia corda + Sensim immortali assuescere posse sono. + QUOD SI CUNCTA QUIDEM DEUS EST, PER CUNCTAQUE FUSUS, + IN TE UNA LOQUITUR, CAETERA MUTUS HABET. + +This is loving in a strange fashion; and it requires some candour of +construction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast +a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in +the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if +he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, +Sydney has no nights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the +sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship +with his mortal passions. + + I + + With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies; + How silently; and with how wan a face! + What! may it be, that even in heavenly place + That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries? + Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes + Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; + I read it in thy looks; thy languish! grace + To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. + Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, + Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit? + Are beauties there as proud as here they be? + Do they above love to be loved, and yet + Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? + Do they call _virtue_ there--_ungratefulness_! + +The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He +means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue? + + II + + Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, + The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, + The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, + The indifferent judge between the high and low; + With shield of proof shield me from out the prease[1] + Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw; + O make in me those civil wars to cease: + I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. + Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + And if these things, as being thine by right, + Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, + Livelier than elsewhere, STELLA'S image see. + + + III + + The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness + Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes, + Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, + With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. + Some, that know how my spring I did address, + Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; + Others, because the Prince my service tries, + Think, that I think state errors to redress; + But harder judges judge, ambition's rage, + Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place, + Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden cage. + O fools, or over-wise! alas, the race + Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, + But only STELLA'S eyes, and STELLA'S heart. + + + IV + + Because I oft in dark abstracted guise + Seem most alone in greatest company, + With dearth of words, or answers quite awry, + To them that would make speech of speech arise; + They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies, + That poison foul of bubbling _Pride_ doth lie + So in my swelling breast, that only I + Fawn on myself, and others do despise; + Yet _Pride_, I think, doth not my Soul possess, + Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass: + But one worse fault--_Ambition_--I confess, + That makes me oft my best friends overpass, + Unseen, unheard--while Thought to highest place + Bends all his powers, even unto STELLA'S grace. + + + V + + Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance, + Guided so well that I obtained the prize, + Both by the judgment of the English eyes, + And of some sent from that _sweet enemy_,--France; + Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; + Townsfolk my strength; a daintier judge applies + His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise; + Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; + Others, because of both sides I do take + My blood from them, who did excel in this, + Think Nature me a man of arms did make. + How far they shot awry! the true cause is, + STELLA look'd on, and from her heavenly face + Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. + + + VI + + In martial sports I had my cunning tried, + And yet to break more staves did me address, + While with the people's shouts (I must confess) + Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride-- + When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried + In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, + "What now, Sir Fool!" said he; "I would no less: + Look here, I say." I look'd, and STELLA spied, + Who hard by made a window send forth light. + My heart then quak'd, then dazzled were mine eyes; + One hand forgot to rule, th'other to fight; + Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries. + My foe came on, and beat the air for me-- + Till that her blush made me my shame to see. + + + VII + + No more, my dear, no more these counsels try; + O give my passions leave to run their race; + Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace; + Let folk o'er-charged with brain against me cry; + Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye; + Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace; + Let all the earth with scorn recount my case-- + But do not will me from my love to fly. + I do not envy Aristotle's wit, + Nor do aspire to Caesar's bleeding fame; + Nor aught do care, though some above me sit; + Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame. + But that which once may win thy cruel heart: + Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. + + + VIII + + Love still a boy, and oft a wanton, is, + School'd only by his mother's tender eye; + What wonder then, if he his lesson miss, + When for so soft a rod dear play he try? + And yet my STAR, because a sugar'd kiss + In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie, + Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only this. + Sweet, it was saucy LOVE, not humble I. + But no 'scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear + In beauty's throne--see now, who dares come near + Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain? + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face + Anger invests with such a lovely grace, + That anger's self I needs must kiss again. + + + IX + + I never drank of Aganippe well, + Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, + And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell; + Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit. + Some do I bear of Poets' fury tell, + But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it; + And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, + I am no pick-purse of another's wit. + How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease + My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow + In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? + Guess me the cause--what is it thus?--fye, no. + Or so?--much less. How then? sure thus it is, + My lips are sweet, inspired with STELLA'S kiss. + + + X + + Of all the kings that ever here did reign, + Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name, + Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain-- + Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame. + Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame + His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain; + And, gain'd by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame, + That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late obtain. + Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so 'fraid, + Though strongly hedged of bloody Lions' paws + That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid. + Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause-- + But only, for this worthy knight durst prove + To lose his crown rather than fail his love. + + + XI + + O happy Thames, that didst my STELLA bear, + I saw thyself, with many a smiling line + Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear, + While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; + The boat for joy could not to dance forbear, + While wanton winds, with beauty so divine + Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair + They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine. + And fain those AEol's youth there would their stay + Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly, + First did with puffing kiss those locks display. + She, so dishevell'd, blush'd; from window I + With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace, + Let honour's self to thee grant highest place! + + + XII + + Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be; + And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, + Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet, + More soft than to a chamber melody,-- + Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me + To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet, + My Muse and I must you of duty greet + With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. + Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed, + By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot; + Nor blam'd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed. + And that you know, I envy you no lot + Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, + Hundreds of years you STELLA'S feet may kiss. + +[Footnote 1: Press.] + +Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last sonnet, are +my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they +are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of +chivalry,"--of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been +the "president,"--shines through them. I confess I can see nothing +of the "jejune" or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and +"cumbrous"--which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The +verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the +trumpet; or tempered (as himself expresses it) to "trampling horses' +feet." They abound in felicitous phrases-- + + O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face-- + +_8th Sonnet._ + + --Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; + A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light; + A rosy garland, and a weary head. + +_2nd Sonnet._ + + --That sweet enemy,--France-- + +_5th Sonnet._ + +But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalised +feelings--the failing too much of some poetry of the present day--they +are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriates +every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a +thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and +illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions +of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs +through them, which almost affixes a date to them; marks the _when_ +and _where_ they were written. + +I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, +because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it +by a gentler name) with which W.H. takes every occasion of insulting +the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of +Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the +most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and +authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived +an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a +king-hater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to +a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a _fine idea_ from my mind. +The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of +character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and +encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries +have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the Critic, that Sir +Philip Sydney was that _opprobrious thing_ which a foolish nobleman in +his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph +made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon +the beautiful lines in the "Friend's Passion for his Astrophel," +printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others. + + You knew--who knew not Astrophel? + (That I should live to say I knew, + And have not in possession still!)-- + Things known permit me to renew-- + Of him you know his merit such, + I cannot say--you hear--too much. + + Within these woods of Arcady + He chief delight and pleasure took; + And on the mountain Partheny. + Upon the crystal liquid brook, + The Muses met him every day, + That taught him sing, to write, and say. + + When he descended down the mount, + His personage seemed most divine: + A thousand graces one might count + Upon his lovely chearful eyne. + To hear him speak, and sweetly smile, + You were in Paradise the while, + + _A sweet attractive kind of grace; + A full assurance given by looks; + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books--_ + I trow that count'nance cannot lye, + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + * * * * * + + Above all others this is he, + Which erst approved in his song, + That love and honour might agree, + And that pure love will do no wrong. + Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame + To love a man of virtuous name. + + Did never Love so sweetly breathe + In any mortal breast before: + Did never Muse inspire beneath + A Poet's brain with finer store. + He wrote of Love with high conceit, + And beauty rear'd above her height. + +Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in +the Poem,--the last in the collection accompanying the above,--which +from internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brooke's,--beginning with +"Silence augmenteth grief,"--and then seriously ask himself, whether +the subject of such absorbing and confounding regrets could have been +_that thing_ which Lord Oxford termed him. + + + + +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO + + +Dan Stuart once told us, that he did not remember that he ever +deliberately walked into the Exhibition at Somerset House in his life. +He might occasionally have escorted a party of ladies across the way +that were going in; but he never went in of his own head. Yet the +office of the Morning Post newspaper stood then just where it does +now--we are carrying you back, Reader, some thirty years or more--with +its gilt-globe-topt front facing that emporium of our artists' grand +Annual Exposure. We sometimes wish, that we had observed the same +abstinence with Daniel. + +A word or two of D.S. He ever appeared to us one of the finest +tempered of Editors. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, was equally +pleasant, with a dash, no slight one either, of the courtier. S. was +frank, plain, and English all over. We have worked for both these +gentlemen. + +It is soothing to contemplate the head of the Ganges; to trace the +first little bubblings of a mighty river; + + With holy reverence to approach the rocks, + Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song. + +Fired with a perusal of the Abyssinian Pilgrim's exploratory ramblings +after the cradle of the infant Nilus, we well remember on one fine +summer holyday (a "whole day's leave" we called it at Christ's +Hospital) sallying forth at rise of sun, not very well provisioned +either for such an undertaking, to trace the current of the New +River--Middletonian stream!--to its scaturient source, as we had read, +in meadows by fair Amwell. Gallantly did we commence our solitary +quest--for it was essential to the dignity of a DISCOVERY, that no eye +of schoolboy, save our own, should beam on the detection. By flowery +spots, and verdant lanes, skirting Hornsey, Hope trained us on in many +a baffling turn; endless, hopeless meanders, as it seemed; or as if +the jealous waters had _dodged_ us, reluctant to have the humble spot +of their nativity revealed; till spent, and nigh famished, before set +of the same sun, we sate down somewhere by Bowes Farm, near Tottenham, +with a tithe of our proposed labours only yet accomplished; sorely +convinced in spirit, that that Brucian enterprise was as yet too +arduous for our young shoulders. + +Not more refreshing to the thirsty curiosity of the traveller is the +tracing of some mighty waters up to their shallow fontlet, than it is +to a pleased and candid reader to go back to the inexperienced essays, +the first callow flights in authorship, of some established name in +literature; from the Gnat which preluded to the AEneid, to the Duck +which Samuel Johnson trod on. + +In those days every Morning Paper, as an essential retainer to its +establishment, kept an author, who was bound to furnish daily a +quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke--and it was thought +pretty high too--was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases. +The chat of the day, scandle, but, above all, _dress_, furnished +the material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven lines. +Shorter they might be, but they must be poignant. + +A fashion of _flesh_, or rather _pink_-coloured hose for the ladies, +luckily coming up at the juncture, when we were on our probation for +the place of Chief Jester to S.'s Paper, established our reputation in +that line. We were pronounced a "capital hand." O the conceits which +we varied upon _red_ in all its prismatic differences! from the trite +and obvious flower of Cytherea, to the flaming costume of the lady +that has her sitting upon "many waters." Then there was the collateral +topic of ancles. What an occasion to a truly chaste writer, like +ourself, of touching that nice brink, and yet never tumbling over it, +of a seemingly ever approximating something "not quite proper;" while, +like a skilful posture-master, balancing betwixt decorums and their +opposites, he keeps the line, from which a hair's-breadth deviation is +destruction; hovering in the confines of light and darkness, or where +"both seem either;" a hazy uncertain delicacy; Autolycus-like in the +Play, still putting off his expectant auditory with "Whoop, do me no +harm, good man!" But, above all, that conceit arrided us most at that +time, and still tickles our midriff to remember, where, allusively +to the flight of Astraea--_ultima Calestum terras reliquit_--we +pronounced--in reference to the stockings still--that MODESTY TAKING +HER FINAL LEAVE OF MORTALS, HER LAST BLUSH WAS VISIBLE IN HER ASCENT +TO THE HEAVENS BY THE TRACT OF THE GLOWING INSTEP. This might be +called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed tolerable writing in +those days. + +But the fashion of jokes, with all other things, passes away; as did +the transient mode which had so favoured us. The ancles of our fair +friends in a few weeks began to reassume their whiteness, and left us +scarce a leg to stand upon. Other female whims followed, but none, +methought, so pregnant, so invitatory of shrewd conceits, and more +than single meanings. + +Somebody has said, that to swallow six cross-buns daily consecutively +for a fortnight would surfeit the stoutest digestion. But to have to +furnish as many jokes daily, and that not for a fortnight, but for a +long twelvemonth, as we were constrained to do, was a little harder +execution. "Man goeth forth to his work until the evening"--from a +reasonable hour in the morning, we presume it was meant. Now as our +main occupation took us up from eight till five every day in the City; +and as our evening hours, at that time of life, had generally to do +with any thing rather than business, it follows, that the only time +we could spare for this manufactory of jokes--our supplementary +livelihood, that supplied us in every want beyond mere bread and +cheese--was exactly that part of the day which (as we have heard of No +Man's Land) may be fitly denominated No Man's Time; that is, no time +in which a man ought to be up, and awake, in. To speak more plainly, +it is that time, of an hour, or an hour and a half's duration, in +which a man, whose occasions call him up so preposterously, has to +wait for his breakfast. + +O those headaches at dawn of day, when at five, or half-past-five in +summer, and not much later in the dark seasons, we were compelled to +rise, having been perhaps not above four hours in bed--(for we were no +go-to-beds with the lamb, though we anticipated the lark ofttimes in +her rising--we liked a parting cup at midnight, as all young men did +before these effeminate times, and to have our friends about us--we +were not constellated under Aquarius, that watery sign, and therefore +incapable of Bacchus, cold, washy, bloodless--we were none of your +Basilian water-sponges, nor had taken our degrees at Mount Ague--we +were right toping Capulets, jolly companions, we and they)--but to +have to get up, as we said before, curtailed of half our fair sleep, +fasting, with only a dim vista of refreshing Bohea in the distance--to +be necessitated to rouse ourselves at the detestable rap of an old +hag of a domestic, who seemed to take a diabolical pleasure in her +announcement that it was "time to rise;" and whose chappy knuckles +we have often yearned to amputate, and string them up at our chamber +door, to be a terror to all such unseasonable rest-breakers in +future-- + +"Facil" and sweet, as Virgil sings, had been the "descending" of the +over-night, balmy the first sinking of the heavy head upon the pillow; +but to get up, as he goes on to say, + + --revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras-- + +and to get up moreover to make jokes with malice prepended--there was +the "labour," there the "work." + +No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to that, our +slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny, +which this necessity exercised upon us. Half a dozen jests in a day +(bating Sundays too), why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number +every day in our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical +exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when the head has to +go out to them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet-- + +Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth. + +It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings came up; but +mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic +impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature, upon which +no smile could play; some flint, from which no process of ingenuity +could procure a distillation. There they lay; there your appointed +tale of brick-making was set before you, which you must finish, +with or without straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon--_the +Public_--like him in Bel's temple--must be fed; it expected its daily +rations; and Daniel, and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we +could on this side bursting him. + +While we were wringing our coy sprightlinesses for the Post, and +writhing under the toil of what is called "easy writing," Bob Allen, +our quondam schoolfellow, was tapping his impracticable brains in a +like service for the "Oracle." Not that Robert troubled himself much +about wit. If his paragraphs had a sprightly air about them, it was +sufficient. He carried this nonchalance so far at last, that a matter +of intelligence, and that no very important one, was not seldom palmed +upon his employers for a good jest; for example sake--"_Walking +yesterday morning casually down Snow Hill, who should we meet but Mr. +Deputy Humphreys! we rejoice to add, that the worthy Deputy appeared +to enjoy a good state of health. We do not remember ever to have seen +him look better._" This gentleman, so surprisingly met upon Snow Hill, +from some peculiarities in gait or gesture, was a constant butt for +mirth to the small paragraph-mongers of the day; and our friend +thought that he might have his fling at him with the rest. We met +A. in Holborn shortly after this extraordinary rencounter, which he +told with tears of satisfaction in his eyes, and chuckling at the +anticipated effects of its announcement next day in the paper. We did +not quite comprehend where the wit of it lay at the time; nor was it +easy to be detected, when the thing came out, advantaged by type and +letter-press. He had better have met any thing that morning than a +Common Council Man. His services were shortly after dispensed with, +on the plea that his paragraphs of late had been deficient in point. +The one in question, it must be owned, had an air, in the opening +especially, proper to awaken curiosity; and the sentiment, or moral, +wears the aspect of humanity, and good neighbourly feeling. But +somehow the conclusion was not judged altogether to answer to the +magnificent promise of the premises. We traced our friend's pen +afterwards in the "True Briton," the "Star," the "Traveller,"--from +all which he was successively dismissed, the Proprietors having "no +further occasion for his services." Nothing was easier than to detect +him. When wit failed, or topics ran low, there constantly appeared the +following--"_It is not generally known that the three Blue Balls at +the Pawnbrokers' shops are the ancient arms of Lombardy. The Lombards +were the first money-brokers in Europe._" Bob has done more to set +the public right on this important point of blazonry, than the whole +College of Heralds. + +The appointment of a regular wit has long ceased to be a part of the +economy of a Morning Paper. Editors find their own jokes, or do as +well without them. Parson Este, and Topham, brought up the set custom +of "witty paragraphs," first in the "World." Boaden was a reigning +paragraphist in his day, and succeeded poor Allen in the Oracle. +But, as we said, the fashion of jokes passes away; and it would be +difficult to discover in the Biographer of Mrs. Siddons, any traces +of that vivacity and fancy which charmed the whole town at the +commencement of the present century. Even the prelusive delicacies +of the present writer--the curt "Astraean allusion"--would be thought +pedantic, and out of date, in these days. + +From the office of the Morning Post (for we may as well exhaust our +Newspaper Reminiscences at once) by change of property in the paper, +we were transferred, mortifying exchange! to the office of the +Albion Newspaper, late Rackstrow's Museum, in Fleet-street. What a +transition--from a handsome apartment, from rose-wood desks, and +silver-inkstands, to an office--no office, but a _den_ rather, but +just redeemed from the occupation of dead monsters, of which it +seemed redolent--from the centre of loyalty and fashion, to a focus +of vulgarity and sedition! Here in murky closet, inadequate from its +square contents to the receipt of the two bodies of Editor, and humble +paragraph-maker, together at one time, sat in the discharge of his new +Editorial functions (the "Bigod" of Elia) the redoubted John Fenwick. + +F., without a guinea in his pocket, and having left not many in the +pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick +doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the +rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one +Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory +for a libel on the Prince of Wales. With this hopeless concern--for +it had been sinking ever since its commencement, and could now reckon +upon not more than a hundred subscribers--F. resolutely determined +upon pulling down the Government in the first instance, and making +both our fortunes by way of corollary. For seven weeks and mote did +this infatuated Democrat go about borrowing seven shilling pieces, +and lesser coin, to meet the daily demands of the Stamp Office, which +allowed no credit to publications of that side in politics. An outcast +from politer bread, we attached our small talents to the forlorn +fortunes of our friend. Our occupation now was to write treason. + +Recollections of feelings--which were all that now remained from our +first boyish heats kindled by the French Revolution, when if we were +misled, we erred in the company of some, who are accounted very +good men now--rather than any tendency at this time to Republican +doctrines--assisted us in assuming a style of writing, while the +paper lasted, consonant in no very under-tone to the right earnest +fanaticism of F. Our cue was now to insinuate, rather than recommend, +possible abdications. Blocks, axes, Whitehall tribunals, were covered +with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis--as Mr. Bayes says, never +naming the _thing_ directly--that the keen eye of an Attorney General +was insufficient to detect the lurking snake among them. There were +times, indeed, when we sighed for our more gentleman-like occupation +under Stuart. But with change of masters it is ever change of service. +Already one paragraph, and another, as we learned afterwards from a +gentleman at the Treasury, had begun to be marked at that office, with +a view of its being submitted at least to the attention of the proper +Law Officers--when an unlucky, or rather lucky epigram from our pen, +aimed at Sir J----s M----h, who was on the eve of departing for India +to reap the fruits of his apostacy, as F. pronounced it, (it is hardly +worth particularising), happening to offend the nice sense of Lord, +or, as he then delighted to be called, Citizen Stanhope, deprived F. +at once of the last hopes of a guinea from the last patron that had +stuck by us; and breaking up our establishment, left us to the safe, +but somewhat mortifying, neglect of the Crown Lawyers.--It was about +this time, or a little earlier, that Dan. Stuart made that curious +confession to us, that he had "never deliberately walked into an +Exhibition at Somerset House in his life." + + + + +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART + + +Hogarth excepted, can we produce any one painter within the last fifty +years, or since the humour of exhibiting began, that has treated a +story _imaginatively_? By this we mean, upon whom his subject has +so acted, that it has seemed to direct _him_--not to be arranged by +him? Any upon whom its leading or collateral points have impressed +themselves so tyrannically, that he dared not treat it otherwise, +lest he should falsify a revelation? Any that has imparted to his +compositions, not merely so much truth as is enough to convey a story +with clearness, but that individualising property, which should keep +the subject so treated distinct in feature from every other subject, +however similar, and to common apprehensions almost identical; so as +that we might say, this and this part could have found an appropriate +place in no other picture in the world but this? Is there anything in +modern art--we will not demand that it should be equal--but in any +way analogous to what Titian has effected, in that wonderful bringing +together of two times in the "Ariadne," in the National Gallery? +Precipitous, with his reeling Satyr rout about him, re-peopling and +re-illuming suddenly the waste places, drunk with a new fury beyond +the grape, Bacchus, born in fire, fire-like flings himself at the +Cretan. This is the time present. With this telling of the story an +artist, and no ordinary one, might remain richly proud. Guido, in +his harmonious version of it, saw no further. But from the depths of +the imaginative spirit Titian has recalled past time, and laid it +contributory with the present to one simultaneous effect. With the +desert all ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made lucid +with the presence and new offers of a god,--as if unconscious of +Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning +pageant--her soul undistracted from Theseus--Ariadne is still pacing +the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same +local solitude, with which she awoke at day-break to catch the forlorn +last glances of the sail that bore away the Athenian. + +Here are two points miraculously co-uniting; fierce society, with +the feeling of solitude still absolute; noon-day revelations, with +the accidents of the dull grey dawn unquenched and lingering; the +_present_ Bacchus, with the _past_ Ariadne; two stories, with double +Time; separate, and harmonising. Had the artist made the woman one +shade less indifferent to the God; still more, had she expressed a +rapture at his advent, where would have been the story of the mighty +desolation of the heart previous? merged in the insipid accident of a +flattering offer met with a welcome acceptance. The broken heart for +Theseus was not lightly to be pieced up by a God. + +We have before us a fine rough print, from a picture by Raphael in +the Vatican. It is the Presentation of the newborn Eve to Adam by the +Almighty. A fairer mother of mankind we might imagine, and a goodlier +sire perhaps of men since born. But these are matters subordinate to +the conception of the _situation_, displayed in this extraordinary +production. A tolerably modern artist would have been satisfied with +tempering certain raptures of connubial anticipation, with a suitable +acknowledgment to the Giver of the blessing, in the countenance of the +first bridegroom; something like the divided attention of the child +(Adam was here a child man) between the given toy, and the mother +who had just blest it with the bauble. This is the obvious, the +first-sight view, the superficial. An artist of a higher grade, +considering the awful presence they were in, would have taken care +to subtract something from the expression of the more human passion, +and to heighten the more spiritual one. This would be as much as an +exhibition-goer, from the opening of Somerset House to last year's +show, has been encouraged to look for. It is obvious to hint at a +lower expression, yet in a picture, that for respects of drawing +and colouring, might be deemed not wholly inadmissible within these +art-fostering walls, in which the raptures should be as ninety-nine, +the gratitude as one, or perhaps Zero! By neither the one passion nor +the other has Raphael expounded the situation of Adam. Singly upon his +brow sits the absorbing sense of wonder at the created miracle. The +_moment_ is seized by the intuitive artist, perhaps not self-conscious +of his art, in which neither of the conflicting emotions--a moment how +abstracted--have had time to spring up, or to battle for indecorous +mastery.--We have seen a landscape of a justly admired neoteric, in +which he aimed at delineating a fiction, one of the most severely +beautiful in antiquity--the gardens of the Hesperides. To do Mr. ---- +justice, he had painted a laudable orchard, with fitting seclusion, +and a veritable dragon (of which a Polypheme by Poussin is somehow a +fac-simile for the situation), looking over into the world shut out +backwards, so that none but a "still-climbing Hercules" could hope to +catch a peep at the admired Ternary of Recluses. No conventual porter +could keep his keys better than this custos with the "lidless eyes." +He not only sees that none _do_ intrude into that privacy, but, as +clear as daylight, that none but _Hercules aut Diabolus_ by any manner +of means _can_. So far all is well. We have absolute solitude here +or nowhere. _Ab extra_ the damsels are snug enough. But here the +artist's courage seems to have failed him. He began to pity his pretty +charge, and, to comfort the irksomeness, has peopled their solitude +with a bevy of fair attendants, maids of honour, or ladies of the +bed-chamber, according to the approved etiquette at a court of the +nineteenth century; giving to the whole scene the air of a _fete +champetre_, if we will but excuse the absence of the gentlemen. +This is well, and Watteauish. But what is become of the solitary +mystery--the + + Daughters three, + That sing around the golden tree? + +This is not the way in which Poussin would have treated this subject. + +The paintings, or rather the stupendous architectural designs, of a +modern artist, have been urged as objections to the theory of our +motto. They are of a character, we confess, to stagger it. His towered +structures are of the highest order of the material sublime. Whether +they were dreams, or transcripts of some elder workmanship--Assyrian +ruins old--restored by this mighty artist, they satisfy our most +stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the antique +world. It is a pity that they were ever peopled. On that side, the +imagination of the artist halts, and appears defective. Let us examine +the point of the story in the "Belshazzar's Feast." We will introduce +it by an apposite anecdote. + +The court historians of the day record, that at the first dinner given +by the late King (then Prince Regent) at the Pavilion, the following +characteristic frolic was played off. The guests were select and +admiring; the banquet profuse and admirable; the lights lustrous and +oriental; the eye was perfectly dazzled with the display of plate, +among which the great gold salt-cellar, brought from the regalia in +the Tower for this especial purpose, itself a tower! stood conspicuous +for its magnitude. And now the Rev. **** the then admired court +Chaplain, was proceeding with the grace, when, at a signal given, the +lights were suddenly overcast, and a huge transparency was discovered, +in which glittered in golden letters-- + + "BRIGHTON-EARTHQUAKE-SWALLOW-UP-ALIVE!" + +Imagine the confusion of the guests; the Georges and garters, jewels, +bracelets, moulted upon the occasion! The fans dropt, and picked up +the next morning by the sly court pages! Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name +fainting, and the Countess of **** holding the smelling bottle, +till the good-humoured Prince caused harmony to be restored by calling +in fresh candles, and declaring that the whole was nothing but a +pantomime _hoax_, got up by the ingenious Mr. Farley, of Covent +Garden, from hints which his Royal Highness himself had furnished! +Then imagine the infinite applause that followed, the mutual +rallyings, the declarations that "they were not much frightened," of +the assembled galaxy. + +The point of time in the picture exactly answers to the appearance of +the transparency in the anecdote. The huddle, the flutter, the bustle, +the escape, the alarm, and the mock alarm; the prettinesses heightened +by consternation; the courtier's fear which was flattery, and the +lady's which was affectation; all that we may conceive to have taken +place in a mob of Brighton courtiers, sympathising with the well-acted +surprise of their sovereign; all this, and no more, is exhibited by +the well-dressed lords and ladies in the Hall of Belus. Just this sort +of consternation we have seen among a flock of disquieted wild geese +at the report only of a gun having gone off! + +But is this vulgar fright, this mere animal anxiety for the +preservation of their persons,--such as we have witnessed at a +theatre, when a slight alarm of fire has been given--an adequate +exponent of a supernatural terror? the way in which the finger of God, +writing judgments, would have been met by the withered conscience? +There is a human fear, and a divine fear. The one is disturbed, +restless, and bent upon escape. The other is bowed down, effortless, +passive. When the spirit appeared before Eliphaz in the visions of the +night, and the hair of his flesh stood up, was it in the thoughts +of the Temanite to ring the bell of his chamber, or to call up the +servants? But let us see in the text what there is to justify all this +huddle of vulgar consternation. + +From the words of Daniel it appears that Belshazzar had made a great +feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. +The golden and silver vessels are gorgeously enumerated, with the +princes, the king's concubines, and his wives. Then follows-- + +"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over +against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's +palace; and the _king_ saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the +_king's_ countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so +that the joints of his loins were loosened, and his knees smote one +against another." + +This is the plain text. By no hint can it be otherwise inferred, but +that the appearance was solely confined to the fancy of Belshazzar, +that his single brain was troubled. Not a word is spoken of its being +seen by any else there present, not even by the queen herself, who +merely undertakes for the interpretation of the phenomenon, as related +to her, doubtless, by her husband. The lords are simply said to be +astonished; _i.e._ at the trouble and the change of countenance in +their sovereign. Even the prophet does not appear to have seen the +scroll, which the king saw. He recals it only, as Joseph did the Dream +to the King of Egypt. "Then was the part of the hand sent from him +[the Lord], and this writing was written." He speaks of the phantasm +as past. + +Then what becomes of this needless multiplication of the miracle? this +message to a royal conscience, singly expressed--for it was said, +"thy kingdom is divided,"--simultaneously impressed upon the fancies +of a thousand courtiers, who were implied in it neither directly nor +grammatically? But admitting the artist's own version of the story, +and that the sight was seen also by the thousand courtiers--let it +have been visible to all Babylon--as the knees of Belshazzar were +shaken, and his countenance troubled, even so would the knees of every +man in Babylon, and their countenances, as of an individual man, been +troubled; bowed, bent down, so would they have remained, stupor-fixed, +with no thought of struggling with that inevitable judgment. + +Not all that is optically possible to be seen, is to be shown in every +picture. The eye delightedly dwells upon the brilliant individualities +in a "Marriage at Cana," by Veronese, or Titian, to the very texture +and colour of the wedding garments, the ring glittering upon the +bride's fingers, the metal and fashion of the wine pots; for at such +seasons there is leisure and luxury to be curious. But in a "day of +judgment," or in a "day of lesser horrors, yet divine," as at the +impious feast of Belshazzar, the eye should see, as the actual eye of +an agent or patient in the immediate scene would see, only in masses +and indistinction. Not only the female attire and jewelry exposed +to the critical eye of the fashion, as minutely as the dresses in +a lady's magazine, in the criticised picture,--but perhaps the +curiosities of anatomical science, and studied diversities of posture +in the falling angels and sinners of Michael Angelo,--have no business +in their great subjects. There was no leisure of them. + +By a wise falsification, the great masters of painting got at their +true conclusions; by not showing the actual appearances, that is, all +that was to be seen at any given moment by an indifferent eye, but +only what the eye might be supposed to see in the doing or suffering +of some portentous action. Suppose the moment of the swallowing up of +Pompeii. There they were to be seen--houses, columns, architectural +proportions, differences of public and private buildings, men and +women at their standing occupations, the diversified thousand +postures, attitudes, dresses, in some confusion truly, but physically +they were visible. But what eye saw them at that eclipsing moment, +which reduces confusion to a kind of unity, and when the senses +are upturned from their proprieties, when sight and hearing are a +feeling only? A thousand years have passed, and we are at leisure to +contemplate the weaver fixed standing at his shuttle, the baker at his +oven, and to turn over with antiquarian coolness the pots and pans of +Pompeii. + +"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeah, and thou, Moon, in the valley of +Ajalon." Who, in reading this magnificent Hebraism, in his conception, +sees aught but the heroic son of Nun, with the out-stretched arm, +and the greater and lesser light obsequious? Doubtless there were to +be seen hill and dale, and chariots and horsemen, on open plain, or +winding by secret defiles, and all the circumstances and stratagems +of war. But whose eyes would have been conscious of this array at the +interposition of the synchronic miracle? Yet in the picture of this +subject by the artist of the "Belshazzar's Feast"--no ignoble work +either--the marshalling and landscape of the war is everything, the +miracle sinks into an anecdote of the day; and the eye may "dart +through rank and file traverse" for some minutes, before it shall +discover, among his armed followers, _which is Joshua_! Not modern art +alone, but ancient, where only it is to be found if anywhere, can be +detected erring, from defect of this imaginative faculty. The world +has nothing to show of the preternatural in painting, transcending the +figure of Lazarus bursting his grave-clothes, in the great picture at +Angerstein's. It seems a thing between two beings. A ghastly horror +at itself struggles with newly-apprehending gratitude at second life +bestowed. It cannot forget that it was a ghost. It has hardly felt +that it is a body. It has to tell of the world of spirits.--Was it +from a feeling, that the crowd of half-impassioned by-standers, and +the still more irrelevant herd of passers-by at a distance, who have +not heard or but faintly have been told of the passing miracle, +admirable as they are in design and hue--for it is a glorified +work--do not respond adequately to the action--that the single figure +of the Lazarus has been attributed to Michael Angelo, and the mighty +Sebastian unfairly robbed of the fame of the greater half of the +interest? Now that there were not indifferent passers-by within actual +scope of the eyes of those present at the miracle, to whom the sound +of it had but faintly, or not at all, reached, it would be hardihood +to deny; but would they see them? or can the mind in the conception of +it admit of such unconcerning objects? can it think of them at all? or +what associating league to the imagination can there be between the +seers, and the seers not, of a presential miracle? + +Were an artist to paint upon demand a picture of a Dryad, we will ask +whether, in the present low state of expectation, the patron would +not, or ought not to be fully satisfied with a beautiful naked figure +recumbent under wide-stretched oaks? Disseat those woods, and place +the same figure among fountains, and falls of pellucid water, and +you have a--Naiad! Not so in a rough print we have seen after Julio +Romano, we think--for it is long since--_there_, by no process, with +mere change of scene, could the figure have reciprocated characters. +Long, grotesque, fantastic, yet with a grace of her own, beautiful in +convolution and distortion, linked to her connatural tree, co-twisting +with its limbs her own, till both seemed either--these, animated +branches; those, disanimated members--yet the animal and vegetable +lives sufficiently kept distinct--_his_ Dryad lay--an approximation of +two natures, which to conceive, it must be seen; analogous to, not the +same with, the delicacies of Ovidian transformations. + +To the lowest subjects, and, to a superficial comprehension, the +most barren, the Great Masters gave loftiness and fruitfulness. The +large eye of genius saw in the meanness of present objects their +capabilities of treatment from their relations to some grand +Past or Future. How has Raphael--we must still linger about the +Vatican--treated the humble craft of the ship-builder, in _his_ +"Building of the Ark?" It is in that scriptural series, to which we +have referred, and which, judging from some fine rough old graphic +sketches of them which we possess, seem to be of a higher and more +poetic grade than even the Cartoons. The dim of sight are the +timid and the shrinking. There is a cowardice in modern art. As +the Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend made the prophetic guess +at Rome, from the beard and horns of the Moses of Michael Angelo +collected no inferences beyond that of a He Goat and a Cornuto; so +from this subject, of mere mechanic promise, it would instinctively +turn away, as from one incapable of investiture with any grandeur. The +dock-yards at Woolwich would object derogatory associations. The depot +at Chatham would be the mote and the beam in its intellectual eye. But +not to the nautical preparations in the ship-yards of Civita Vecchia +did Raphael look for instructions, when he imagined the Building of +the Vessel that was to be conservatory of the wrecks of the species of +drowned mankind. In the intensity of the action, he keeps ever out of +sight the meanness of the operation. There is the Patriarch, in calm +forethought, and with holy prescience, giving directions. And there +are his agents--the solitary but sufficient Three--hewing, sawing, +every one with the might and earnestness of a Demiurgus; under some +instinctive rather than technical guidance; giant-muscled; every one a +Hercules, or liker to those Vulcanian Three, that in sounding caverns +under Mongibello wrought in fire--Brontes, and black Steropes, and +Pyracmon. So work the workmen that should repair a world! + +Artists again err in the confounding of _poetic_ with _pictorial +subjects_. In the latter, the exterior accidents are nearly +everything, the unseen qualities as nothing. Othello's colour--the +infirmities and corpulence of a Sir John Falstaff--do they haunt us +perpetually in the reading? or are they obtruded upon our conceptions +one time for ninety-nine that we are lost in admiration at the +respective moral or intellectual attributes of the character? But in +a picture Othello is _always_ a Blackamoor; and the other only Plump +Jack. Deeply corporealised, and enchained hopelessly in the grovelling +fetters of externality, must be the mind, to which, in its better +moments, the image of the high-souled, high-intelligenced Quixote--the +errant Star of Knighthood, made more tender by eclipse--has never +presented itself, divested from the unhallowed accompaniment of a +Sancho, or a rabblement at the heels of Rosinante. That man has read +his book by halves; he has laughed, mistaking his author's purport, +which was--tears. The artist that pictures Quixote (and it is in this +degrading point that he is every season held up at our Exhibitions) +in the shallow hope of exciting mirth, would have joined the rabble +at the heels of his starved steed. We wish not to see _that_ +counterfeited, which we would not have wished to see in the reality. +Conscious of the heroic inside of the noble Quixote, who, on hearing +that his withered person was passing, would have stepped over his +threshold to gaze upon his forlorn habiliments, and the "strange +bed-fellows which misery brings a man acquainted with?" Shade of +Cervantes! who in thy Second Part could put into the mouth of thy +Quixote those high aspirations of a super-chivalrous gallantry, where +he replies to one of the shepherdesses, apprehensive that he would +spoil their pretty networks, and inviting him to be a guest with them, +in accents like these: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actaeon was not more +astonished when he saw Diana bathing herself at the fountain, than +I have been in beholding your beauty: I commend the manner of your +pastime, and thank you for your kind offers; and, if I may serve +you, so I may be sure you will be obeyed, you may command me: for my +profession is this, To shew myself thankful, and a doer of good to all +sorts of people, especially of the rank that your person shows you to +be; and if those nets, as they take up but a little piece of ground, +should take up the whole world, I would seek out new worlds to pass +through, rather than break them: and (he adds,) that you may give +credit to this my exaggeration, behold at least he that promiseth you +this, is Don Quixote de la Mancha, if haply this name hath come to +your hearing." Illustrious Romancer! were the "fine frenzies," which +possessed the brain of thy own Quixote, a fit subject, as in this +Second Part, to be exposed to the jeers of Duennas and Serving Men? to +be monstered, and shown up at the heartless banquets of great men? Was +that pitiable infirmity, which in thy First Part misleads him, _always +from within_, into half-ludicrous, but more than half-compassionable +and admirable errors, not infliction enough from heaven, that men by +studied artifices must devise and practise upon the humour, to inflame +where they should soothe it? Why, Goneril would have blushed to +practise upon the abdicated king at this rate, and the she-wolf Regan +not have endured to play the pranks upon his fled wits, which thou +hast made thy Quixote suffer in Duchesses' halls, and at the hands of +that unworthy nobleman.[1] + +In the First Adventures, even, it needed all the art of the most +consummate artist in the Book way that the world hath yet seen, +to keep up in the mind of the reader the heroic attributes of the +character without relaxing; so as absolutely that they shall suffer no +alloy from the debasing fellowship of the clown. If it ever obtrudes +itself as a disharmony, are we inclined to laugh; or not, rather, +to indulge a contrary emotion?--Cervantes, stung, perchance, by the +relish with which _his_ Reading Public had received the fooleries of +the man, more to their palates than the generosities of the master, in +the sequel let his pen run riot, lost the harmony and the balance, and +sacrificed a great idea to the taste of his contemporaries. We know +that in the present day the Knight has fewer admirers than the Squire. +Anticipating, what did actually happen to him--as afterwards it did +to his scarce inferior follower, the Author of "Guzman de +Alfarache"--that some less knowing hand would prevent him by a +spurious Second Part: and judging, that it would be easier for his +competitor to out-bid him in the comicalities, than in the _romance_, +of his work, he abandoned his Knight, and has fairly set up the Squire +for his Hero. For what else has he unsealed the eyes of Sancho; and +instead of that twilight state of semi-insanity--the madness at +second-hand--the contagion, caught from a stronger mind infected--that +war between native cunning, and hereditary deference, with which he +has hitherto accompanied his master--two for a pair almost--does he +substitute a downright Knave, with open eyes, for his own ends only +following a confessed Madman; and offering at one time to lay, if not +actually laying, hands upon him! From the moment that Sancho loses his +reverence, Don Quixote is become a--treatable lunatic. Our artists +handle him accordingly. + +[Footnote 1: Yet from this Second Part, our cried-up pictures are +mostly selected; the waiting-women with beards, &c.] + + + + +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE + + +The _Old Year_ being dead, and the _New Year_ coming of age, which +he does, by Calendar Law, as soon as the breath is out of the old +gentleman's body, nothing would serve the young spark but he must +give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the _Days_ in the year +were invited. The _Festivals_, whom he deputed as his stewards, were +mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged time out of +mind, they said, in providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below; +and it was time they should have a taste of their own bounty. It was +stiffly debated among them, whether the _Fasts_ should be admitted. +Some said, the appearance of such lean, starved guests, with their +mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But the +objection was over-ruled by _Christmas Day_, who had a design upon +_Ash Wednesday_ (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how +the old Domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the _Vigils_ +were requested to come with their lanterns, to light the gentlefolks +home at night. + +All the _Days_ came to their day. Covers were provided for three +hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table: with an +occasional knife and fork at the side-board for the _Twenty-Ninth of +February_. + +I should have told you, that cards of invitation had been issued. The +carriers were the _Hours_; twelve little, merry, whirligig foot-pages, +as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the +persons invited well enough, with the exception of _Easter Day_, +_Shrove Tuesday_, and a few such _Moveables_, who had lately shifted +their quarters. + +Well, they all met at last, foul _Days_, fine _Days_, all sorts of +_Days_, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but, Hail! +fellow _Day_,--well met--brother _Day_--sister _Day_,--only _Lady Day_ +kept a little on the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some +said, _Twelfth Day_ cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany +suit, white and gold, like a queen on a frost-cake, all royal, +glittering, and _Epiphanous_. The rest came, some in green, some in +white--but old _Lent and his family_ were not yet out of mourning. +Rainy _Days_ came in, dripping; and sun-shiny _Days_ helped them +to change their stockings. _Wedding Day_ was there in his marriage +finery, a little the worse for wear. _Pay Day_ came late, as he always +does; and _Doomsday_ sent word--he might be expected. + +_April Fool_ (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal +the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old +Erra Pater to have found out any given _Day_ in the year, to erect a +scheme upon--good _Days_, bad _Days_, were so shuffled together, to +the confounding of all sober horoscopy. + +He had stuck the _Twenty First of June_ next to the _Twenty Second of +December_, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. +_Ash Wednesday_ got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt _Christmas_ +and _Lord Mayor's Days_. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but +barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great +greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still +_Christmas Day_ was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till +he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried +ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, +censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a +gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard +that stood before his _left-hand neighbour_, and daubed his hungry +beard all over with it, till you would have taken him for the _Last +Day in December_, it so hung in icicles. + +At another part of the table, _Shrove Tuesday_ was helping the _Second +of September_ to some cock broth,--which courtesy the latter returned +with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant--so there was no love lost +for that matter. The _Last of Lent_ was spunging upon _Shrovetide's_ +pancakes; which _April Fool_ perceiving, told him he did well, for +pancakes were proper to a _good fry-day_. + +In another part, a hubbub arose about the _Thirtieth of January_, who, +it seems, being a sour puritanic character, that thought nobody's meat +good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a calf's +head, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking +to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, _March +manyweathers_, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the megrims, +screamed out there was a "human head in the platter," and raved about +Herodias' daughter to that degree, that the obnoxious viand was +obliged to be removed; nor did she recover her stomach till she had +gulped down a _Restorative_, confected of _Oak Apple_, which the merry +_Twenty Ninth of May_ always carries about with him for that purpose. + +The King's health[1] being called for after this, a notable +dispute arose between the _Twelfth of August_ (a zealous old Whig +gentlewoman,) and the _Twenty Third of April_ (a new-fangled lady of +the Tory stamp,) as to which of them should have the honour to propose +it. _August_ grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the +prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had basely +supplanted her; whom she represented as little better than a _kept_ +mistress, who went about in _fine clothes_, while she (the legitimate +BIRTHDAY) had scarcely a rag, &c. + +_April fool_, being made mediator, confirmed the right in the +strongest form of words to the appellant, but decided for peace' sake +that the exercise of it should remain with the present possessor. At +the same time, he slily rounded the first lady in the ear, that an +action might lie against the Crown for _bi-geny_. + +It beginning to grow a little duskish, _Candlemas_ lustily bawled out +for lights, which was opposed by all the _Days_, who protested against +burning daylight. Then fair water was handed round in silver ewers, +and the _same lady_ was observed to take an unusual time in _Washing_ +herself. + +_May Day_, with that sweetness which is peculiar to her, in a neat +speech proposing the health of the founder, crowned her goblet (and by +her example the rest of the company) with garlands. This being done, +the lordly _New Year_ from the upper end of the table, in a cordial +but somewhat lofty tone, returned thanks. He felt proud on an occasion +of meeting so many of his worthy father's late tenants, promised to +improve their farms, and at the same time to abate (if any thing was +found unreasonable) in their rents. + +At the mention of this, the four _Quarter Days_ involuntarily looked +at each other, and smiled; _April Fool_ whistled to an old tune of +"New Brooms;" and a surly old rebel at the farther end of the table +(who was discovered to be no other than the _Fifth of November_,) +muttered out, distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, +words to this effect, that, "when the old one is gone, he is a fool +that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, +unanimously voted his expulsion; and the male-content was thrust out +neck and heels into the cellar, as the properest place for such a +_boutefeu_ and firebrand as he had shown himself to be. + +Order being restored--the young lord (who to say truth, had been a +little ruffled, and put beside his oratory) in as few, and yet as +obliging words as possible, assured them of entire welcome; and, with +a graceful turn, singling out poor _Twenty Ninth of February_, that +had sate all this while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple +his health with that of the good company before him--which he drank +accordingly; observing, that he had not seen his honest face any time +these four years, with a number of endearing expressions besides. At +the same time, removing the solitary _Day_ from the forlorn seat which +had been assigned him, he stationed him at his own board, somewhere +between the _Greek Calends_ and _Latter Lammas_. + +_Ash Wednesday_, being now called upon for a song, with his eyes fast +stuck in his head, and as well as the Canary he had swallowed would +give him leave, struck up a Carol, which _Christmas Day_ had taught +him for the nonce; and was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" +in fine style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl of +_Old Mortification_ with infinite humour. _April Fool_ swore they had +exchanged conditions: but _Good Friday_ was observed to look extremely +grave; and _Sunday_ held her fan before her face, that she might not +be seen to smile. + +_Shrove-tide_, _Lord Mayor's Day_, and _April Fool_, next joined in a +glee-- + + Which is the properest day to drink? + +in which all the _Days_ chiming in, made a merry burden. + +They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The question being +proposed, who had the greatest number of followers--the _Quarter Days_ +said, there could be no question as to that; for they had all the +creditors in the world dogging their heels. But _April Fool_ gave it +in favour of the _Forty Days before Easter_; because the debtors in +all cases outnumbered the creditors, and they kept _lent_ all the +year. + +All this while, _Valentine's Day_ kept courting pretty _May_, who sate +next him, slipping amorous _billets-doux_ under the table, till the +_Dog Days_ (who are naturally of a warm constitution) began to be +jealous, and to bark and rage exceedingly. _April Fool_, who likes +a bit of sport above measure, and had some pretensions to the lady +besides, as being but a cousin once removed,--clapped and halloo'd +them on; and as fast as their indignation cooled, those mad wags, the +_Ember Days_, were at it with their bellows, to blow it into a flame; +and all was in a ferment: till old Madam _Septuagesima_ (who boasts +herself the _Mother of the Days_) wisely diverted the conversation +with a tedious tale of the lovers which she could reckon when she was +young; and of one Master _Rogation Day_ in particular, who was for +ever putting the _question_ to her; but she kept him at a distance, as +the chronicle would tell--by which I apprehend she meant the Almanack. +Then she rambled on to the _Days that were gone_, the _good old Days_, +and so to the _Days before the Flood_--which plainly showed her old +head to be little better than crazed and doited. + +Day being ended, the _Days_ called for their cloaks and great coats, +and took their leaves. _Lord Mayor's Day_ went off in a Mist, as +usual; _Shortest Day_ in a deep black Fog, that wrapt the little +gentleman all round like a hedge-hog. Two _Vigils_--so watchmen are +called in heaven--saw _Christmas Day_ safe home--they had been used to +the business before. Another _Vigil_--a stout, sturdy patrole, called +the _Eve of St. Christopher_--seeing _Ash Wednesday_ in a condition +little better than he should be--e'en whipt him over his shoulders, +pick-a-back fashion, and _Old Mortification_ went floating home, +singing-- + + On the bat's back do I fly, + +and a number of old snatches besides, between drunk and sober, but +very few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may believe me) were among them. +_Longest Day_ set off westward in beautiful crimson and gold--the +rest, some in one fashion, some in another; but _Valentine_ and pretty +_May_ took their departure together in one of the prettiest silvery +twilights a Lover's Day could wish to set in. + +[Footnote 1: The late King.] + + + + +THE WEDDING + + +I do not know when I have been better pleased than at being invited +last week to be present at the wedding of a friend's daughter. I like +to make one at these ceremonies, which to us old people give back our +youth in a manner, and restore our gayest season, in the remembrance +of our own success, or the regrets, scarcely less tender, of our own +youthful disappointments, in this point of a settlement. On these +occasions I am sure to be in good-humour for a week or two after, and +enjoy a reflected honey-moon. Being without a family, I am flattered +with these temporary adoptions into a friend's family; I feel a +sort of cousinhood, or uncleship, for the season; I am inducted +into degrees of affinity; and, in the participated socialities of +the little community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary +bachelorship. I carry this humour so far, that I take it unkindly to +be left out, even when a funeral is going on in the house of a dear +friend. But to my subject.-- + +The union itself had been long settled, but its celebration had been +hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable state of suspense in the +lovers, by some invincible prejudices which the bride's father had +unhappily contracted upon the subject of the too early marriages of +females. He has been lecturing any time these five years--for to +that length the courtship has been protracted--upon the propriety of +putting off the solemnity, till the lady should have completed her +five and twentieth year. We all began to be afraid that a suit, which +as yet had abated of none of its ardours, might at last be lingered +on, till passion had time to cool, and love go out in the experiment. +But a little wheedling on the part of his wife, who was by no means +a party to these overstrained notions, joined to some serious +expostulations on that of his friends, who, from the growing +infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise ourselves many +years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious to bring matters to +a conclusion during his life-time, at length prevailed; and on Monday +last the daughter of my old friend, Admiral ---- having attained the +_womanly_ age of nineteen, was conducted to the church by her pleasant +cousin J----, who told some few years older. + +Before the youthful part of my female readers express their +indignation at the abominable loss of time occasioned to the lovers +by the preposterous notions of my old friend, they will do well to +consider the reluctance which a fond parent naturally feels at parting +with his child. To this unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may +be traced the difference of opinion on this point between child and +parent, whatever pretences of interest or prudence may be held out to +cover it. The hard-heartedness of fathers is a fine theme for romance +writers, a sure and moving topic; but is there not something untender, +to say no more of it, in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes +in to tear herself from the parental stock, and commit herself to +strange graftings? The case is heightened where the lady, as in the +present instance, happens to be an only child. I do not understand +these matters experimentally, but I can make a shrewd guess at +the wounded pride of a parent upon these occasions. It is no new +observation, I believe, that a lover in most cases has no rival so +much to be feared as the father. Certainly there is a jealousy in +_unparallel subjects_, which is little less heart-rending than the +passion which we more strictly christen by that name. Mothers' +scruples are more easily got over; for this reason, I suppose, that +the protection transferred to a husband is less a derogation and a +loss to their authority than to the paternal. Mothers, besides, have a +trembling foresight, which paints the inconveniences (impossible to be +conceived in the same degree by the other parent) of a life of forlorn +celibacy, which the refusal of a tolerable match may entail upon +their child. Mothers' instinct is a surer guide here, than the cold +reasonings of a father on such a topic. To this instinct may be +imputed, and by it alone may be excused, the unbeseeming artifices, by +which some wives push on the matrimonial projects of their daughters, +which the husband, however approving, shall entertain with comparative +indifference. A little shamelessness on this head is pardonable. +With this explanation, forwardness becomes a grace, and maternal +importunity receives the name of a virtue.--But the parson stays, +while I preposterously assume his office; I am preaching, while the +bride is on the threshold. + +Nor let any of my female readers suppose that the sage reflections +which have just escaped me have the obliquest tendency of application +to the young lady, who, it will be seen, is about to venture upon a +change in her condition, at a _mature and competent age_, and not +without the fullest approbation of all parties. I only deprecate _very +hasty marriages_. + +It had been fixed that the ceremony should be gone through at an early +hour, to give time for a little _dejeune_ afterwards, to which a +select party of friends had been invited. We were in church a little +before the clock struck eight. + +Nothing could be more judicious or graceful than the dress of the +bride-maids--the three charming Miss Foresters--on this morning. To +give the bride an opportunity of shining singly, they had come habited +all in green. I am ill at describing female apparel; but, while _she_ +stood at the altar in vestments white and candid as her thoughts, a +sacrificial whiteness, _they_ assisted in robes, such as might become +Diana's nymphs--Foresters indeed--as such who had not yet come to the +resolution of putting off cold virginity. These young maids, not being +so blest as to have a mother living, I am told, keep single for their +father's sake, and live altogether so happy with their remaining +parent, that the hearts of their lovers are ever broken with the +prospect (so inauspicious to their hopes) of such uninterrupted +and provoking home-comfort. Gallant girls! each a victim worthy of +Iphigenia! + +I do not know what business I have to be present in solemn places. I +cannot divest me of an unseasonable disposition to levity upon the +most awful occasions. I was never cut out for a public functionary. +Ceremony and I have long shaken hands; but I could not resist the +importunities of the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily +confined him at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and _give +away the bride._ Something ludicrous occurred to me at this most +serious of all moments--a sense of my unfitness to have the disposal, +even in imagination, of the sweet young creature beside me. I fear I +was betrayed to some lightness, for the awful eye of the parson--and +the rector's eye of Saint Mildred's in the Poultry is no trifle of a +rebuke--was upon me in an instant, souring my incipient jest to the +tristful severities of a funeral. + +This was the only misbehaviour which I can plead to upon this solemn +occasion, unless what was objected to me after the ceremony by one of +the handsome Miss T----s, be accounted a solecism. She was pleased to +say that she had never seen a gentleman before me give away a bride in +black. Now black has been my ordinary apparel so long--indeed I take +it to be the proper costume of an author--the stage sanctions it--that +to have appeared in some lighter colour would have raised more mirth +at my expense, than the anomaly had created censure. But I could +perceive that the bride's mother, and some elderly ladies present (God +bless them!) would have been well content, if I had come in any other +colour than that. But I got over the omen by a lucky apologue, which +I remembered out of Pilpay, or some Indian author, of all the birds +being invited to the linnets' wedding, at which, when all the rest +came in their gayest feathers, the raven alone apologised for his +cloak because "he had no other." This tolerably reconciled the elders. +But with the young people all was merriment, and shakings of hands, +and congratulations, and kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings +from her in return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in +these matters, having worn the nuptial bands some four or five weeks +longer than her friend, rescued her, archly observing, with half an +eye upon the bridegroom, that at this rate she would have "none left." + +My friend the admiral was in fine wig and buckle on this occasion--a +striking contrast to his usual neglect of personal appearance. He did +not once shove up his borrowed locks (his custom ever at his morning +studies) to betray the few grey stragglers of his own beneath them. +He wore an aspect of thoughtful satisfaction. I trembled for the +hour, which at length approached, when after a protracted _breakfast_ +of three hours--if stores of cold fowls, tongues, hams, botargoes, +dried fruits, wines, cordials, &c., can deserve so meagre an +appellation--the coach was announced, which was come to carry off the +bride and bridegroom for a season, as custom has sensibly ordained, +into the country; upon which design, wishing them a felicitous +journey, let us return to the assembled guests. + + As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage, + The eyes of men + Are idly bent on him that enters next, + +so idly did we bend our eyes upon one another, when the chief +performers in the morning's pageant had vanished. None told his tale. +None sipt her glass. The poor Admiral made an effort--it was not much. +I had anticipated so far. Even the infinity of full satisfaction, that +had betrayed itself through the prim looks and quiet deportment of his +lady, began to wane into something of misgiving. No one knew whether +to take their leaves or stay. We seemed assembled upon a silly +occasion. In this crisis, betwixt tarrying and departure, I must do +justice to a foolish talent of mine, which had otherwise like to +have brought me into disgrace in the fore-part of the day; I mean a +power, in any emergency, of thinking and giving vent to all manner +of strange nonsense. In this awkward dilemma I found it sovereign. I +rattled off some of my most excellent absurdities. All were willing +to be relieved, at any expense of reason, from the pressure of the +intolerable vacuum which had succeeded to the morning bustle. By this +means I was fortunate in keeping together the better part of the +company to a late hour: and a rubber of whist (the Admiral's favourite +game) with some rare strokes of chance as well as skill, which came +opportunely on his side--lengthened out till midnight--dismissed the +old gentleman at last to his bed with comparatively easy spirits. + +I have been at my old friend's various times since. I do not know a +visiting place where every guest is so perfectly at his ease; nowhere, +where harmony is so strangely the result of confusion. Every body is +at cross purposes, yet the effect is so much better than uniformity. +Contradictory orders; servants pulling one way; master and mistress +driving some other, yet both diverse; visitors huddled up in corners; +chairs unsymmetrised; candles disposed by chance; meals at odd hours, +tea and supper at once, or the latter preceding the former; the host +and the guest conferring, yet each upon a different topic, each +understanding himself, neither trying to understand or hear the +other; draughts and politics, chess and political economy, cards and +conversation on nautical matters, going on at once, without the hope, +or indeed the wish, of distinguishing them, make it altogether the +most perfect _concordia discors_ you shall meet with. Yet somehow the +old house is not quite what it should be. The Admiral still enjoys +his pipe, but he has no Miss Emily to fill it for him. The instrument +stands where it stood, but she is gone, whose delicate touch could +sometimes for a short minute appease the warring elements. He has +learnt, as Marvel expresses it, to "make his destiny his choice." He +bears bravely up, but he does not come out with his flashes of wild +wit so thick as formerly. His sea songs seldomer escape him. His wife, +too, looks as if she wanted some younger body to scold and set to +rights. We all miss a junior presence. It is wonderful how one young +maiden freshens up, and keeps green, the paternal roof. Old and young +seem to have an interest in her, so long as she is not absolutely +disposed of. The youthfulness of the house is flown. Emily is married. + + + + +THE CHILD ANGEL + +A DREAM + + +I chanced upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of a dream the +other night, that you shall hear of. I had been reading the "Loves +of the Angels," and went to bed with my head full of speculations, +suggested by that extraordinary legend. It had given birth to +innumerable conjectures; and, I remember, the last waking thought, +which I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder, "what +could come of it." + +I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make +out--but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens +neither--not the downright Bible heaven--but a kind of fairyland +heaven, about which a poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air +itself, I will hope, without presumption. + +Methought--what wild things dreams are!--I was present--at what would +you imagine?--at an angel's gossiping. + +Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or whether it came +purely of its own head, neither you nor I know--but there lay, sure +enough, wrapped in its little cloudy swaddling bands--a Child Angel. + +Sun-threads--filmy beams--ran through the celestial napery of what +seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hovered round, +watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which, +when it did, first one, and then the other--with a solicitude and +apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dims the expanding +eye-lids of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those +its unhereditary palaces--what an inextinguishable titter that time +spared not celestial visages! Nor wanted there to my seeming--O the +inexplicable simpleness of dreams!--bowls of that cheering nectar, + + --which mortals _caudle_ call below-- + +Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants,--stricken in years, +as it might seem,--so dexterous were those heavenly attendants to +counterfeit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with terrestrial +child-rites the young _present_, which earth had made to heaven. + +Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony as those by +which the spheres are tutored; but, as loudest instruments on earth +speak oftentimes, muffled; so to accommodate their sound the better +to the weak ears of the imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those +subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments +of pinions--but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of +those full-winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as years +went round in heaven--a year in dreams is as a day--continually its +white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but, wanting the perfect +angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell +fluttering--still caught by angel hands--for ever to put forth shoots, +and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the unmixed +vigour of heaven. + +And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to be called +_Ge-Urania_, because its production was of earth and heaven. + +And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption into +immortal palaces: but it was to know weakness, and reliance, and the +shadow of human imbecility; and it went with a lame gait; but in its +goings it exceeded all mortal children in grace and swiftness. Then +pity 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 +and strife to their natures (not grief), put back their bright +intelligences, and reduce their ethereal minds, schooling them to +degrees and slower processes, so to adapt their lessons to the gradual +illumination (as must needs be) of the half-earth-born; and what +intuitive notices they could not repel (by reason that their nature +is, to know all things at once), the half-heavenly novice, by the +better part of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding; +so that Humility and Aspiration went on even-paced in the instruction +of the glorious Amphibium. + +But, by reason that Mature Humanity is too gross to breathe the air of +that super-subtile region, its portion was, and is, to be a child for +ever. + +And because the human part of it might not press into the heart and +inwards of the palace of its adoption, those full-natured angels +tended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace, where were shady +groves and rivulets, like this green earth from which it came: so +Love, with Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertainment of the +new-adopted. + +And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is nothing), and +still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the Tutelar +Genius of Childhood upon earth, and still goes lame and lovely. + +By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the grave of +the terrestrial Adah, whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child; but not the +same which I saw in heaven. A mournful hue overcasts its lineaments; +nevertheless, a correspondency is between the child by the grave, and +that celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of the grief +upon the heavenly, is as a shadow or emblem of that which stains +the beauty of the terrestrial. And this correspondency is not to be +understood but by dreams. + +And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how that once +the angel Nadir, being exiled from his place for mortal passion, +upspringing on the wings of parental love (such power had parental +love for a moment to suspend the else-irrevocable law) appeared for +a brief instant in his station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth, +straightway disappeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And this +charge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely--but Adah +sleepeth by the river Pison. + + + + +A DEATH-BED + +IN A LETTER TO R.H. ESQ. OF B---- + + +I called upon you this morning, and found that you were gone to visit +a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor N.R. has lain +dying now for almost a week; such is the penalty we pay for having +enjoyed through life a strong constitution. Whether he knew me or not, +I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the +group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it, +were assembled his Wife, their two Daughters, and poor deaf Robert, +looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been +sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. R. +Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time it must be +all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He +was my friend, and my father's friend, for all the life that I can +remember. I seem to have made foolish friendships since. Those are the +friendships, which outlast a second generation. Old as I am getting, +in his eyes I was still the child he knew me. To the last he called +me Jemmy. I have none to call me Jemmy now. He was the last link that +bound me to B----. You are but of yesterday. In him I seem to have +lost the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Lettered +he was not; his reading scarcely exceeded the Obituary of the old +Gentleman's Magazine, to which he has never failed of having recourse +for these last fifty years. Yet there was the pride of literature +about him from that slender perusal; and moreover from his office of +archive-keeper to your ancient city, in which he must needs pick up +some equivocal Latin; which, among his less literary friends, assumed +the air of a very pleasant pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look +with which, having tried to puzzle out the text of a Black lettered +Chaucer in your Corporation Library, to which he was a sort of +Librarian, he gave it up with this consolatory reflection--"Jemmy," +said he, "I do not know what you find in these very old books, but I +observe, there is a deal of very indifferent spelling in them." His +jokes (for he had some) are ended; but they were old Perennials, +staple, and always as good as new. He had one Song, that spake of the +"flat bottoms of our foes coming over in darkness," and alluded to a +threatened Invasion, many years since blown over; this he reserved to +be sung on Christmas Night, which we always passed with him, and he +sung it with the freshness of an impending event. How his eyes would +sparkle when he came to the passage: + + We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and Brussels' Gazette! + +What is the Brussels' Gazette now? I cry, while I endite these +trifles. His poor girls who are, I believe, compact of solid goodness, +will have to receive their afflicted mother at an unsuccessful home +in a petty village in ----shire, where for years they have been +struggling to raise a Girls' School with no effect. Poor deaf Robert +(and the less hopeful for being so) is thrown upon a deaf world, +without the comfort to his father on his death-bed of knowing him +provided for. They are left almost provisionless. Some life assurance +there is; but, I fear, not exceeding ----. Their hopes must be from +your Corporation, which their father has served for fifty years. Who +or what are your Leading Members now, I know not. Is there any, to +whom without impertinence, you can represent the true circumstances of +the family? You cannot say good enough of poor R., and his poor wife. +Oblige me and the dead, if you can. + + + + +OLD CHINA + + +I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see +any great house, I inquire for the china-closet, and next for the +picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference, but by +saying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date +to admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I +can call to mind the first play, and the first exhibition, that I was +taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers +were 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 and +women, float about, uncircumscribed by any element, in that world +before perspective--a china tea-cup. + +I like to see my old friends--whom distance cannot diminish--figuring +up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on _terra firma_ +still--for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, +which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up +beneath their sandals. + +I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with +still more womanish expressions. + +Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a +salver--two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! +And here the same lady, or another--for likeness is identity on +tea-cups--is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither +side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a +right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly +land her in the midst of a flowery mead--a furlong off on the other +side of the same strange stream! + +Farther on--if far or near can be predicated of their world--see +horses, 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 (which we +are old fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon) some +of these _speciosa miracula_ upon a set of extraordinary old blue +china (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using; +and could not help remarking, how favourable circumstances had been +to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes +with trifles of this sort--when a passing sentiment seemed to +over-shade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these +summer clouds in Bridget. + +"I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor; but there +was a middle state;"--so she was pleased to ramble on,--"in which I am +sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now +that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a +triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to +get you to consent in those times!) we were used to have a debate two +or three days before, and to weigh the _for_ and _against_, and think +what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that +should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt +the money that we paid for it. + +"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till +all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare--and all +because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we +eyed 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 of +the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you +should be too late--and when the old bookseller with some grumbling +opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting +bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures--and when +you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome--and when you +presented it to me--and when we were exploring the perfectness of it +(_collating_ you called it)--and while I was repairing some of the +loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be +left till day-break--was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can +those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to +keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half +the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn +suit--your old corbeau--for four or five weeks longer than you should +have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen--or +sixteen shillings was it?--a great affair we thought it then--which +you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book +that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any +nice old purchases now. + +"When you come home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number +of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the +'Lady Blanch;' when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the +money--and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture--was +there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but +to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do +you? + +"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's +Bar, 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 used +to deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad--and how you +would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go +in, and produce our store--only paying for the ale that you must call +for--and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was +likely to allow us a table-cloth--and wish for such another honest +hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant +banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing--and sometimes they would +prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon +us--but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat +our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? +Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we +_ride_ part of the way--and go into a fine inn, and order the best of +dinners, never debating the expense--which, after all, never has half +the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of +uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome. + +"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do +you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the battle of +Hexham, and the surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland +in the Children in the Wood--when we squeezed out our shillings +a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling +gallery--where you felt all the time that you ought not to have +brought me--and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having +brought me--and the pleasure was the better for a little shame--and +when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or +what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with +Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to +say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play +socially--that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion +to the infrequency of going--that the company we met there, not being +in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and +did attend, to what was going on, on the stage--because a word lost +would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill +up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then--and I appeal +to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and +accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations +in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those +inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,--but there was still a law of +civility to women recognised to quite as great an extent as we ever +found in the other passages--and how a little difficulty overcome +heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we can only +pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries +now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then--but sight, and +all, I think, is gone with our poverty. + +"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite +common--in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear--to have +them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we +were to treat ourselves now--that is, to have dainties a little above +our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more +that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that +makes what 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 blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of +themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to +make much of others. But now--what I mean by the word--we never do +make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the +veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. + +"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the +end of the year to make all meet--and much ado we used to have every +Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings--many a +long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving +to make it out how we had spent so much--or that we had not spent so +much--or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year--and +still we found our slender capital decreasing--but then, betwixt ways, +and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of +curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future--and the +hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never +poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with +'lusty brimmers' (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--no +flattering promises about the new year doing better for us." + +Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she +gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could +not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear +imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor--hundred +pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but +we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the +excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should +not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew +up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and +knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been +to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now +complain of. The resisting power--those natural dilations of the +youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten--with us are long +since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth; a sorry +supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must +ride, where we formerly walked: live better, and lie softer--and shall +be wise to do so--than we had means to do in those good old days you +speak of. Yet could those days return--could you and I once more walk +our thirty miles a-day--could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, +and you and I be young to see them--could the good old one shilling +gallery days return--they are dreams, my cousin, now--but could +you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our +well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once +more struggling up those inconvenient stair-cases, pushed about, +and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery +scramblers--could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours--and +the delicious _Thank God, we are safe_, which always followed when the +topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful +theatre down beneath us--I know not the fathom line that ever touched +a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than +Croesus had, or the great Jew R---- is supposed to have, to purchase +it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding +an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that +pretty insipid half-Madona-ish chit of a lady in that very blue +summer-house." + + + + +POPULAR FALLACIES + + +I.--THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD + +This axiom contains a principle of compensation, which disposes us to +admit the truth of it. But there is no safe trusting to dictionaries +and definitions. We should more willingly fall in with this popular +language, if we did not find _brutality_ sometimes awkwardly coupled +with _valour_ in the same vocabulary. The comic writers, with their +poetical justice, have contributed not a little to mislead us upon +this point. To see a hectoring fellow exposed and beaten upon the +stage, has something in it wonderfully diverting. Some people's +share of animal spirits is notoriously low and defective. It has not +strength to raise a vapour, or furnish out the wind of a tolerable +bluster. These love to be told that huffing is no part of valour. +The truest courage with them is that which is the least noisy and +obtrusive. But confront one of these silent heroes with the swaggerer +of real life, and his confidence in the theory quickly vanishes. +Pretensions do not uniformly bespeak non-performance. A modest +inoffensive deportment does not necessarily imply valour; neither does +the absence of it justify us in denying that quality. Hickman wanted +modesty--we do not mean _him_ of Clarissa--but who ever doubted his +courage? Even the poets--upon whom this equitable distribution of +qualities should be most binding--have thought it agreeable to nature +to depart from the rule upon occasion. Harapha, in the "Agonistes," is +indeed a bully upon the received notions. Milton has made him at once +a blusterer, a giant, and a dastard. But Almanzor, in Dryden, talks +of driving armies singly before him--and does it. Tom Brown had a +shrewder insight into this kind of character than either of his +predecessors. He divides the palm more equably, and allows his hero +a sort of dimidiate pre-eminence:--"Bully Dawson kicked by half +the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson." This was true +distributive justice. + + +II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS + +The weakest part of mankind have this saying commonest in their mouth. +It is the trite consolation administered to the easy dupe, when he has +been tricked out of his money or estate, that the acquisition of +it will do the owner _no good_. But the rogues of this world--the +prudenter part of them, at least--know better; and, if the observation +had been as true as it is old, would not have failed by this time +to have discovered it. They have pretty sharp distinctions of the +fluctuating and the permanent. "Lightly come, lightly go," is a +proverb, which they can very well afford to leave, when they leave +little else, to the losers. They do not always find manors, got by +rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the poets will have +it; or that all gold glides, like thawing snow, from the thief's hand +that grasps it. Church land, alienated to lay uses, was formerly +denounced to have this slippery quality. But some portions of it +somehow always stuck so fast, that the denunciators have been vain to +postpone the prophecy of refundment to a late posterity. + + +III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST + +The severest exaction surely ever invented upon the self-denial of +poor human nature! This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat +without partaking of it; to sit esurient at his own table, and commend +the flavour of his venison upon the absurd strength of his never +touching it himself. On the contrary, we love to see a wag _taste_ +his own joke to his party; to watch a quirk, or a merry conceit, +flickering upon the lips some seconds before the tongue is delivered +of it. If it be good, fresh, and racy--begotten of the occasion; if he +that utters it never thought it before, he is naturally the first to +be tickled with it; and any suppression of such complacence we hold to +be churlish and insulting. What does it seem to imply, but that your +company is weak or foolish enough to be moved by an image or a fancy, +that shall stir you not at all, or but faintly? This is exactly the +humour of the fine gentleman in Mandeville, who, while he dazzles his +guests with the display of some costly toy, affects himself to "see +nothing considerable in it." + + +IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING.--THAT IT IS EASY TO PERCEIVE +HE IS NO GENTLEMAN + +A speech from the poorer sort of people, which always indicates that +the party vituperated is a gentleman. The very fact which they deny, +is that which galls and exasperates them to use this language. The +forbearance with which it is usually received, is a proof what +interpretation the bystander sets upon it. Of a kin to this, and still +less politic, are the phrases with which, in their street rhetoric, +they ply one another more grossly:--_He is a poor creature._--_He has +not a rag to cover_--_&c._; though this last, we confess, is more +frequently applied by females to females. They do not perceive that +the satire glances upon themselves. A poor man, of all things in +the world, should not upbraid an antagonist with poverty. Are there +no other topics--as, to tell him his father was hanged--his sister, +&c.--, without exposing a secret, which should be kept snug between +them; and doing an affront to the order to which they have the honour +equally to belong? All this while they do not see how the wealthier +man stands by and laughs in his sleeve at both. + + +V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH + +A smooth text to the latter; and, preached from the pulpit, is sure of +a docile audience from the pews lined with satin. It is twice sitting +upon velvet to a foolish squire to be told, that _he_--and not +_perverse nature_, as the homilies would make us imagine, is the true +cause of all the irregularities in his parish. This is striking at the +root of free-will indeed, and denying the originality of sin in any +sense. But men are not such implicit sheep as this comes to. If the +abstinence from evil on the part of the upper classes is to derive +itself from no higher principle, than the apprehension of setting +ill patterns to the lower, we beg leave to discharge them from +all squeamishness on that score: they may even take their fill of +pleasures, where they can find them. The Genius of Poverty, hampered +and straitened as it is, is not so barren of invention but it can +trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing upon their +capital. The poor are not quite such servile imitators as they take +them for. Some of them are very clever artists in their way. Here and +there we find an original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? +They did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties +surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be--no copyists. +In no other sense is it true that the poor copy them, than as servants +may be said to _take after_ their masters and mistresses, when +they succeed to their reversionary cold meats. If the master, from +indisposition or some other cause, neglect his food, the servant dines +notwithstanding. + +"O, but (some will say) the force of example is great." We knew a lady +who was so scrupulous on this head, that she would put up with the +calls of the most impertinent visitor, rather than let her servant say +she was not at home, for fear of teaching her maid to tell an untruth; +and this in the very face of the fact, which she knew well enough, +that the wench was one of the greatest liars upon the earth without +teaching; so much so, that her mistress possibly never heard two words +of consecutive truth from her in her life. But nature must go for +nothing: example must be every thing. This liar in grain, who never +opened her mouth without a lie, must be guarded against a remote +inference, which she (pretty casuist!) might possibly draw from a form +of words--literally false, but essentially deceiving no one--that +under some circumstances a fib might not be so exceedingly sinful--a +fiction, too, not at all in her own way, or one that she could be +suspected of adopting, for few servant-wenches care to be denied to +visitors. + +This word _example_ reminds us of another fine word which is in use +upon these occasions--_encouragement_. "People in our sphere must +not be thought to give encouragement to such proceedings." To such +a frantic height is this principle capable of being carried, that +we have known individuals who have thought it within the scope of +their influence to sanction despair, and give _eclat_ to--suicide. A +domestic in the family of a county member lately deceased, for love, +or some unknown cause, cut his throat, but not successfully. The poor +fellow was otherwise much loved and respected; and great interest was +used in his behalf, upon his recovery, that he might be permitted +to retain his place; his word being first pledged, not without some +substantial sponsors to promise for him, than the like should never +happen again. His master was inclinable to keep him, but his mistress +thought otherwise; and John in the end was dismissed, her ladyship +declaring that she "could not think of encouraging any such doings in +the county." + + +VI.--THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST + +Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who really +believes 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 the +palate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for +a feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually +something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to +a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervalue +_money_. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is +not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which +makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fine +clothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome +excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt to +acres--a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it is +true only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage saws +assuming to inculcate _content_, we verily believe to have been the +invention of some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse of +his wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to carry by force of +these verbal jugglings. Translate any one of these sayings out of the +artful metonyme which envelops it, and the trick is apparent. Goodly +legs and shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures, +the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence, heart's +ease, a man's own time to himself, are not _muck_--however we may be +pleased to scandalise with that appellation the faithful metal that +provides them for us. + + +VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG + +Our experience would lead us to quite an opposite conclusion. Temper, +indeed, is no test of truth; but warmth and earnestness are a proof +at least of a man's own conviction of the rectitude of that which +he maintains. Coolness is as often the result of an unprincipled +indifference to truth or falsehood, as of a sober confidence in a +man's own side in a dispute. Nothing is more insulting sometimes than +the appearance of this philosophic temper. There is little Titubus, +the stammering law-stationer in Lincoln's Inn--we have seldom known +this shrewd little fellow engaged in an argument where we were not +convinced he had the best of it, if his tongue would but fairly have +seconded him. When he has been spluttering excellent broken sense +for an hour together, writhing and labouring to be delivered of the +point of dispute--the very gist of the controversy knocking at his +teeth, which like some obstinate iron-grating still obstructed its +deliverance--his puny frame convulsed, and face reddening all over at +an unfairness in the logic which he wanted articulation to expose, it +has moved our gall to see a smooth portly fellow of an adversary, that +cared not a button for the merits of the question, by merely laying +his hand upon the head of the stationer, and desiring him to be _calm_ +(your tall disputants have always the advantage), with a provoking +sneer carry the argument clean from him in the opinion of all the +bystanders, who have gone away clearly convinced that Titubus must +have been in the wrong, because he was in a passion; and that Mr.----, +meaning his opponent, is one of the fairest, and at the same time one +of the most dispassionate arguers breathing. + + +VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT BEAR A +TRANSLATION + +The same might be said of the wittiest local allusions. A custom is +sometimes as difficult to explain to a foreigner as a pun. What would +become of a great part of the wit of the last age, if it were tried by +this test? How would certain topics, as aldermanity, cuckoldry, have +sounded to a Terentian auditory, though Terence himself had been alive +to translate them? _Senator urbanus_, with _Curruca_ to boot for a +synonime, would but faintly have done the business. Words, involving +notions, are hard enough to render; it is too much to expect us to +translate a sound, and give an elegant version to a jingle. The +Virgilian harmony is not translatable, but by substituting harmonious +sounds in another language for it. To Latinise a pun, we must seek +a pun in Latin, that will answer to it; as, to give an idea of the +double endings in Hudibras, we must have recourse to a similar +practice in the old monkish doggrel. Dennis, the fiercest oppugner of +puns in ancient or modern times, professes himself highly tickled +with the "a stick" chiming to "ecclesiastic." Yet what is this but a +species of pun, a verbal consonance? + + +IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST + +If by worst be only meant the most far-fetched and startling, we agree +to it. A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a +pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect. It +is an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into +the presence, and does not show the less comic for being dragged in +sometimes by the head and shoulders. What though it limp a little, or +prove defective in one leg--all the better. A pun may easily be too +curious and artificial. Who has not at one time or other been at a +party of professors (himself perhaps an old offender in that line), +where, after ringing a round of the most ingenious conceits, every man +contributing his shot, and some there the most expert shooters of the +day; after making a poor _word_ run the gauntlet till it is ready to +drop; after hunting and winding it through all the possible ambages of +similar sounds; after squeezing, and hauling, and tugging at it, till +the very milk of it will not yield a drop further,--suddenly some +obscure, unthought-of fellow in a corner, who was never 'prentice +to the trade, whom the company for very pity passed over, as we +do by a known poor man when a money-subscription is going round, +no one calling upon him for his quota--has all at once come out +with something so whimsical, yet so pertinent; so brazen in its +pretensions, yet so impossible to be denied; so exquisitely good, +and so deplorably bad, at the same time,--that it has proved a Robin +Hood's shot; any thing ulterior to that is despaired of; and the party +breaks up, unanimously voting it to be the very worst (that is, best) +pun of the evening. This species of wit is the better for not being +perfect in all its parts. What it gains in completeness, it loses in +naturalness. The more exactly it satisfies the critical, the less hold +it has upon some other faculties. The puns which are most entertaining +are those which will least bear an analysis. Of this kind is the +following, recorded, with a sort of stigma, in one of Swift's +Miscellanies. + +An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a hare through +the streets, accosts him with this extraordinary question: "Prithee, +friend, is that thy own hare, or a wig?" + +There is no excusing this, and no resisting it. A man might blur ten +sides of paper in attempting a defence of it against a critic who +should be laughter-proof. The quibble in itself is not considerable. +It is only a new turn given, by a little false pronunciation, to a +very common, though not very courteous inquiry. Put by one gentleman +to another at a dinner-party, it would have been vapid; to the +mistress of the house, it would have shown much less wit than +rudeness. We must take in the totality of time, place, and person; +the pert look of the inquiring scholar, the desponding looks of the +puzzled porter; the one stopping at leisure, the other hurrying on +with his burthen; the innocent though rather abrupt tendency of +the first member of the question, with the utter and inextricable +irrelevancy of the second; the place--a public street, not favourable +to frivolous investigations; the affrontive quality of the primitive +inquiry (the common question) invidiously transferred to the +derivative (the new turn given to it) in the implied satire; namely, +that few of that tribe are expected to eat of the good things which +they carry, they being in most countries considered rather as the +temporary trustees than owners of such dainties,--which the fellow was +beginning to understand; but then the _wig_ again comes in, and he can +make nothing of it: all put together constitute a picture: Hogarth +could have made it intelligible on canvass. + +Yet nine out of ten critics will pronounce this a very bad pun, +because of the defectiveness in the concluding member, which is its +very beauty, and constitutes the surprise. The same persons shall +cry up for admirable the cold quibble from Virgil about the broken +Cremona;[1] because it is made out in all its parts, and leaves +nothing to the imagination. We venture to call it cold; because of +thousands who have admired it, it would be difficult to find one who +has heartily chuckled at it. As appealing to the judgment merely +(setting the risible faculty aside,) we must pronounce it a monument +of curious felicity. But as some stories are said to be too good to be +true, it may with equal truth be asserted of this bi-verbal allusion, +that it is too good to be natural. One cannot help suspecting that the +incident was invented to fit the line. It would have been better had +it been less perfect. Like some Virgilian hemistichs, it has suffered +by filling up. The _nimium Vicina_ was enough in conscience; the +_Cremonae_ afterwards loads it. It is in fact a double pun; and we +have always observed that a superfoetation in this sort of wit is +dangerous. When a man has said a good thing, it is seldom politic to +follow it up. We do not care to be cheated a second time; or, perhaps, +the mind of man (with reverence be it spoken) is not capacious enough +to lodge two puns at a time. The impression, to be forcible, must be +simultaneous and undivided. + +[Footnote 1: Swift.] + + +X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES + +Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs. Conrady. + +The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the celestial +beauty. As she partakes more or less of this heavenly light, she +informs, with corresponding characters, the fleshly tenement which she +chooses, and frames to herself a suitable mansion. + +All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in her +pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture. + +To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty, divine Spenser, +_platonizing_, sings:-- + + --"Every spirit as it is more pure, + And hath in it the more of heavenly light, + So it the fairer body doth procure + To habit in, and it more fairly dight + With cheerful grace and amiable sight. + For of the soul the body form doth take: + For soul is form, and doth the body make." + +But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. + +These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy; for here, in +his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause, which throws us all +out again, and leaves us as much to seek as ever:-- + + "Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind + Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd, + Either by chance, against the course of kind, + Or through unaptness in the substance found, + Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, + That will not yield unto her form's direction, + But is perform'd with some foul imperfection." + +From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs. +Conrady. + +The spirit of this good lady--her previous _anima_--must have stumbled +upon one of these untoward tabernacles which he speaks of. A more +rebellious commodity of clay for a ground, as the poet calls it, no +gentle mind--and sure hers is one of the gentlest--ever had to deal +with. + +Pondering upon her inexplicable visage--inexplicable, we mean, but by +this modification of the theory--we have come to a conclusion that, +if one must be plain, it is better to be plain all over, than, amidst +a tolerable residue of features, to hang out one that shall be +exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance, that it +would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to +pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her +own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The _tout ensemble_ +defies particularising. It is too complete--too consistent, as we may +say--to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some +Apelles had picked out here a lip--and there a chin--out of the +collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical +whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or +parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is +improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than +is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too +it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without +pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the +course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight +of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to +have seen it--like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one +ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and +not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her +for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face +somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in +such a parlour it first struck you--like a bust. You wondered where +the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it +began to move its lips--so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking +her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would +be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart, which, once +seen, can never be out of it. It is not a mean face either; its entire +originality precludes that. Neither is it of that order of plain faces +which improve upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people, +by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat upon our +eyes: juggle our senses out of their natural impressions; and set us +upon discovering good indications in a countenance, which at first +sight promised nothing less. We detect gentleness, which had escaped +us, lurking about an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a +service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand, +and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that +individual face. Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good +face if it was not marked by the small pox--a compliment which is +always more admissive than excusatory--for either Mrs. Conrady never +had the small pox; or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon +its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that +which she is known by. + + +XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH + +Nor a lady's age in the parish register. We hope we have more delicacy +than to do either: but some faces spare us the trouble of these +_dental_ inquiries. And what if the beast, which my friend would force +upon my acceptance, prove, upon the face of it, a sorry Rozinante, a +lean, ill-favoured jade, whom no gentleman could think of setting up +in his stables? Must I, rather than not be obliged to my friend, make +her a companion to Eclipse or Lightfoot? A horse-giver, no more than +a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for +good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own +good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my +money. Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real +value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for +nothing. Our friend Mitis carries this humour of never refusing a +present, to the very point of absurdity--if it were possible to couple +the ridiculous with so much mistaken delicacy, and real good-nature. +Not an apartment in his fine house (and he has a true taste in +household decorations), but is stuffed up with some preposterous print +or mirror--the worst adapted to his pannels that may be--the presents +of his friends that know his weakness; while his noble Vandykes are +displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched +artist of his acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his +hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here +gratis. The good creature has not the heart to mortify the painter +at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not +vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour, +surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God knows whom, while +the true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys of his own honourable family, in +favour to these adopted frights, are consigned to the staircase and +the lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one by one +stript of his favourite old authors, to give place to a collection +of presentation copies--the flower and bran of modern poetry. A +presentation copy, reader--if haply you are yet innocent of such +favours--is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the +author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, +if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, +he expects from you a book of yours which does sell, in return. We +can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these +gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death--we are willing to +acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a +friend's library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author) is +intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary--a thing not +fit to be hinted at among gentlemen--which confer as much grace upon +the acceptor as the offerer: the kind, we confess, which is most to +our palate, is of those little conciliatory missives, which for their +vehicle generally choose a hamper--little odd presents of game, fruit, +perhaps wine--though it is essential to the delicacy of the latter +that it be home-made. We love to have our friend in the country +sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though +a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect +reflects to us his "plump corpusculum;" to taste him in grouse or +woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the +latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is +indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately: such +participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it. +For these considerations we should be sorry if certain restrictive +regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the peasantry of this +country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands, +makes many friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his _gout_) with +a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them) +passes them to Lucius; who in his turn, preferring his friend's relish +to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever widening +progress, and round of unconscious circum-migration, they distribute +the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to +this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken +by those little airy tokens--inpalpable to the palate--which, under +the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy +mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They +are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship. + + +XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY + +Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes: the home of the very +poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded +places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of ale-houses, if they +could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the +very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he cannot find +at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough +to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering +children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a +blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead +of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with +a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can +afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the +very poor man has no visiters. He can look into the goings on of the +world, and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics +stirring, but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all +topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a +sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing +consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price +of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no +larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks +his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches +his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, +in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of +the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family. He +takes an interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in +removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing +as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to forget at home. All +this while he deserts his wife and children. But what wife, and what +children? Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to +themselves some clean contented family like that which they go home +to. But look at the countenance of the poor wives who follow and +persecute their good man to the door of the public house, which he +is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if +stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, +ground by want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament +has been long effaced by misery,--is that a face to stay at home with? +is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife +of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What +comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine +thing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be +no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes +out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor +do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that +condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor +people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their +children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the +wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a +premature reflecting person. No one has time to dandle it, no one +thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and +down, to humour it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, +it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said that "a babe is fed +with milk and praise." But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, +unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to +engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a toy, +or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses, +it was a stranger to the patient fondle, the hushing caress, the +attracting novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand +contrivance to divert the child; the prattled nonsense (best sense +to it), the wise impertinences, the wholesome lies, the apt story +interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the +passion of young wonder. It was never sung to--no one ever told to +it a tale of the nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die as +it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke at once into the iron +realities of life. A child exists not for the very poor as any object +of dalliance; it is only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little +hands to be betimes inured to labour. It is the rival, till it can be +the co-operator, for food with the parent. It is never his mirth, his +diversion, his solace; it never makes him young again, with recalling +his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. +It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk +between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort +of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid beings which we have +been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer +holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of +praised sufficiency at school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, +of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, +that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are +marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has come to be +a woman, before it was a child. It has learned to go to market; it +chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, +sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say, that the home +of the very poor is no home? + +There is yet another home, which we are constrained to deny to be one. +It has a larder, which the home of the poor man wants; its fireside +conveniences, of which the poor dream not. But with all this, it is no +home. It is--the house of the man that is infested with many visiters. +May we be branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our heart to the +many noble-hearted friends that at times exchange their dwelling for +our poor roof! It is not of guests that we complain, but of endless, +purposeless visitants; droppers in, as they are called. We sometimes +wonder from what sky they fall. It is the very error of the position +of our lodging; its horoscopy was ill calculated, being just situate +in a medium--a plaguy suburban mid-space--fitted to catch idlers from +town or country. We are older than we were, and age is easily put out +of its way. We have fewer sands in our glass to reckon upon, and we +cannot brook to see them drop in endlessly succeeding impertinences. +At our time of life, to be alone sometimes is as needful as sleep. It +is the refreshing sleep of the day. The growing infirmities of age +manifest themselves in nothing more strongly, than in an inveterate +dislike of interruption. The thing which we are doing, we wish to be +permitted to do. We have neither much knowledge nor devices; but there +are fewer in the place to which we hasten. We are not willingly put +out of our way, even at a game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had +vast reversions in time future; we are reduced to a present pittance, +and obliged to economise in that article. We bleed away our moments +now as hardly as our ducats. We cannot bear to have our thin wardrobe +eaten and fretted into by moths. We are willing to barter our good +time with a friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the +distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter +takes your good time, and gives you his bad in exchange. The guest +is domestic to you as your good cat, or household bird; the visitant +is your fly, that flaps in at your window, and out again, leaving +nothing but a sense of disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior +functions of life begin to move heavily. We cannot concoct our food +with interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be solitary. +With difficulty we can eat before a guest; and never understood +what the relish of public feasting meant. Meats have no sapor, nor +digestion fair play, in a crowd. The unexpected coming in of a +visitant stops the machine. There is a punctual generation who time +their calls to the precise commencement of your dining-hour--not to +eat--but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively, and we +feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel. Others again show their +genius, as we have said, in knocking the moment you have just sat down +to a book. They have a peculiar compassionating sneer, with which they +"hope that they do not interrupt your studies." Though they flutter +off the next moment, to carry their impertinences to the nearest +student that they can call their friend, the tone of the book is +spoiled; we shut the leaves, and, with Dante's lovers, read no +more that day. It were well if the effect of intrusion were simply +co-extensive with its presence; but it mars all the good hours +afterwards. These scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes +not hastily. "It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship," says +worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent people, who are, +it may be, loads to their families, but can never ease my loads." This +is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, and morning calls. They +too have homes, which are--no homes. + + +XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG + +"Good sir, or madam, as it may be--we most willingly embrace the offer +of your friendship. We long have known your excellent qualities. We +have wished to have you nearer to us; to hold you within the very +innermost fold of our heart. We can have no reserve towards a person +of your open and noble nature. The frankness of your humour suits +us exactly. We have been long looking for such a friend. Quick--let +us disburthen our troubles into each other's bosom--let us make our +single joys shine by reduplication--But _yap, yap, yap!_--what is +this confounded cur? he has fastened his tooth, which is none of the +bluntest, just in the fleshy part of my leg." + +"It is my dog, sir. You must love him for my sake. Here, +Test--Test--Test!" + +"But he has bitten me." + +"Ay, that he is apt to do, till you are better acquainted with him. I +have had him three years. He never bites me." + +_Yap, yap, yap!_--"He is at it again." + +"Oh, sir, you must not kick him. He does not like to be kicked. I +expect my dog to be treated with all the respect due to myself." + +"But do you always take him out with you, when you go a +friendship-hunting?" + +"Invariably. 'Tis the sweetest, prettiest, best-conditioned animal. I +call him my _test_--the touchstone by which I try a friend. No one can +properly be said to love me, who does not love him." + +"Excuse us, dear sir--or madam aforesaid--if upon further +consideration we are obliged to decline the otherwise invaluable offer +of your friendship. We do not like dogs." + +"Mighty well, sir--you know the conditions--you may have worse offers. +Come along, Test." + +The above dialogue is not so imaginary, but that, in the intercourse +of life, we have had frequent occasions of breaking off an agreeable +intimacy by reason of these canine appendages. They do not always +come in the shape of dogs; they sometimes wear the more plausible and +human character of kinsfolk, near acquaintances, my friend's friend, +his partner, his wife, or his children. We could never yet form a +friendship--not to speak of more delicate correspondences--however +much to our taste, without the intervention of some third anomaly, +some impertinent clog affixed to the relation--the understood _dog_ +in the proverb. The good things of life are not to be had singly, but +come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy's holiday, with a task +affixed to the tail of it. What a delightful companion is ****, if he +did not always bring his tall cousin with him! He seems to grow with +him; like some of those double births, which we remember to have read +of with such wonder and delight in the old "Athenian Oracle," where +Swift commenced author by writing Pindaric Odes (what a beginning for +him!) upon Sir William Temple. There is the picture of the brother, +with the little brother peeping out at his shoulder; a species of +fraternity, which we have no name of kin close enough to comprehend. +When **** comes, poking in his head and shoulders into your room, +as if to feel his entry, you think, surely you have now got him to +yourself--what a three hours' chat we shall have!--but, ever in the +haunch of him, and before his diffident body is well disclosed in your +apartment, appears the haunting shadow of the cousin, over-peering his +modest kinsman, and sure to over-lay the expected good talk with his +insufferable procerity of stature, and uncorresponding dwarfishness of +observation. Misfortunes seldom come alone. 'Tis hard when a blessing +comes accompanied. Cannot we like Sempronia, without sitting down to +chess with her eternal brother? or know Sulpicia, without knowing all +the round of her card-playing relations? must my friend's brethren +of necessity be mine also? must we be hand and glove with Dick Selby +the parson, or Jack Selby the calico printer, because W.S., who is +neither, but a ripe wit and a critic, has the misfortune to claim a +common parentage with them? Let him lay down his brothers; and 'tis +odds but we will cast him in a pair of ours (we have a superflux) to +balance the concession. Let F.H. lay down his garrulous uncle; and +Honorius dismiss his vapid wife, and superfluous establishment of six +boys--things between boy and manhood--too ripe for play, too raw for +conversation--that come in, impudently staring their father's old +friend out of countenance; and will neither aid, nor let alone, the +conference: that we may once more meet upon equal terms, as we were +wont to do in the disengaged state of bachelorhood. + +It is well if your friend, or mistress, be content with these +canicular probations. Few young ladies but in this sense keep a dog. +But when Rutilia hounds at you her tiger aunt; or Ruspina expects you +to cherish and fondle her viper sister, whom she has preposterously +taken into her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your constancy; +they must not complain if the house be rather thin of suitors. Scylla +must have broken off many excellent matches in her time, if she +insisted upon all, that loved her, loving her dogs also. + +An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of Della Cruscan +memory. In tender youth, he loved and courted a modest appanage to +the Opera, in truth a dancer, who had won him by the artless contrast +between her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native violet, +that had been transplanted by some rude accident into that exotic and +artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was she less genuine and sincere +than she appeared to him. He wooed and won this flower. Only for +appearance' sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she +craved that she might have the attendance of her friends and kindred +at the approaching solemnity. The request was too amiable not to be +conceded; and in this solicitude for conciliating the good will of +mere relations, he found a presage of her superior attentions to +himself, when the golden shaft should have "killed the flock of all +affections else." The morning came; and at the Star and Garter, +Richmond--the place appointed for the breakfasting--accompanied with +one English friend, he impatiently awaited what reinforcements the +bride should bring to grace the ceremony. A rich muster she had made. +They came in six coaches--the whole corps du ballet--French, Italian, +men and women. Monsieur de B., the famous _pirouetter_ of the day, led +his fair spouse, but craggy, from the banks of the Seine. The Prima +Donna had sent her excuse. But the first and second Buffa were there; +and Signor Sc----, and Signora Ch----, and Madame V----, with a +countless cavalcade besides of chorusers, figurantes, at the sight +of whom Merry afterwards declared, that "then for the first time it +struck him seriously, that he was about to marry--a dancer." But there +was no help for it. Besides, it was her day; these were, in fact, her +friends and kinsfolk. The assemblage, though whimsical, was all very +natural. But when the bride--handing out of the last coach a still +more extraordinary figure than the rest--presented to him as her +_father_--the gentleman that was to _give her away_--no less a person +than Signor Delpini himself--with a sort of pride, as much as to +say, See what I have brought to do us honour!--the thought of so +extraordinary a paternity quite overcame him; and slipping away under +some pretence from the bride and her motley adherents, poor Merry +took horse from the back yard to the nearest sea-coast, from which, +shipping himself to America, he shortly after consoled himself with a +more congenial match in the person of Miss Brunton; relieved from his +intended clown father, and a bevy of painted Buffas for bridemaids. + + +XIV.--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 not +naturalists enough to determine. But for a mere human gentleman--that +has no orchestra business to call him from his warm bed to such +preposterous exercises--We take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of +course, during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest hour, +at which he can begin to think of abandoning his pillow. To think of +it, we say; for to do it in earnest, requires another half hour's good +consideration. 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, +as they say, only for getting up. But, having been tempted once or +twice, in earlier life, to assist at those ceremonies, we confess +our curiosity abated. We are no longer ambitious of being the sun's +courtiers, to attend at his morning levees. We hold the good hours of +the dawn too sacred to waste them upon such observances; which have +in them, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To say truth, we never +anticipated 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 we +suffered for it all the long hours after in listlessness and headachs; +Nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption, +in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of +that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny not that there is +something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially, in these +break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start of a lazy +world; to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds of sleep +and mortality are in us; and we pay usually in strange qualms, before +night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion. Therefore, while +the busy part of mankind are fast huddling on their clothes, are +already up and about their occupations, content to have swallowed +their sleep by wholesale; we chose to linger a-bed, and digest our +dreams. It is the very time to recombine the wandering images, which +night 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 them +curiously. We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision: to collect +the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with +firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies; to drag into day-light +a struggling and half-vanishing night-mare; to handle and examine +the terrors, or the airy solaces. We have too much respect for these +spiritual communications, to let them go so lightly. We are not so +stupid, or so careless, as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, that +we should need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem to +us to have as much significance as our waking concerns; or rather to +import us more nearly, as more nearly we approach by years to the +shadowy world, whither we are hastening. We have shaken hands with the +world's business; we have done with it; we have discharged ourself +of it. Why should we get up? we have neither suit to solicit, nor +affairs to manage. The drama has shut in upon us at the fourth act. +We have nothing here to expect, but in a short time a sick bed, and +a dismissal. We delight to anticipate death by such shadows as night +affords. We are already half acquainted with ghosts. We were never +much in the world. Disappointment early struck a dark veil between us +and its dazzling illusions. Our spirits showed grey before our hairs. +The mighty changes of the world already appear as but the vain stuff +out of which dramas are composed. We have asked no more of life than +what the mimic images in play-houses present us with. Even those +types have waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We are +SUPERANNUATED. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction, we contract +politic alliances with shadows. It is good to have friends at court. +The abstracted media of dreams seem no ill introduction to that +spiritual presence, upon which, in no long time, we expect to be +thrown. 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 we +may be the less awkward at our first coming among them. We willingly +call a phantom our fellow, as knowing we shall soon be of their dark +companionship. Therefore, we cherish dreams. We try to spell in them +the alphabet of the invisible world; and think we know already, how it +shall be with us. Those uncouth shapes, which, while we clung to flesh +and blood, affrighted us, have become familiar. We feel attenuated +into their meagre essences, and have given the hand of half-way +approach to incorporeal being. We once thought life to be something; +but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. Therefore we +choose to dally with visions. The sun has no purposes of ours to light +us to. Why should we get up? + + +XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB + +We could never quite understand the philosophy of this arrangement, +or the wisdom of our ancestors in sending us for instruction to +these woolly bedfellows. A sheep, when it is dark, has nothing to do +but to shut his silly eyes, and sleep if he can. Man found out long +sixes.--Hail candle-light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the +kindliest luminary of the three--if we may not rather style thee their +radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon!--We love to read, talk, sit +silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They are every body's sun +and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what +savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in +caves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and +grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, +when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's +cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the +seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or +Ossian), derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights. Jokes +came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to pick up a pin, if they +had any. How did they sup? what a melange of chance carving they must +have made of it!--here one had got a leg of a goat, when he wanted +a horse's shoulder--there another had dipt his scooped palm in a +kid-skin of wild honey, when he meditated right mare's milk. There +is neither good eating nor drinking in fresco. Who, even in these +civilised times, has never experienced this, when at some economic +table he has commenced dining after dusk, and waited for the +flavour till the lights came? The senses absolutely give and take +reciprocally. Can you tell pork from veal in the dark? or distinguish +Sherris from pure Malaga? Take away the candle from the smoking +man; by the glimmering of the left ashes, he knows that he is still +smoking, but he knows it only by an inference; till the restored +light, coming in aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the +full aroma. Then how he redoubles his puffs! how he burnishes!--There +is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have +tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry +arbours; but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam +come about you, hovering and teazing, like so many coquets, that will +have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By +the midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same +light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, +the odour. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential +Phoebus. No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are +abstracted works-- + + "Things that were born, when none but the still night, + And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes." + +Marry, daylight--daylight might furnish the images, the crude +material; but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing (as +mine author hath it), they must be content to hold their inspiration +of the candle. The mild internal light, that reveals them, like fires +on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and silence +call out the starry fancies, Milton's Morning Hymn on Paradise, we +would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's richer +description of a sun-rise smells decidedly of the taper. Even ourself, +in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences +(Prose has her cadences) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsier +watchman, "blessing the doors;" or the wild sweep of winds at +midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted, +courts our endeavours. We would indite something about the Solar +System.--_Betty, bring the candles_. + + +XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE + +We grant that it is, and a very serious one--to a man's friends, and +to all that have to do with him; but whether the condition of the man +himself is so much to be deplored, may admit of a question. We can +speak a little to it, being ourself but lately recovered--we whisper +it in confidence, reader--out of a long and desperate fit of the +sullens. Was the cure a blessing? The conviction which wrought it, +came too clearly to leave a scruple of the fanciful injuries--for +they were mere fancies--which had provoked the humour. But the humour +itself was too self-pleasing, while it lasted--we know how bare we +lay ourself in the confession--to be abandoned all at once with the +grounds of it. We still brood over wrongs which we know to have been +imaginary; and for our old acquaintance, N----, whom we find to +have been a truer friend than we took him for, we substitute some +phantom--a Caius or a Titius--as like him as we dare to form it, to +wreak our yet unsatisfied resentments on. It is mortifying to fall at +once from the pinnacle of neglect; to forego the idea of having been +ill-used and contumaciously treated by an old friend. The first thing +to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as +neglected. There let him fix if he can. To undeceive him is to deprive +him of the most tickling morsel within the range of self-complacency. +No flattery can come near it. Happy is he who suspects his friend of +an injustice; but supremely blest, who thinks all his friends in a +conspiracy to depress and undervalue him. There is a pleasure (we +sing not to the profane) far beyond the reach of all that the world +counts joy--a deep, enduring satisfaction in the depths, where the +superficial seek it not, of discontent. Were we to recite one half of +this mystery, which we were let into by our late dissatisfaction, all +the world would be in love with disrespect; we should wear a slight +for a bracelet, and neglects and contumacies would be the only matter +for courtship. Unlike to that mysterious book in the Apocalypse, the +study of this mystery is unpalatable only in the commencement. The +first sting of a suspicion is grievous; but wait--out of that wound, +which to flesh and blood seemed so difficult, there is balm and honey +to be extracted. Your friend passed you on such or such a day,--having +in his company one that you conceived worse than ambiguously disposed +towards you,--passed you in the street without notice. To be sure he +is something shortsighted; and it was in your power to have accosted +_him_. But facts and sane inferences are trifles to a true adept in +the science of dissatisfaction. He must have seen you; and S----, +who was with him, must have been the cause of the contempt. It galls +you, and well it may. But have patience. Go home, and make the worst +of it, and you are a made man from this time. Shut yourself up, +and--rejecting, as an enemy to your peace, every whispering suggestion +that but insinuates there may be a mistake--reflect seriously upon the +many lesser instances which you had begun to perceive, in proof of +your friend's disaffection towards you. None of them singly was much +to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and you have +this last affront to clench them. Thus far the process is any thing +but agreeable. But now to your relief comes in the comparative +faculty. You conjure up all the kind feelings you have had for your +friend; what you have been to him, and what you would have been to +him, if he would have suffered you; how you defended him in this +or that place; and his good name--his literary reputation, and so +forth, was always dearer to you than your own! Your heart, spite of +itself, yearns towards him. You could weep tears of blood but for a +restraining pride. How say you? do you not yet begin to apprehend a +comfort? some allay of sweetness in the bitter waters? Stop not here, +nor penuriously cheat yourself of your reversions. You are on vantage +ground. Enlarge your speculations, and take in the rest of your +friends, as a spark kindles more sparks. Was there one among them, who +has not to you proved hollow, false, slippery as water? Begin to think +that the relation itself is inconsistent with mortality. That the very +idea of friendship, with its component parts, as honour, fidelity, +steadiness, exists but in your single bosom. Image yourself to +yourself, as the only possible friend in a world incapable of that +communion. Now the gloom thickens. The little star of self-love +twinkles, that is to encourage you through deeper glooms than this. +You are not yet at the half point of your elevation. You are not yet, +believe me, half sulky enough. Adverting to the world in general, (as +these circles in the mind will spread to infinity) reflect with what +strange injustice you have been treated in quarters where, (setting +gratitude and the expectation of friendly returns aside as chimeras,) +you pretended no claim beyond justice, the naked due of all men. Think +the very idea of right and fit fled from the earth, or your breast +the solitary receptacle of it, till you have swelled yourself into at +least one hemisphere; the other being the vast Arabia Stony of your +friends and the world aforesaid. To grow bigger every moment in your +own conceit, and the world to lessen: to deify yourself at the expense +of your species; to judge the world--this is the acme and supreme +point of your mystery--these the true PLEASURES of SULKINESS. We +profess no more of this grand secret than what ourself experimented +on one rainy afternoon in the last week, sulking in our study. We had +proceeded to the penultimate point, at which the true adept seldom +stops, where the consideration of benefit forgot is about to merge +in the meditation of general injustice--when a knock at the door was +followed by the entrance of the very friend, whose not seeing of us in +the morning, (for we will now confess the case our own), an accidental +oversight, had given rise to so much agreeable generalization! +To mortify us still more, and take down the whole flattering +superstructure which pride had piled upon neglect, he had brought in +his hand the identical S----, in whose favour we had suspected him of +the contumacy. Asseverations were needless, where the frank manner of +them both was convictive of the injurious nature of the suspicion. We +fancied that they perceived our embarrassment; but were too proud, or +something else, to confess to the secret of it. We had been but too +lately in the condition of the noble patient in Argos: + + Qui se credebat miros audire tragoedos. + In vacuo laetus sessor plausorque theatro-- + +and could have exclaimed with equal reason against the friendly hands +that cured us-- + + Pol me occidistis, amici, + Non servastis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, + Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error. + + + + +APPENDIX + +LAMB'S ESSAYS ON "THE OLD ACTORS" AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE _LONDON +MAGAZINE_. (SEE NOTE ON PAGE 444.) + + + + +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, Feb., 1822) + + +Of all the actors who flourished in my time--a melancholy phrase +if taken aright, reader--Bensley had most of the swell of soul, +was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions +consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had +the true poetical enthusiasm--the rarest faculty among players. None +that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which +he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports +of the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city.[1] His +voice had the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of +the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed +by affectation; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in +every movement. He seized the moment of passion with the greatest +truth; like a faithful clock never striking before the time; never +anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He was totally destitute +of trick and artifice. He seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's +message simply, and he did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios +in Homer deliver the errands of the gods. He let the passion or the +sentiment do its own work without prop or bolstering. He would have +scorned to mountebank it; and betrayed none of that _cleverness_ which +is the bane of serious acting. For this reason, his Iago was the only +endurable one which I remember to have seen. No spectator from his +action could divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed to +do. His confessions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the +mystery. There were no bye-intimations to make the audience fancy +their own discernment so much greater than that of the Moor--who +commonly stands like a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, +and a quantity of barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The Iago +of Bensley did not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone +about the character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but +none of that petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself +upon any little successful stroke of its knavery--which is common with +your small villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did not +clap or crow before its time. It was not a man setting his wits at a +child, and winking all the while at other children who are mightily +pleased at being let into the secret; but a consummate villain +entrapping a noble nature into toils, against which no discernment was +available, where the manner was as fathomless as the purpose seemed +dark, and without motive. The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, +was performed by Bensley, with a richness and a dignity of which (to +judge from some recent castings of that character) the very tradition +must be worn out from the stage. No manager in those days would have +dreamed of giving it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons: when Bensley +was occasionally absent from the theatre, John Kemble thought it +no derogation to succeed to the part. Malvolio is not essentially +ludicrous. He becomes comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, +repelling; but dignified, consistent, and, for what appears, rather of +an over-stretched morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan; +and he might have worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old +round-head families, in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. +But his morality and his manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is +opposed to the proper _levities_ of the piece, and falls in the +unequal contest. Still his pride, or his gravity, (call it which you +will) is inherent, and native to the man, not mock or affected, which +latter only are the fit objects to excite laughter. His quality is at +the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor contemptible. His bearing +is lofty, a little above his station, but probably not much above +his deserts. We see no reason why he should not have been brave, +honourable, accomplished. His careless committal of the ring to the +ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a +generosity of birth and feeling.[2] His dialect on all occasions is +that of a gentleman, and a man of education. We must not confound him +with the eternal low steward of comedy. He is master of the household +to a great Princess, a dignity probably conferred upon him for other +respects than age or length of service.[3] Olivia, at the first +indication of his supposed madness, declares that she "would not +have him miscarry for half of her dowry." Does this look as if +the character was meant to appear little or insignificant? Once, +indeed, she accuses him to his face--of what?--of being "sick of +self-love,"--but with a gentleness and considerateness which could +not have been, if she had not thought that this particular infirmity +shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the knight, and his sottish +revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when we take into +consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, and the +strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled mourning +would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, Malvolio +might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his keeping, as +it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or kinsmen, to look +to it--for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice respects at the buttery +hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be represented as possessing some +estimable qualities, the expression of the Duke in his anxiety to +have him reconciled, almost infers: "Pursue him, and intreat him to +a peace." Even in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of +greatness seems never to desert him. He argues highly and well with +the supposed Sir Topas,[4] and philosophizes gallantly upon his straw. +There must have been some shadow of worth about the man; he must have +been something more than a mere vapour--a thing of straw, or Jack in +office--before Fabian and Maria could have ventured sending him upon a +courting errand to Olivia. There was some consonancy (as he would say) +in the undertaking, or the jest would have been too bold even for that +house of misrule. There was "example for it," said Malvolio; "the lady +of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe." Possibly too he +might remember--for it must have happened about his time--an instance +of a Duchess of Malfy (a countrywoman of Olivia's, and her equal at +least) descending from her state to court her steward-- + + The misery of them that are born great! + They are forced to woo, because none dare woo them. + +To be sure the lady was not very tenderly handled for it by her +brothers in the sequel, but their vengeance appears to have been +whetted rather by her presumption in re-marrying at all, (when they +had meditated the keeping of her fortune in their family) than by her +choice of an inferior, of Antonio's noble merits especially, for her +husband; and, besides, Olivia's brother was just dead. Malvolio was a +man of reading, and possibly reflected upon these lines, or something +like them in his own country poetry-- + + --Ceremony has made many fools. + It is as easy way unto a duchess + As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: + But that by timorous honours, pale respects, + Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways + Hard of themselves. + +"'Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect +me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, +it should be one of my complexion." If here was no encouragement, the +devil is in it. I wish we could get at the private history of all +this. Between the Countess herself, serious or dissembling--for one +hardly knows how to apprehend this fantastical great lady--and the +practices of that delicious little piece of mischief, Maria-- + + The lime twigs laid + By Machiavel the waiting maid-- + +the man might well be rapt into a fool's paradise. + +Bensley threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness. He looked, +spake, and moved like an old Castilian. He was starch, spruce, +opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed upon a +sense of worth. There was something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was +big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow. You +might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an +elevation. He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent +sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of +self-love in his conceit of the Countess's affection gradually to +work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person +stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable +carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you +were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be +removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection +of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable +infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies--but +in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it +lasted--you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with +the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit +of such a lady's love as Olivia? Why, the Duke would have given his +principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to +have been so deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste +manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion. O! shake +not the castles of his pride--endure yet for a season, bright moments +of confidence--"stand still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio +may be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord--but fate and retribution say +no--I hear the mischievous titter of Maria--the witty taunts of Sir +Toby--the still more insupportable triumph of the foolish knight--the +counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked--and "thus the whirligig of time," +as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I +never saw the catastrophe of this character while Bensley played it +without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now +remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, +who came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few +seasons ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was _it_, +as it came out of nature's hands. It might be said to remain _in +puris naturalibus_. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor +surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing +slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with +a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a +twilight conception--its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back +his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. +The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover +the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with +expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his +eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would +catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to +the remainder. + +I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty +years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn--they were then +far finer than they are now--the accursed Verulam Buildings had not +encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green +crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves +of the terrace--the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if +it remembered its brother--they are still the best gardens of any +of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten--have the +gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and +law-breathing--Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their +gravel walks--taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the +aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom from +his grave air and deportment I judged to be one of the old Benchers +of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be +in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old +Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of +respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, +and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him than any +positive motion of the body to that effect--a species of humility and +will-worship which I observe nine times out of ten rather puzzles +than pleases the person it is offered to--when the face turning full +upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon close +inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful +countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so +often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without +a smile, or recognized but as the usher of mirth; that looked out +so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so +impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or +resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand +agreeable impertinences? Was this the face--full of thought and +carefulness--that had so often divested itself at will of every trace +of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or +three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face--manly, sober, +intelligent,--which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry +with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came +upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I +thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something +strange as well as sad in seeing actors--your pleasant fellows +particularly--subjected to and suffering the common lot--their +fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, +their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly +connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine +actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage +some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of +resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In +these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic +and some real vanities--weaning himself from the frivolities of the +lesser and the greater theatre--doing gentle penance for a life of no +very reprehensible fooleries,--taking off by degrees the buffoon mask +which he might feel he had worn too long--and rehearsing for a more +solemn cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."[5] + +The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly played Sir +Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of wit in the jests of +that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. He was as much too +showy as Moody (who sometimes took the part) was dry and sottish. In +sock or buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack +Palmer. He was a _gentleman_ with a slight infusion of _the footman_. +His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was his shadow in every thing +while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards--was +a _gentleman_ with a little stronger infusion of the _latter +ingredient_; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the more or +less makes a difference in these things. When you saw Bobby in the +Duke's Servant,[6] you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was only +a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought +you could trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied the +handsome fellow in his top-knot, and had bought him a commission. +Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. + +Jack had two voices,--both plausible, hypocritical, and insinuating; +but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively +histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and +the dramatis personae were supposed to know nothing at all about it. +The _lies_ of young Wilding, and the _sentiments_ in Joseph Surface, +were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret +correspondence with the company before the curtain (which is the +bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy effect in some +kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial comedy of Congreve +or of Sheridan especially, where the absolute sense of reality (so +indispensable to scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather +interfere to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe +in such characters as Surface--the villain of artificial comedy--even +while you read or see them. If you did, they would shock and not +divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the +following exquisite dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his +father-- + +_Sir Sampson_. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw +thee. + +_Ben_. Ey, ey, been! Been far enough, an that be all--Well father, and +how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val? + +_Sir Sampson_. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I +writ you word when you were at Leghorn. + +_Ben_. Mess, that's true; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you +say--Well, and how?--I have a many questions to ask you-- + +Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would be +revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed with the +warm-hearted temperament of the character. But when you read it in the +spirit with which such playful selections and specious combinations +rather than strict _metaphrases_ of nature should be taken, or when +you saw Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral +sense at all. For what is Ben--the pleasant sailor which Bannister +gave us--but a piece of a satire--a creation of Congreve's fancy--a +dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character--his +contempt of money--his credulity to women--with that necessary +estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of +credibility to suppose _might_ produce such an hallucination as is +here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it +as a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead +of the delightful phantom--the creature dear to half-belief--which +Bannister exhibited--displays before our eyes a downright concretion +of a Wapping sailor--a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar--and nothing +else--when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of +the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose--he gives to +it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its +actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a +pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by +them alone--we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; +a real man has got in among the dramatis personae, and puts them out. +We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not +behind the curtain, but in the first or second gallery. + +(_To be resumed occasionally_.) + +ELIA. + +[Footnote 1: + How lovelily the Adriatic whore + Dress'd in her flames will shine--devouring flames-- + Such as will burn her to her wat'ry bottom, + And hiss in her foundation. + + _Pierre, in Venice Preserved._] + +[Footnote 2: _Viola_. She took the ring from me; I'll none of it. + +_Mal_. Come, Sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it +should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in +your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.] + +[Footnote 3: Mrs. Inchbald seems to have fallen into the common +mistake of the character in some sensible observations, otherwise, +upon this Comedy. "It might be asked," she says, "whether this +credulous steward was much deceived in imputing a degraded taste, in +the sentiments of love, to his fair lady Olivia, as she actually did +fall in love with a domestic; and one, who from his extreme youth, +was perhaps a greater reproach to her discretion, than had she cast a +tender regard upon her old and faithful servant." But where does she +gather the fact of his age? Neither Maria nor Fabian ever cast that +reproach upon him.] + +[Footnote 4: _Clown._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning +wild fowl? + +_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. + +_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion? + +_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.] + +[Footnote 5: Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice +collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been +a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of +study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him +one evening in Aguecheek, and recognizing Dodd the next day in Fleet +Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him +as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, +_Sir Andrew_." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address +from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put +him off with an "Away, _Fool_."] + +[Footnote 6: High Life Below Stairs.] + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, April, 1822) + + +The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite extinct on our +stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their heads once in seven years only +to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is +it for a few wild speeches, an occasional licence of dialogue? I think +not altogether. The business of their dramatic characters will not +stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to that. Idle gallantry +in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an evening, startles us +in the same way as the alarming indications of profligacy in a son or +ward in real life should startle a parent or guardian. We have no such +middle emotions as dramatic interests left. We see a stage libertine +playing his loose pranks of two hours' duration, and of no after +consequence, with the severe eyes which inspect real vices with their +bearings upon two worlds. We are spectators to a plot or intrigue (not +reducible in life to the point of strict morality) and take it all +for truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him +accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is no appeal +to the _dramatis personae_, his peers. We have been spoiled with--not +sentimental comedy--but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures +which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of +common life; where the moral point is everything; where, instead of +the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of +old comedy) we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, +allies, patrons, enemies,--the same as in life,--with an interest in +what is going on so hearty and substantial, that we cannot afford our +moral judgment, in its deepest and most vital results, to compromise +or slumber for a moment. What is _there_ transacting, by no +modification is made to affect us in any other manner than the same +events or characters would do in our relationships of life. We carry +our fire-side concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, +like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as +to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a +bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was +the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All +that neutral ground of character which stood between vice and virtue; +or which, in fact, was indifferent to neither, where neither properly +was called in question--that happy breathing-place from the burden +of a perpetual moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia +of hunted casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised as injurious to +the interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away +by law. We dare not dally with images or names of wrong. We bark +like foolish dogs at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic +representation of disorder; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety +that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great +blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine. + +I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) +I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the +strict conscience,--not to live always in the precincts of the law +courts,--but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world +with no meddling restrictions--to get into recesses, whither the +hunter cannot follow me-- + + --Secret shades + Of woody Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove-- + +I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy +for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired the +breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not know how it is with +others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of +Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's--comedies. I +am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports +of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to +imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much +as a fairyland. Take one of their characters, male or female (with +few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and +my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as +warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play +I am to judge of right and wrong, and the standard of _police_ is +the measure of _poetical justice_. The atmosphere will blight it. +It cannot thrive here. It is got into a moral world where it has +no business; from which it must needs fall head-long; as dizzy and +incapable of keeping its stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has +wandered unawares within the sphere of one of his good men or angels. +But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad? + +The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants, and Lady Touchwoods, in +their own sphere do not offend my moral sense--or, in fact, appeal +to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break +through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They +have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call it?--of +cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the +manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of +things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is. No good +person can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person +suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in these +plays--the few exceptions only are _mistakes_--is alike essentially +vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is especially shown in +this, that he has entirely excluded from his scenes,--some little +generosities in the part of Angelica perhaps excepted,--not only any +thing like a faultless character, but any pretensions to goodness +or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he did this designedly, or +instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the design (if design) was +bold. I used to wonder at the strange power which his Way of the World +in particular possesses of interesting you all along in the pursuits +of characters, for whom you absolutely care nothing--for you neither +hate nor love his personages--and I think it is owing to this very +indifference for any, that you endure the whole. He has spread a +privation of moral light, I will call it, rather than by the ugly name +of palpable darkness, over his creations; and his shadows flit before +you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced a good +character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment +to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have +only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now are none, +because we think them none. + +Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend +Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,--the business of +their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No +other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct, is recognised; +principles which universally acted upon must reduce this frame of +things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No +such effects are produced in _their_ world. When we are among them, we +are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. +No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for +they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for +no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is +stained,--for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections +are disquieted,--no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder,--for +affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. +There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim +or duty,--paternity or sonship. Of what consequence is it to virtue, +or how is she at all concerned about it, whether Sir Simon, or +Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or who is the father of Lord +Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children? + +The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at +the issues, for life or death, as at a battle of the frogs and mice. +But like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite as +impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out of +which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease +excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for +which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful +necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our very dreams. + +Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon growing old, it +is something to have seen the School for Scandal in its glory. This +comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of +the sentimental comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that +it should be now acted, though it continues, at long intervals, to be +announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was +Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn +plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice--to express it +in a word--the downright _acted_ villany of the part, so different +from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,--the hypocritical +assumption of hypocrisy,--which made Jack so deservedly a favourite +in that character, I must needs conclude the present generation of +playgoers more virtuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess +that he divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in +fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,--like +that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pittance to a +poor relation,--incongruities which Sheridan was forced upon by the +attempt to join the artificial with the sentimental comedy, either +of which must destroy the other--but over these obstructions Jack's +manner floated him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked +you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in reality any +pleasure; you got over the paltry question as quickly as you could, to +get back into the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. +The highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counteracted +every disagreeable impression which you might have received from the +contrast, supposing them real, between the two brothers. You did +not believe in Joseph with the same faith with which you believed +in Charles. The latter was a pleasant reality, the former a no less +pleasant poetical foil to it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous; +a mixture of Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities; the gaity +upon the whole is buoyant; but it required the consummate art of +Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. + +A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not dare to do +the part in the same manner. He would instinctively avoid every +turn which might tend to unrealize, and so to make the character +fascinating. He must take his cue from his spectators, who would +expect a bad man and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other, as +the death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which +I am sorry to see have disappeared from the windows of my old friend +Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Churchyard memory--(an exhibition as +venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad +and good man at the hour of death; where the ghastly apprehensions +of the former,--and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a +toasting fork is not to be despised,--so finely contrast with the +meek complacent kissing of the rod,--taking it in like honey and +butter,--with which the latter submits to the scythe of the gentle +bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet with the apprehensive finger of +a popular young ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would +not covet to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower?--John +Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was playing to +you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter and his lady. You +had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was on his lips. +His altered voice was meant to you, and you were to suppose that his +fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing at all of it. +What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was over-reached +by the puppetry--or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was +persuaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello and +Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor Jack has passed from +the stage--in good time, that he did not live to this our age of +seriousness. The fidgety pleasant old Teazle _King_ too is gone in +good time. His manner would scarce have passed current in our day. +We must love or hate--acquit or condemn--censure or pity--exert our +detestable coxcombry of moral judgment upon every thing. Joseph +Surface, to go down now, must be a downright revolting villain--no +compromise--his first appearance must shock and give horror--his +specious plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our +fathers welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm +(dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to come of them, must +inspire a cold and killing aversion. Charles (the real canting person +of the scene--for the hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate +ends, but his brother's professions of a good heart centre in +down-right self-satisfaction) must be _loved_, and Joseph _hated_. To +balance one disagreeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must +be no longer the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, +whose teazings (while King acted it) were evidently as much played off +at you, as they were meant to concern any body on the stage,--he must +be a real person, capable in law of sustaining an injury--a person +towards whom duties are to be acknowledged--the genuine crim-con +antagonist of the villainous seducer, Joseph. To realize him more, +his sufferings under his unfortunate match must have the downright +pungency of life--must (or should) make you not mirthful but +uncomfortable, just as the same predicament would move you in a +neighbour or old friend. The delicious scenes which give the play its +name and zest, must affect you in the same serious manner as if you +heard the reputation of a dear female friend attacked in your real +presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin--those poor snakes that lived +but in the sunshine of your mirth--must be ripened by this hot-bed +process of realization into asps or amphisbaenas; and Mrs. Candour--O +frightful! become a hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and +Dodd--the wasp and butterfly of the School for Scandal--in those two +characters; and charming natural Miss Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as +distinguished from the fine lady of comedy, in this latter part--would +forego the true scenic delight--the escape from life--the oblivion of +consequences--the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection--those +Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world--to +sit instead at one of our modern plays--to have his coward conscience +(that forsooth must not be left for a moment) stimulated with +perpetual appeals--dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without +repose must be--and his moral vanity pampered with images of notional +justice, notional beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' +risk, and fortunes given away that cost the author nothing? + +No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its parts as +this _manager's comedy_. Miss Farren had succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon +in Lady Teazle; and Smith, the original Charles, had retired, when I +first saw it. The rest of the characters, with very slight exceptions, +remained. I remember it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, +who took the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very +unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a +certain gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollections +of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having pleased +beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of +Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to +success in one of so opposite a tendency. But as far as I could judge, +the weighty sense of Kemble made up for more personal incapacity than +he had to answer for. His harshest tones in this part came steeped +and dulcified in good humour. He made his defects a grace. His exact +declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served to convey the points +of his dialogue with more precision. It seemed to head the shafts to +carry them deeper. Not one of his sparkling sentences was lost. I +remember minutely how he delivered each in succession, and cannot by +any effort imagine how any of them could be altered for the better. No +man could deliver brilliant dialogue--the dialogue of Congreve or of +Wycherley--because none understood it--half so well as John Kemble. +His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, to my recollection, faultless. +He flagged sometimes in the intervals of tragic passion. He would +slumber over the level parts of an heroic character. His Macbeth has +been known to nod. But he always seemed to me to be particularly alive +to pointed and witty dialogue. The relaxing levities of tragedy have +not been touched by any since him--the playful court-bred spirit in +which he condescended to the players in Hamlet--the sportive relief, +which he threw into the darker shades of Richard--disappeared with +him. Tragedy is become a uniform dead weight. They have fastened lead +to her buskins. She never pulls them off for the ease of a moment. +To invert a commonplace from Niobe, she never forgets herself to +liquefaction. John had his sluggish moods, his torpors--but they were +the halting stones and resting places of his tragedy--politic savings, +and fetches of the breath--husbandry of the lungs, where nature +pointed him to be an economist--rather, I think, than errors of +the judgment. They were, at worst, less painful than the eternal +tormenting unappeasable vigilance, the "lidless dragon eyes," of +present fashionable tragedy. The story of his swallowing opium pills +to keep him lively upon the first night of a certain tragedy, we may +presume to be a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the +suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a +complacent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel with) +over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. +John Kemble had made up his mind early, that all the good tragedies, +which could be written, had been written; and he resented any new +attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards were scope enough +for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute--and "fair in Otway, full +in Shakspeare shone." He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, and did +not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any +casual speculator that offered. I remember, too acutely for my peace, +the deadly extinguisher which he put upon my friend G.'s "Antonio." +G., satiate with visions of political justice (possibly not to be +realized in our time), or willing to let the sceptical worldlings see, +that his anticipations of the future did not preclude a warm sympathy +for men as they are and have been--wrote a tragedy. He chose a +story, affecting, romantic, Spanish--the plot simple, without being +naked--the incidents uncommon, without being overstrained. Antonio, +who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive young Castilian, who, +in a fit of his country honour, immolates his sister-- + +But I must not anticipate the catastrophe--the play, reader, is +extant in choice English--and you will employ a spare half crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it. + +The conception was bold, and the denouement--the time and place in +which the hero of it existed, considered--not much out of keeping; yet +it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both +from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the +prejudices of a modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done +his part. + +John, who was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken +to play Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first +play was a new era. The night arrived. I was favoured with a seat in +an advantageous box, between the author and his friend M----. G. sate +cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the +manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio in the person of John Philip +Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could +dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed +most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept +by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as +the opening act of a piece--the protasis--should do. The cue of +the spectators was to be mute. The characters were but in their +introduction. The passions and the incidents would be developed +hereafter. Applause hitherto would be impertinent. Silent attention +was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. acquiesced--but in his honest +friendly face I could discern a working which told how much more +acceptable the plaudit of a single hand (however misplaced) would +have been than all this reasoning. The second act (as in duty bound) +rose a little in interest; but still John kept his forces under--in +policy, as G. would have it--and the audience were most complacently +attentive. The protasis, in fact, was scarcely unfolded. The +interest would warm in the next act, against which a special +incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a friendly +perspiration--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal--"from every pore of +him a perfume falls--." I honour it above Alexander's. He had once or +twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavour to elicit +a sound--they emitted a solitary noise without an echo--there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. +The third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the +piece progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G. as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, +and there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to +make a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning +the tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman (who by the way should +have had his sister) baulks his humour, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the +new philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught--their courage was up, and on the alert--a few blows, _ding +dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might +have done the business--when their most exquisite moral sense was +suddenly called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own +pleasure. They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would +not condemn, for morality's sake. The interest stood stone still; +and John's manner was not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It +was Christmas time, and the atmosphere furnished some pretext for +asthmatic affections. One began to cough--his neighbour sympathised +with him--till a cough became epidemical. But when, from being +half-artificial in the pit, the cough got frightfully naturalised +among the fictitious persons of the drama; and Antonio himself (albeit +it was not set down in the stage directions) seemed more intent +upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of the author and +his friends,--then G. "first knew fear;" and mildly turning to M., +intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. K. laboured under a +cold; and that the performance might possibly have been postponed +with advantage for some nights further--still keeping the same serene +countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. It would be invidious to +pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. In vain did the plot +thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the dialogue wax more +passionate and stirring, and the progress of the sentiment point more +and more clearly to the arduous developement which impended. In vain +the action was accelerated, while the acting stood still. From the +beginning, John had taken his stand; had wound himself up to an even +tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or +person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising +with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level +to the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would +receive it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence +against decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an +irreverent symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of +verbiage stalked on through four and five acts, no one venturing to +predict what would come of it, when towards the winding up of the +latter, Antonio, with an irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira +herself--for she had been coolly arguing the point of honour with +him--suddenly whips out a poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. +The effect was, as if a murder had been committed in cold blood. The +whole house rose up in clamorous indignation demanding justice. The +feeling rose far above hisses. I believe at that instant, if they +could have got him, they would have torn the unfortunate author to +pieces. Not that the act itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion +different from what they themselves would have applauded upon another +occasion in a Brutus, or an Appius--but for want of attending to +Antonio's _words_, which palpably led to the expectation of no less +dire an event, instead of being seduced by his _manner_, which +seemed to promise a sleep of a less alarming nature than it was his +cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found themselves betrayed into an +accompliceship of murder, a perfect misprision of parricide, while +they dreamed of nothing less. M., I believe, was the only person +who suffered acutely from the failure; for G. thenceforward, with +a serenity unattainable but by the true philosophy, abandoning a +precarious popularity, retired into his fast hold of speculation,--the +drama in which the world was to be his tiring room, and remote +posterity his applauding spectators at once, and actors. + +ELIA. + + + + +THE OLD ACTORS + +(_London Magazine_, October, 1822) + + +I do not know a more mortifying thing than to be conscious of a +foregone delight, with a total oblivion of the person and manner +which conveyed it. In dreams I often stretch and strain after the +countenance of Edwin, whom I once saw in Peeping Tom. I cannot catch a +feature of him. He is no more to me than Nokes or Pinkethman. Parsons, +and still more Dodd, were near being lost to me, till I was refreshed +with their portraits (fine treat) the other day at Mr. Mathews's +gallery at Highgate; which, with the exception of the Hogarth +pictures, a few years since exhibited in Pall Mall, was the most +delightful collection I ever gained admission to. There hang the +players, in their single persons, and in grouped scenes, from the +Restoration--Bettertons, Booths, Garricks, justifying the prejudices +which we entertain for them--the Bracegirdles, the Mountforts, and the +Oldfields, fresh as Cibber has described them--the Woffington (a true +Hogarth) upon a couch, dallying and dangerous--the Screen Scene in +Brinsley's famous comedy, with Smith and Mrs. Abingdon, whom I have +not seen, and the rest, whom having seen, I see still there. There is +Henderson, unrivalled in Comus, whom I saw at second hand in the elder +Harley--Harley, the rival of Holman, in Horatio--Holman, with the +bright glittering teeth in Lothario, and the deep paviour's sighs in +Romeo--the jolliest person ("our son is fat") of any Hamlet I have +yet seen, with the most laudable attempts (for a personable man) at +looking melancholy--and Pope, the abdicated monarch of tragedy and +comedy, in Harry the Eighth and Lord Townley. There hang the two +Aickins, brethren in mediocrity--Wroughton, who in Kitely seemed to +have forgotten that in prouder days he had personated Alexander--the +specious form of John Palmer, with the special effrontery of +Bobby--Bensley, with the trumpet-tongue, and little Quick (the retired +Dioclesian of Islington) with his squeak like a Bart'lemew fiddle. +There are fixed, cold as in life, the immovable features of Moody, +who, afraid of o'erstepping nature, sometimes stopped short of +her--and the restless fidgetiness of Lewis, who, with no such fears, +not seldom leaped o' the other side. There hang Farren and Whitfield, +and Burton and Phillimore, names of small account in those times, but +which, remembered now, or casually recalled by the sight of an old +play-bill, with their associated recordations, can "drown an eye +unused to flow." There too hangs (not far removed from them in death) +the graceful plainness of the first Mrs. Pope, with a voice unstrung +by age, but which, in her better days, must have competed with the +silver tones of Barry himself, so enchanting in decay do I remember +it--of all her lady parts exceeding herself in the Lady Quakeress +(there earth touched heaven!) of O'Keefe, when she played it to +the "merry cousin" of Lewis--and Mrs. Mattocks, the sensiblest +of viragos--and Miss Pope, a gentlewoman ever, to the verge of +ungentility, with Churchill's compliment still burnishing upon her gay +Honeycomb lips. There are the two Bannisters, and Sedgwick, and Kelly, +and Dignum (Diggy), and the bygone features of Mrs. Ward, matchless in +Lady Loverule; and the collective majesty of the whole Kemble family, +and (Shakspeare's woman) Dora Jordan; and, by her, _two Antics_, who +in former and in latter days have chiefly beguiled us of our griefs; +whose portraits we shall strive to recall, for the sympathy of those +who may not have had the benefit of viewing the matchless Highgate +Collection. + + +MR. SUETT + +O for a "slip-shod muse," to celebrate in numbers, loose and shambling +as himself, the merits and the person of Mr. Richard Suett, comedian! + +Richard, or rather Dicky Suett--for so in his lifetime he was best +pleased to be called, and time hath ratified the appellation--lieth +buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy Paul, to whose +service his nonage and tender years were set apart and dedicated. +There are who do yet remember him at that period--his pipe clear and +harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he was +"cherub Dicky." + +What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should exchange +the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice +(his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with +hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack +something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable +to an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the skies"--I +could never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of a +twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and become one of +us. + +I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of which cathedral +seats and sounding boards are hewed. But if a glad heart--kind and +therefore glad--be any part of sanctity, then might the robe of +Motley, with which he invested himself with so much humility after +his deprivation, and which he wore so long with so much blameless +satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a +surplice--his white stole, and _albe_. + +The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon the +boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I have been +told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old men's characters. At +the period in which most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator +than he was in any true sense himself imitable. + +He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in to trouble all +things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit troubled for the +matter. He was known, like Puck, by his note--_Ha! Ha! Ha!_--sometimes +deepening to _Ho! Ho! Ho!_ with an irresistible accession, derived +perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to +his prototype, of--_O La!_ Thousands of hearts yet respond to the +chuckling _O La!_ of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by +the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of +nature could no further go." He drolled upon the stock of these two +syllables richer than the cuckoo. + +Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his composition. +Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, he could never +have supported himself upon those two spider's strings, which served +him (in the latter part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt or +a scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him down; +the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his +balance. But on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, +with Robin Good-Fellow, "thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of +a scratched face or a torn doublet. + +Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jesters. They +have all the true Suett stamp, a loose gait, a slippery tongue, this +last the ready midwife to a without-pain-delivered jest; in words +light as air, venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest rhymes +tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, or Sir +Toby at the buttery hatch. + +Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of personal +favourites with the town than any actors before or after. The +difference, I take it, was this:--Jack was more _beloved_ for his +sweet, good-natured, moral, pretensions. Dicky was more _liked_ for +his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. Your whole conscience +stirred with Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the +Wood--how dearly beautiful it was!--but Dicky seemed like a thing, as +Shakspeare says of Love, too young to know what conscience is. He put +us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before him--not as from Jack, as from +an antagonist,--but because it could not touch him, any more than a +cannon-ball a fly. He was delivered from the burthen of that death; +and, when Death came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is +recorded of him by Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that he +received the last stroke, neither varying his accustomed tranquillity, +nor tune, with the simple exclamation, worthy to have been recorded in +his epitaph--_O La!--O La! Bobby!_ + + +MR. MUNDEN + +Not many nights ago we had come home from seeing this extraordinary +performer in Cockletop; and when we retired to our pillow, his +whimsical image still stuck by us, in a manner as to threaten sleep. +In vain we tried to divest ourselves of it by conjuring up the most +opposite associations. We resolved to be serious. We raised up the +gravest topics of life; private misery, public calamity. All would not +do. + + --There the antic sate + Mocking our state-- + +his queer visnomy--his bewildering costume--all the strange things +which he had raked together--his serpentine rod swagging about in his +pocket--Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his relics--O'Keefe's wild +farce, and _his_ wilder commentary--till the passion of laughter, like +grief in excess, relieved itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep +which in the first instance it had driven away. + +But we were not to escape so easily. No sooner did we fall into +slumbers, than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed us in +the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hundred, were dancing +before us, like the faces which, whether you will or no, come when +you have been taking opium--all the strange combinations, which this +strangest of all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance +into, from the day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the +town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for the power +of the pencil to have fixed them when we awoke! A season or two since +there was exhibited a Hogarth gallery. We do not see why there should +not be a Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would not +fall far short of the former. + +There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one face (but what a +one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin +down, and call _his_. When you think he has exhausted his battery of +looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts +out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but +legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be +multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and +he alone, literally _makes faces_: applied to any other person, the +phrase is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human +countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his +friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily. We should +not be surprised to see him some day put out the head of a +river horse; or come forth a pewit, or lapwing, some feathered +metamorphosis. + +We have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry--in Old +Dornton--diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a +crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of +the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. We have seen +some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. +But in what has been truly denominated "the sublime of farce," Munden +stands out as single and unaccompanied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to +tell, had no followers. The school of Munden began, and must end, with +himself. + +Can any man _wonder_, like him? can any man _see ghosts_, like +him? or _fight with his own shadow_--sessa--as he does in that +strangely-neglected thing, the Cobler of Preston--where his +alternations from the Cobler to the Magnifico, and from the Magnifico +to the Cobler, keep the brain of the spectator in as wild a ferment, +as if some Arabian Night were being acted before him, or as if Thalaba +were no tale! Who like him can throw, or ever attempted to throw, a +supernatural interest over the commonest daily-life objects? A table, +or a joint stool, in his conception, rises into a dignity equivalent +to Cassiopeia's chair. It is invested with constellatory importance. +You could not speak of it with more deference, if it were mounted into +the firmament. A beggar in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, +rose the Patriarch of Poverty. So the gusto of Munden antiquates and +ennobles what it touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and +primal as the seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. +A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He +understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid +the commonplace materials of life, like primaeval man, with the sun and +stars about him. + +ELIA. + + + + +NOTES + +ELIA + + +Lamb took the name of Elia, which should, he said, be pronounced +Ellia, from an old clerk, an Italian, at the South-Sea House in Lamb's +time: that is, in 1791-1792. Writing to John Taylor in July, 1821, +just after he had taken over the magazine (see below), Lamb says, +referring to the South-Sea House essay, "having a brother now there, +and doubting how he might relish certain descriptions in it, I clapt +down the name of Elia to it, which passed off pretty well, for Elia +himself added the function of an author to that of a scrivener, like +myself. I went the other day (not having seen him [Elia] for a year) +to laugh over with him at my usurpation of his name, and found him, +alas! no more than a name, for he died of consumption eleven months +ago, and I knew not of it. So the name has fairly devolved to me, I +think; and 'tis all he has left me." + +In the library at Welbeck is a copy of a pamphlet, in French, entitled +_Considerations sur l'etat actuel de la France au mois de Juin 1815, +par un Anglais_, which was presented to the Duke of Portland by the +author, F.A. Elia. This was probably Lamb's Elia. The pamphlet is +reprinted, together with other interesting matter remotely connected +with Lamb, in _Letters from the Originals at Welbeck Abbey_, privately +printed, 1909. + +_Elia. Essays which have appeared under that signature in the London +Magazine_, was published early in 1823. Lamb's original intention was +to furnish the book with a whimsical preface, as we learn from the +following letter to John Taylor, dated December 7, 1822:-- + + "DEAR SIR,--I should like the enclosed Dedication to be printed, + unless you dislike it. I like it. It is in the olden style. But if + you object to it, put forth the book as it is; only pray don't let + the printer mistake the word _curt_ for _curst_. + + "C.L. + + "DEDICATION. + + "TO THE FRIENDLY AND JUDICIOUS READER, + who will take these Papers, as they were meant; not understanding + every thing perversely in its absolute and literal sense, but + giving fair construction, as to an after-dinner conversation; + allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first + thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, + words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass, the Author + wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to + stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all + his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most + hasty words and actions. The other sort (and he hopes many of them + will purchase his book too) he greets with the curt invitation of + Timon, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap:' or he dismisses them with the + confident security of the philosopher,--'you beat but on the case + of Elia.' + + "On better consideration, pray omit that Dedication. The Essays + want no Preface: they are _all Preface_. A Preface is nothing but + a talk with the reader; and they do nothing else. Pray omit it. + + "There will be a sort of Preface in the next Magazine, which may + act as an advertisement, but not proper for the volume. + + "Let ELIA come forth bare as he was born. + + "C.L. + + "N.B.--_No_ Preface." + +The "sort of Preface in the next number" was the character sketch of +the late Elia on page 171. + +_Elia_ did not reach a second edition in Lamb's lifetime--that is to +say, during a period of twelve years--although the editions into which +it has passed between his death and the present day are legion. Why, +considering the popularity of the essays as they appeared in the +_London Magazine_, the book should have found so few purchasers is a +problem difficult of solution. Lamb himself seems to have attributed +some of the cause to Southey's objection, in the _Quarterly Review_, +that _Elia_ "wanted a sounder religious feeling;" but more probably +the book was too dear: it was published at 9s. 6d. + +Ordinary reviewers do not seem to have perceived at all that a rare +humorist, humanist and master of prose had arisen, although among the +finer intellects who had any inclination to search for excellence for +excellence's sake Lamb made his way. William Hazlitt, for example, +drew attention to the rich quality of _Elia_; as also did Leigh Hunt; +and William Hone, who cannot, however, as a critic be mentioned with +these, was tireless in advocating the book. Among strangers to Lamb +who from the first extolled his genius was Miss Mitford. But _Elia_ +did not sell. + +Ten years passed before Lamb collected his essays again, and then +in 1833 was published _The Last Essays of Elia_, with Edward +Moxon's imprint. The mass of minor essays in the _London Magazine_ +and elsewhere, which Lamb disregarded when he compiled his two +collections, will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition. _The +Last Essays of Elia_ had little, if any, better reception than the +first; and Lamb had the mortification of being asked by the Norris +family to suppress the exquisite and kindly little memoir of Randal +Norris, entitled "A Death-Bed" (see page 279), which was held to be +too personal. When, in 1835, after Lamb's death, a new edition of +_Elia_ and _The Last Essays of Elia_ was issued, the "Confessions of +a Drunkard" took its place (see Vol. I.). + +Meanwhile a Philadelphian firm had been beforehand with Lamb, and +had issued in 1828 a second series of _Elia_. The American edition +of _Elia_ had been the same as the English except for a slightly +different arrangement of the essays. But when in 1828 the American +second series was issued, it was found to contain three pieces not +by Lamb at all. A trick of writing superficially like Lamb had been +growing in the _London Magazine_ ever since the beginning; hence the +confusion of the American editor. The three articles not by Lamb, as +he pointed out to N.P. Willis (see _Pencillings by the Way_), are +"Twelfth Night," "The Nuns and Ale of Caverswell," and "Valentine's +Day." Of these Allan Cunningham wrote the second, and B.W. Procter +(Barry Cornwall) the other two. The volume contained only eleven +essays which Lamb himself selected for _The Last Essays of Elia_: it +was eked out with the three spurious pieces above referred to, with +several pieces never collected by Lamb, and with four of the humorous +articles in the _Works_, 1818. Bernard Barton's sonnet "To Elia" stood +as introduction. Altogether it was a very interesting book, as books +lacking authority often are. + +In the notes that follow reference is often made to Lamb's Key. This +is a paper explaining certain initials and blanks in _Elia_, which +Lamb drew up for R.B. Pitman, a fellow clerk at the East India House. +I give it here in full, merely remarking that the first numerals refer +to the pages of the original edition of _Elia_ and those in brackets +to the present volume:-- + + M. . . . Page 13 [7] Maynard, hang'd himself. + + G.D. . . " 21 [11] George Dyer, Poet. + + H. . . . " 32 [16] Hodges. + + W. . . . " 45 [23] + + Dr. T----e . " 46 [24] Dr. Trollope. + + Th. . . " 47 [24] Thornton. + + S. . . " 47 [24] Scott, died in Bedlam. + + M. . . " 47 [24] Maunde, dismiss'd school. + + C.V. le G. . " 48 [25] Chs. Valentine le Grice. + + F. . . . " 49 [25] Favell; left Camb'rg because he was + asham'd of his father, who was a + house-painter there. + + Fr. . . " 50 [26] Franklin, Gramr. Mast., Hertford. + + T. . . " 50 [26] Marmaduke Thompson. + + K. . . " 59 [30] Kenney, Dramatist. Author of + _Raising Wind_, &c. + + S.T.C. . . " 60 [31] Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [Not in + Lamb's autograph.] + + Alice W----n . " 63 [32] Feigned (Winterton). + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + **** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + *** . . " 64 [32] No Meaning. + + Mrs. S. . . " 87 [44] Mrs. Spinkes. + + R. . . . " 98 [50] Ramsay, London Library, Ludg. St.; + now extinct. + + Granville S. . " 98 [50] Granville Sharp. [Not in Lamb's + autograph.] + + E.B. . . " 130 [65] Edward Burney, half-brother of Miss + Burney. + + B. . . . " 141 [71] Braham, now a Xtian. + + *********** . " 170 [85] Distrest Sailors. + + J----ll. . " 195 [97] Jekyll. + + Susan P. . " 198 [99] Susan Peirson. + + R.N. . . " 206 [103] Randal Norris, Subtreasr, Inner Temple. + + C. . . . " 216 [108] Coleridge. + + F. . . . " 222 [111] Field. + + B.F. . . " 238 [118] Baron Field, brother of Frank. + + Lord C. . " 243 [121] Lord Camelford. + + Sally W----r . " 248 [123] Sally Winter. + + J.W. . . " 248 [123] Jas. White, author of _Falstaff's + Letters_. + + St. L. . . " 268 [133] No meaning. + + B., Rector of ---- " 268 [133] No meaning. + +The _London Magazine_, with John Scott (1783-1821) as its editor was +founded in 1820 by Baldwin, Cradock & Joy. Its first number was dated +January, 1820, and Lamb's first contribution was in the number for +August, 1820. Lamb had known Scott as editor of _The Champion_ in +1814, but, according to Talfourd, it was Hazlitt who introduced Lamb +to the _London Magazine_. + +John Scott, who was the author of two interesting books of travel, +_A Visit to Paris in 1814_ and _Paris Re-visited_ in 1815, was an +admirable editor, and all was going exceedingly well until he plunged +into a feud with _Blackwood's Magazine_ in general, and John Gibson +Lockhart in particular, the story of which in full may be read in +Mr. Lang's _Life and Letters of Lockhart_, 1896. In the duel which +resulted Scott was shot above the hip. The wound was at first thought +lightly of, but Scott died on February 27, 1821--an able man much +regretted. + +The magazine did not at first show signs of Scott's loss; it continued +to bear the imprint of its original publishers and its quality +remained very high. With Lamb and Hazlitt writing regularly this +could hardly be otherwise. But four months after the death of Scott +and eighteen months after its establishment the _London Magazine_ +passed into the hands of the publishers Taylor & Hessey, the first +number with their imprint being dated August, 1821. Although for a +while no diminution of merit was perceptible and rather an access +of gaiety--for Taylor brought Hood with him and John Hamilton +Reynolds--yet the high editorial standards of Scott ceased to be +applied. Thenceforward the decline of the magazine was steady. + +John Taylor (1781-1864), senior partner in the firm of Taylor & +Hessey, was known as the identifier of Sir Philip Francis with the +author of "Junius," on which subject he had issued three books. +Although unfitted for the post, he acted as editor of the _London +Magazine_ until it was again sold in 1825. + +With the beginning of 1825 Taylor made a change in the magazine. He +started a new series, and increased the size and the price. But the +experiment did not answer; the spirit had evaporated; and in the +autumn he sold it to Henry Southern (1799-1853), who had founded +the _Retrospective Review_ in 1820. The last number of the _London +Magazine_ to bear Taylor & Hessey's name, and (in my opinion) to +contain anything by Lamb, was August, 1825. We have no definite +information on the matter, but there is every indication in Lamb's +_Letters_ that Taylor was penurious and not clever in his relations +with contributors. Scott Lamb seems to have admired and liked; but +even in Scott's day payment does not seem to have been prompt. Lamb +was paid, according to Barry Cornwall, two or three times the amount +of other writers, who received for prose a pound a page. But Lamb +himself says that the rate for him was twenty guineas a sheet, a sheet +being sixteen pages; and he told Moore that he had received L170 for +two years' Elia. In a letter to Barton in January, 1823, Lamb remarks: +"B---- [Baldwin] who first engaged me as 'Elia' has not paid me up yet +(nor any of us without repeated mortifying appeals)." + +The following references to the _London_ in Lamb's letters to Barton +tell the story of its decadence quite clearly enough. In May, +1823:--"I cannot but think _the London_ drags heavily. I miss Janus +[Wainewright]. And O how it misses Hazlitt--Procter, too, is affronted +(as Janus has been) with their abominable curtailment of his things." + +Again, a little later, in September:--"The 'London' I fear falls +off.--I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat. It will +topple down, if they don't get some Buttresses. They have pulled down +three, W. Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind light-hearted +Wainwright, their Janus." + +In January, 1824, at the beginning of his eight months' silence:--"The +London must do without me for a time, a time, and half a time, for I +have lost all interest about it." + +Again, in December, 1824:--"Taylor & Hessey finding their magazine +goes off very heavily at 2s. 6d., are prudently going to raise their +price another shilling; and having already more authors than they +want, intend to increase the number of them. If they set up against +the New Monthly, they must change their present hands. It is not tying +the dead carcase of a Review to a half-dead Magazine will do their +business." + +In January, 1825 (to Sarah Hutchinson):--"You ask about the editor of +the Lond. I know of none. This first specimen [of a new series] is +flat and pert enough to justify subscribers, who grudge at t'other +shilling." + +Next month Lamb writes, again to Barton:--"Our second Number [of the +new series] is all trash. What are T. & H. about? It is whip syllabub, +'thin sown with aught of profit or delight'. Thin sown! not a germ of +fruit or corn. Why did poor Scott die! There was comfort in writing +with such associates as were his little band of scribblers, some gone +away, some affronted away, and I am left as the solitary widow [in one +of Barton's poems] looking for watercresses." + +Finally, in August, 1825:--"Taylor has dropt the 'London'. It was +indeed a dead weight. It was Job in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle +off my part of the pack, and stand like Christian with light and merry +shoulders." + +In addition to Lamb and Hazlitt the _London Magazine_ had more or +less regular contributions, in its best days, from De Quincey, Allan +Cunningham (Nalla), T.G. Wainewright, afterwards the poisoner, but +in those days an amusing weaver of gay artificial prose, John Clare, +Bernard Barton, H.F. Cary, Richard Ayton, George Darley, Thomas Hood, +John Hamilton Reynolds, Sir John Bowring, John Poole, B.W. Procter; +while among occasional writers for it were Thomas Carlyle, Landor and +Julius Hare. + +The essay, "Stage Illusion," in the number for August, 1825, was, +I believe, the last that Lamb contributed. (In this connection see +Mr. Bertram Dobell's _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903.) Lamb then +passed over to Colburn's _New Monthly Magazine_, where the "Popular +Fallacies" appeared, together with certain other of his later essays. +His last contribution to that magazine was dated September, 1826. In +1827 he was chiefly occupied in selecting Garrick play extracts for +Hone's _Table Book_, at the British Museum, and for a while after that +he seems to have been more interested in writing acrostics and album +verses than prose. In 1831, however, Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_ +offered harbourage for anything Lamb cared to give it, and a brief +revival of Elia (under the name of Peter) resulted. With its death in +October, 1831, Lamb's writing career practically ceased. + + * * * * * + +Page 1. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1820. + +Although the "Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married +People," "Valentine's Day," and "On the Acting of Munden," were all +written before this essay, it is none the less the first of the +essays of Elia. I have remarked, in the notes to a small edition of +_Elia_, that it is probably unique in literature for an author to +find himself, as Lamb did, in his forty-fourth year, by recording +impressions gathered in his seventeenth; but I think now that Lamb +probably visited his brother at the South-Sea House from time to time +in later years, and gathered other impressions then. I am led to this +conclusion partly by the fact that Thomas Tame was not appointed +Deputy-Accountant until four or five years after Lamb had left. + +We do not know exactly what Lamb's duties were at the South-Sea +House or how long he was there: probably only for the twenty-three +weeks--from September, 1791--mentioned in the receipt below, +discovered by Mr. J.A. Rutter in a little exhibition of documents +illustrative of the South Sea Bubble in the Albert Museum at Exeter:-- + + Rec'd 8th feby 1792 of the Honble South Sea Company by the hands + of their Secretary Twelve pounds 1s. 6d. for 23 weeks attendance + in the Examiners Office. + + L12 1 6. CHAS. LAMB. + +This shows that Lamb's salary was half a guinea weekly, paid +half-yearly. His brother John was already in the service of the +Company, where he remained till his death, rising to Accountant. It +has been conjectured that it was through his influence that Charles +was admitted, with the view of picking up book-keeping; but the real +patron and introducer was Joseph Pake, one of the directors, whom we +meet on page 92. Whether Lamb had ideas of remaining, or whether he +merely filled a temporary gap in the Examiners' Office, we cannot +tell. He passed to the East India House in the spring of 1792. + +The South Sea Company was incorporated in 1710. The year of the Bubble +was 1720. The South-Sea House, remodelled, is now a congeries of +offices. + +Page 2, line 11. _Forty years ago_. To be accurate, twenty-eight to +thirty. + +Page 3, line 1. _Accounts ... puzzle me_. Here Elia begins his +"matter-of-lie" career. Lamb was at this time in the Accountants' +Office of the India House, living among figures all day. + +Page 3, line 7 from foot. _Evans_. William Evans. The Directories of +those days printed lists of the chief officials in some of the public +offices, and it is possible to trace the careers of the clerks whom +Lamb names. All are genuine. Evans, whose name is given one year as +Evan Evans, was appointed cashier (or deputy-cashier) in 1792. + +Page 4, line 4. _Ready to imagine himself one_. Lamb was fond of this +conceit. See his little essay "The Last Peach" (Vol. I.), and the +mischievous letter to Bernard Barton, after Fauntleroy's trial, +warning him against peculation. + +Page 4, line 7. _Anderton's_. Either the coffee-shop in Fleet Street, +now Anderton's Hotel, or a city offshoot of it. The portrait, if it +ever was in existence, is no longer known there. + +Page 5, line 17. _John Tipp_. John Lamb succeeded Tipp as Accountant +somewhen about 1806. + +Page 5, line 27. _I know not, etc._ This parenthesis was not in the +_London Magazine_, but the following footnote was appended to the +sentence:-- + + "I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is + a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some + choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which + I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same + time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. + Lamb has the character of a right courteous and communicative + collector." + +Mr. Lamb was, of course, John Lamb, or James Elia (see the essay "My +Relations"), then (in 1820) Accountant of the South-Sea House. He left +the Milton to his brother. It is now in America. + +Page 6, line 5 from foot. _Henry Man_. This was Henry Man (1747-1790), +deputy-secretary of the South-Sea House from 1776, and an author +of light trifles in the papers, and of one or two books. The +_Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose of the late Henry Man_ was +published in 1802, among the subscribers being three of the officials +named in this essay--John Evans, R. Plumer, and Mr. Tipp, and also +Thomas Maynard, who, though assigned to the Stock Exchange, is +probably the "childlike, pastoral M----" of a later paragraph. Small +politics are for the most part kept out of Man's volumes, which are +high-spirited rather than witty, but this punning epigram (of which +Lamb was an admirer) on Lord Spencer and Lord Sandwich may be +quoted:-- + + Two Lords whose names if I should quote, + Some folks might call me sinner: + The one invented _half a coat_, + The other _half a dinner_. + + Such lords as these are useful men, + Heaven sends them to console one; + Because there's now not one in ten, + That can procure a _whole one_. + +Page 7, line 13. _Plumer_. Richard Plumer (spelled Plomer in the +directories), deputy-secretary after Man. Lamb was peculiarly +interested in the Plumers from the fact that his grandmother, Mrs. +Field, had been housekeeper of their mansion at Blakesware, near Ware +(see notes to "Dream-Children" and "Blakesmoor in H----shire"). The +fine old Whig was William Plumer, who had been her employer, and was +now living at Gilston. He died in 1821. + +The following passage from the memoir of Edward Cave (1691-1754), +which Dr. Johnson wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (which Cave +established) in 1754, shows that Lamb was mistaken about Plumer:-- + + He [Cave] was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the + franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and + often stopped franks which were given by members of parliament to + their friends; because he thought such extension of a peculiar + right illegal. This raised many complaints, and having stopped, + among others, a frank given to the old dutchess of _Marlborough_ + by Mr. _Walter Plummer_, he was cited before the house, as for + breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, + of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great + harshness and severity, but declining their questions by pleading + his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And it must be + recorded to his honour, that when he was ejected from his office, + he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but continued + to refuse to his nearest friends any information about the + management of the office. + +I borrow from Canon Ainger an interesting note on Walter Plumer, +written in the eighteen-eighties, showing that Lamb was mistaken on +other matters too:-- + + The present Mr. Plumer, of Allerton, Totness, a grandson of + Richard Plumer of the South-Sea House, by no means acquiesces in + the tradition here recorded as to his grandfather's origin. He + believes that though the links are missing, Richard Plumer was + descended in regular line from the Baronet, Sir Walter Plumer, + who died at the end of the seventeenth century. Lamb's memory + has failed him here in one respect. The "Bachelor Uncle," Walter + Plumer, uncle of William Plumer of Blakesware, was most certainly + not a bachelor (see the pedigree of the family in Cussans' + _Hertfordshire_). + +Page 7, line 10 from foot. M----. According to the Key to the initials +and blanks in some of the essays, which Lamb filled in for a curious +correspondent, M---- stood for one Maynard. "Maynard, hang'd himself" +is Lamb's entry. He was chief clerk in the Old Annuities and Three Per +Cents, 1788-1793. + + * * * * * + +Page 8. OXFORD IN THE VACATION. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1820, where it is dated at the end, +"August 5, 1820. From my rooms facing the Bodleian." My own belief +is that Lamb wrote the essay at Cambridge, under the influence of +Cambridge, where he spent a few weeks in the summers of 1819 and 1820, +and transferred the scene to Oxford by way of mystification. He knew +Oxford, of course, but he had not been there for some years, and it +was at Cambridge that he met Dyer and saw the Milton MSS. + +Concerning a visit to Oxford (in 1810), Hazlitt had written, in his +_Table Talk_ essay "On the Conversation of Authors," in the preceding +(the September) number of the _London Magazine_:-- + + L---- [that is, Lamb] once came down into the country to see us. + He was "like the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." The + country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his + jokes. It would be strange if they had; for he did not make any + while he staid. But when we crossed the country to Oxford, then he + spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well-met; + and in the quadrangles, he "walked gowned." + +The quotation is a reference to Lamb's sonnet, "I was not Trained in +Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in 1819:-- + + Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, + Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap; + My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, + And I walk _gowned_. + +Page 8, line 6 from foot. _Agnize_. Lamb was fond of this word. I +have seen it stated ingeniously that it was of his own coinage--from +_agnus_, a lamb--but the derivation is _ad gnoscere_, to acknowledge, +to recognise, and the word is to be found in other places--in +"Othello," for example (Act I., Scene 3, line 232):-- + + I do agnise + A natural and prompt alacrity. + +Page 9, middle. _Red-letter days_. See note on page 351. The holidays +at the India House, which are given in the London directories of +Lamb's early time there, make a considerable list. But in 1820 the +Accountants' Office, where Lamb was, kept only five days in the year. + +Page 10, line 11. _I can here ... enact the student._ Lamb had +distilled the matter of this paragraph into his sonnet, "I was not +Trained in Academic Bowers," written at Cambridge in August of the +preceding year (see above and Vol. IV.). + +Page 11, line 12 from foot. _Unsettle my faith._ At this point, in the +_London Magazine_, Lamb appended the footnote:-- + + "There is something to me repugnant, at any time, in written hand. + The text never seems determinate. Print settles it. I had thought + of the Lycidas as of a full-grown beauty--as springing up with all + its parts absolute--till, in evil hour, I was shown the original + written copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its + author, in the Library of Trinity, kept like some treasure to be + proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, + after the latter cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How + it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore! interlined, + corrected! as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable + at pleasure! as if they might have been otherwise, and just + as good! as if inspirations were made up of parts, and those + fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the + work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his + picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were + to be alive again, and painting another Galatea." + +In the Appendix to Vol. I., page 428, I have printed a passage from +the original MS. of _Comus_, which there is reason to believe was +contributed to the _London Magazine_ by Lamb. + +Page 11, line 9 from foot. _G.D._ George Dyer (1755-1841), Lamb's +friend for many years. This is the first mention of him in the essays; +but we shall meet him again, particularly in "Amicus Redivivus." +George Dyer was educated at Christ's Hospital long before Lamb's +time there, and, becoming a Grecian, had entered Emmanuel College, +Cambridge. He became at first an usher in Essex, then a private tutor +to the children of Robert Robinson, the Unitarian, whose life he +afterwards excellently wrote, then an usher again, at Northampton, one +of his colleagues being John Clarke, father of Lamb's friend, Charles +Cowden Clarke. In 1792 he settled in Clifford's Inn as a hack; wrote +poems, made indexes, examined libraries for a great bibliographical +work (never published), and contributed "all that was original" to +Valpy's classics in 141 volumes. Under this work his sight gave way; +and he once showed Hazlitt two fingers the use of which he had lost +in copying out MSS. of Procrus and Plotinus in a fine Greek hand. +Fortunately a good woman took him under her wing; they were married in +1825; and Dyer's last days were happy. His best books were his _Life +of Robert Robinson_ and his _History of the University and Colleges +of Cambridge_. Lamb and his friends laughed at him and loved him. In +addition to the stories told by Lamb in his letters and essays, there +are amusing characteristics of Dyer in Crabb Robinson's diary, in +Leigh Hunt, in Hazlitt, in Talfourd, and in other places. All bear +upon his gentleness, his untidiness and his want of humour. One of +the most famous stories tells of Dyer's criticism of Williams, the +terrible Ratcliffe Highway murderer. Dyer, who would never say an ill +word of any one, was asked his opinion of this cold-blooded assassin +of two families. "He must," he replied after due thought, "be rather +an eccentric character." + +Page 12, line 10. _Injustice to him._ In the _London Magazine_ the +following footnote came here, almost certainly by Lamb:-- + + "Violence or injustice certainly none, Mr. Elia. But you will + acknowledge that the charming unsuspectingness of our friend has + sometimes laid him open to attacks, which, though savouring (we + hope) more of waggery than malice--such is our unfeigned respect + for G.D.--might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such was + that silly joke of L[amb], who, at the time the question of the + Scotch Novels was first agitated, gravely assured our friend--who + as gravely went about repeating it in all companies--that Lord + Castlereagh had acknowledged himself to be the author of Waverly! + _Note--not by Elia."_ + +Page 12, line 11. _"Strike an abstract idea."_ I do not find this +quotation--if it be one; but when John Lamb once knocked Hazlitt down, +during an argument on pigments, Hazlitt refrained from striking back, +remarking that he was a metaphysician and dealt not in blows but in +ideas. Lamb may be slyly remembering this. + +Page 12, line 15. C----. Cambridge. Dyer added a work on _Privileges +of the University if Cambridge_ to his _History_. + +Page 12, line 8 from foot. _Our friend M.'s._ Basil Montagu, Q.C. +(1770-1851), legal writer, philanthropist, editor of Bacon, and the +friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge. The Mrs. M. here referred to was +Montagu's third wife, a Mrs. Skepper. It was she who was called by +Edward Irving "the noble lady," and to whom Carlyle addressed some +early letters. A.S. was Anne Skepper, afterwards Mrs. Bryan Waller +Procter, a fascinating lady who lived to a great age and died as +recently as 1888. The Montagus then lived at 25 Bedford Square. + +Page 13, line 17. _Starts like a thing surprised._ Here we have an +interesting example of Lamb's gift of fused quotation. Wordsworth's +line in the "Ode on Intimations of Immortality," + + Tremble like a guilty thing surprised, + +and Shakespeare's phrase in "Hamlet" (Act I., Scene 1, line 148), + + Started like a guilty thing, + +were probably both in his mind as he wrote. + +Page 13, line 24. _Obtruded personal presence._ In the _London +Magazine_ the following passage came here:-- + + "D. commenced life, after a course of hard study in the 'House of + pure Emanuel,' as usher to a knavish fanatic schoolmaster at ***, + at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. + Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the + laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, + that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes + compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at + arrears, Dr. *** would take no immediate notice, but, after + supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would + never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, + and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire + of them--ending with 'Lord, keep thy servants, above all things + from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, + us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish,'--and the + like;--which to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine + full of Christian prudence and simplicity,--but to poor D. was a + receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least. + + "And D. has been under-working for himself ever since;--drudging + at low rates for unappreciating booksellers,--wasting his fine + erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those + unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall + to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell + themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which + do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his + own,--and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient + literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he + could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what + he terms them, _crotchets;_ voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and + Spring; effusions; little tributes, and offerings, left behind + him, upon tables and window-seats, at parting from friends' + houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been + courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his + muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion + in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the + sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own + healthy natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation." + +The foregoing passage called forth a protest from one W.K. +necessitating the following reply from Lamb, which was printed in the +_London Magazine_, under the "Lion's Head," for December, 1820:-- + + "Elia requests the Editor to inform W.K. that in his article on + Oxford, under the initials G.D., it is his ambition to make more + familiar to the public, a character, which, for integrity and + single-heartedness, he has long been accustomed to rank among the + best patterns of his species. That, if he has failed in the end + which he proposed, it was an error of judgment merely. That, if + in pursuance of his purpose, he has drawn forth some personal + peculiarities of his friend into notice, it was only from the + conviction that the public, in living subjects especially, do not + endure pure panegyric. That the anecdotes, which he produced, + were no more than he conceived necessary to awaken attention to + character, and were meant solely to illustrate it. That it is an + entire mistake to suppose, that he undertook the character to + set off his own wit or ingenuity. That, he conceives, a candid + interpreter might find something intended, beyond a heartless + jest. That G.D., however, having thought it necessary to disclaim + the anecdote respecting Dr. ----, it becomes him, who never for + a moment can doubt the veracity of his friend, to account for + it from an imperfect remembrance of some story he heard long + ago, and which, happening to tally with his argument, he set + too hastily to the account of G.D. That, from G.D.'s strong + affirmations and proofs to the contrary, he is bound to believe + it belongs to no part of G.D.'s biography. That the transaction, + supposing it true, must have taken place more than forty years + ago. That, in consequence, it is not likely to 'meet the eye of + many who might be justly offended.' + + "Finally, that what he has said of the Booksellers, referred to a + period of many years, in which he has had the happiness of G.D.'s + acquaintance; and can have nothing to do with any present or + prospective engagements of G.D., with those gentlemen, to the + nature of which he professes himself an entire stranger." + +The result of the protest was that Lamb omitted the passage objected +to when he collected _Elia_ in 1823. It might well be restored now; +but I have preferred to print everything in the body of this edition +as Lamb arranged it for press. + + * * * * * + +Page 14. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1820. + +This essay, which is based upon the "Recollections of Christ's +Hospital" in Vol. I., is a curious blend of Lamb's own experiences at +school with those of Coleridge. Both boys entered at the same time--on +July 17, 1782: Coleridge was then nearly ten, Lamb was seven and a +half. Coleridge was "clothed" on July 18 and went to Hertford for +a while; Lamb was clothed on October 9. Lamb left the school in +November, 1789, Coleridge in September, 1791. + +The school which Lamb knew is now no more. The boys are now all in new +buildings in the midst of green fields near Horsham, many miles from +Lamb's city and its roar. + +Page 14, line 15. _The worthy sub-treasurer._ Randal Norris (see note +to "A Death-Bed"). I have not been able to discover the cause of his +influence. + +Page 14, lines 18, 19. _Crug ... piggins._ Crug is still current +slang. In the school museum one of these piggins is preserved. + +Page 14, line 25. _Three banyan days._ Three vegetarian days. +Coleridge complains (in a letter to Poole) that he was never +sufficiently fed except on Wednesdays. He gives the following table of +food:-- + + Our diet was very scanty. Every morning a bit of dry bread and + some bad small beer. Every evening a larger piece of bread, and + cheese or butter, whichever we liked. For dinner,--on Sunday, + boiled beef and broth; Monday, bread and butter, and milk and + water; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, bread and butter, and + rice milk; Thursday, boiled beef and broth; Friday, boiled mutton + and broth; Saturday, bread and butter, and pease-porridge. Our + food was portioned; and, excepting on Wednesdays, I never had a + bellyfull. Our appetites were damped, never satisfied; and we had + no vegetables. + +Page 14, line 8 from foot. _Caro equina._ Horseflesh. Mr. Pearce's +chapter on food at the school in his excellent _Annals of Christ's +Hospital_ is very interesting, and records great changes. +Rotten-roasted or rare, _i.e._, over-roasted or under-done. + +Page 15, line 3. _The good old relative._ Aunt Hetty, or more +properly, Sarah Lamb. Compare the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral," Vol. IV.:-- + + I have not forgot + How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet + A prating schoolboy: I have not forgot + The busy joy on that important day, + When, childlike, the poor wanderer was content + To leave the bosom of parental love, + His childhood's play-place, and his early home, + For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand, + Hard, uncouth tasks, and schoolboys' scanty fare. + How did thine eyes peruse him round and round + And hardly knew him in his yellow coats, + Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue. + +Page 15, line 13. _I was a poor friendless boy._ Here Lamb speaks as +Coleridge, who came all the way from Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire +(not Calne, in Wiltshire), and had no London friends. In _John +Woodvil_ Lamb borrowed St. Mary Ottery again (see Vol. IV.). Coleridge +has recorded how unhappy he was in his early days at school. + +Page 15, line 12 from foot. _Whole-day-leaves._ In this connection +the following passage from Trollope's _History of Christ's Hospital_, +1834, is interesting:-- + +Those days, on which _leave_ is given to be absent from the Hospital +during the whole day, are called _whole-day leaves_.... A _ticket_ is +a small oval medal attached to the button-hole, without which, except +on leaves, no boy is allowed to pass the gates. Subjoined is a list of +the holidays, which have been hitherto kept at Christ's Hospital; but +it is in contemplation to abridge them materially. Of the policy of +such a measure great doubts may fairly be entertained, inasmuch as the +vacations are so short as to give sufficient respite neither to master +nor scholar; and these occasional breaks, in the arduous duties of the +former more especially, enable him to repair the exhausted energies of +body and mind by necessary relaxation. If those days, which are marked +with an asterisk, fall on a Sunday, they are kept on the Monday +following; and likewise the state holidays. + +HOLIDAYS KEPT AT CHRIST'S HOSPITAL + +Jan. 25. St. Paul's conversion. + *30. King Charles's martyrdom. +Feb. 2. Candlemas Day. + 24. St. Matthias. + Shrove Tuesday. + Ash Wednesday. +March 25. Lady Day. +April 23. St. George. + 25. St. Mark. +May 1. St. Philip and St. James. + *29. Restoration of King + Charles II. + Ascension Day. + Whit Monday. + Whit Tuesday. +June 11. St. Barnabas. + 24. St. John Baptist. + 29. St. Peter. +July 25. St. James. + Thursday after St. + James. (Nurses' Holiday.) +Aug. 24. St. Bartholomew. +Sept. *2. London burnt. + *21. St. Matthew. + 29. St. Michael. +Oct. 18. St. Luke. + *23. King Edward VI. born. + 28. St. Simon and St. Jude. +Nov. 1. All Saints. + *5. Gunpowder Plot. + *9. Lord Mayor's Day. + *17. Queen Elizabeth's birthday. + 30. St. Andrew. +Dec. 21. St. Thomas. + +Also the birthdays of the King and Queen, and the Prince and Princess +of Wales: and the King's accession, proclamation, and coronation. + +In addition to the generous allowance of holidays above given the boys +had every alternate Wednesday for a whole day; eleven days at Easter, +four weeks in the summer, and fifteen days at Christmas. In 1837 the +holiday system was remodelled. Compare Lamb's other remarks on his +whole-day rambles in "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" (Vol. I.) +and in the essays in the present volume entitled "Amicus Redivivus" +and "Newspapers." + +Page 16, line 14. _The Tower_. Blue-coat boys still have this right +of free entrance to the Tower; but the lions are no more. They were +transferred to the Zoological Gardens in 1831. + +Page 16, line 16. _L.'s governor_. Meaning Samuel Salt, M.P.; but it +was actually his friend Mr. Timothy Yeats who signed Lamb's paper. +More accurately, Lamb's father lived under Salt's roof. + +Page 16, line 7 from foot. _H----_. According to Lamb's Key this was +Hodges; but in the British Museum copy of _Elia_, first edition, some +one has written Huggins. It is immaterial. Nevis and St. Kitt's (St. +Christopher's) are islands in the British West Indies. Tobin would +be James Webbe Tobin, of Nevis, who died in 1814, the brother of the +playwright John Tobin, author of "The Honeymoon." + +Page 17, line 2. _A young ass_. The general opinion at Christ's +Hospital is that Lamb invented this incident; and yet it has the air +of being true. + +Page 17, line 18. _L.'s admired Perry_. John Perry, steward from 1761 +to 1785, mentioned in Lamb's earlier essay. + +Page 17, foot. _Gags_. Still current slang. + +Page 17, foot. ----. No name in the Key. The quotation is an +adaptation of:-- + + It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh + Which some did die to look on. + + "Antony and Cleopatra," Act I., Scene 4, lines 67-68. + +It is perhaps worth remarking that in _David Copperfield_ Dickens has +a school incident of a similar character. + +Page 18, line 14 from foot. _Mr. Hathaway_. Matthias Hathaway, steward +from 1790 to 1813. + +Page 19, line 8. _I was a hypochondriac lad_. Here Lamb drops the +Coleridge mask and speaks as himself. + +Page 20, line 15. _Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert_. Bamber +Gascoigne, M.P. (1725-1791), of Bifrons, in Essex. Of Peter Aubert +I can find nothing, except that the assistant secretary of the East +India Company at the time Lamb wrote this essay was Peter Auber, +afterwards full secretary. His name here may be a joke. + +Page 20, line 6 from foot. _Matthew Field_. The Rev. Matthew Feilde, +also vicar of Ugley and curate of Berden. For the Rev. James Boyer see +below. + +Page 21, line 18. _"Peter Wilkins," etc. The Adventures of Peter +Wilkins_, by Robert Paltock, 1751, is still read; but _The Voyages and +Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle_, 1736, has had its day. It was a +blend of unconvincing travel and some rather free narrative: a piece +of sheer hackwork to meet a certain market. See Lamb's sonnet to +Stothard, Vol. IV. _The Fortunate Blue-Coat Boy_ I have not seen. +Canon Ainger describes it as a rather foolish romance, showing how a +Blue-coat boy marries a rich lady of rank. The sub-title is "Memoirs +of the Life and Happy Adventures of Mr. Benjamin Templeman; formerly a +Scholar in Christ's Hospital. By an Orphanotropian," 1770. + +Page 22, footnote. I have not discovered a copy of Matthew Feilde's +play. + +Page 23, line 17 from foot. _Squinting W----_. Not identifiable. + +Page 23, line 7 from foot. _Coleridge, in his literary life_. +Coleridge speaks in the _Biographia Literaria_ of having had the +"inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a +very severe master, the Reverend James Bowyer [Boyer]," and goes on to +attribute to that master's discrimination and thoroughness much of his +own classical knowledge and early interest in poetry and criticism. +Coleridge gives this example of Boyer's impatient humour:-- + + In our own English compositions (at least for the last three years + of our school education), he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, + or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense + might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer + words. _Lute, harp_ and _lyre, Muse, Muses_ and _inspirations, + Pegasus, Parnassus_ and _Hippocrene_, were all an abomination to + him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? + Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, muse? Your nurse's + daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh, aye! the cloister pump, I + suppose!" + +Touching Boyer's cruelty, Coleridge adds that his "severities, even +now, not seldom furnish the dreams by which the blind fancy would fain +interpret to the mind the painful sensations of distempered sleep." + +In _Table Talk_ Coleridge tells another story of Boyer. "The +discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time," he says, "was +ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. 'Boy!' I +remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of +my return after the holidays, 'Boy! the school is your father! Boy! +the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school +is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second +cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more +crying!'" + +Leigh Hunt in his autobiography also has reminiscences of Boyer and +Feilde. + +James Boyer or Bowyer was born in 1736, was admitted to the school in +1744, and passed to Balliol. He resigned his Upper Grammar Mastership +in 1799, and probably retired to the rectory of Gainscolne to which +he had been appointed by the school committee six years earlier. They +also gave him L500 and a staff. + +Page 23, line 6 from foot. _Author of the Country Spectator_. Thomas +Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822), afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who was +at school with Lamb and Coleridge. In the little statuette group which +is called the Coleridge Memorial, subscribed for in 1872, on the +centenary of Coleridge's birth, and held in rotation by the ward in +which most prizes have been gained in the year, Middleton is the +tallest figure. It is reproduced in my large edition. The story which +it celebrates is to the effect that Middleton found Coleridge reading +Virgil in the playground and asked him if he were learning a lesson. +Coleridge replied that he was "reading for pleasure," an answer which +Middleton reported to Boyer, and which led to Boyer taking special +notice of him. The _Country Spectator_ was a magazine conducted by +Middleton in 1792-1793. + +Page 23, line 3 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge again. + +Page 24, line 4. _Lancelot Pepys Stevens_. Rightly spelled Stephens, +afterwards Under Grammar Master at the school. + +Page 24, line 6. _Dr. T----e_. Arthur William Trollope (1768-1827), +who succeeded Boyer as Upper Grammar Master. He resigned in 1826. + +Page 24, line 21. _Th----_. Sir Edward Thornton (1766-1852), +diplomatist, who was sent as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister +Plenipotentiary to Lower Saxony, to Sweden, to Denmark and other +courts, afterwards becoming minister to Portugal. + +Page 24, line 23. _Middleton_. See note above. The treatise was _The +Doctrine of the Greek Article as applied to the Criticism and the +Illustration of the New Testament_, 1808. It was directed chiefly +against Granville Sharpe. Middleton was the first Bishop of Calcutta. + +Page 24, line 8 from foot. _Richards_. This was George Richards +(1767-1837). His poem on "Aboriginal Britons," which won a prize +given in 1791 by Earl Harcourt, is mentioned favourably in Byron's +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Richards became vicar of St. +Martin's-in-the-Fields and a Governor of Christ's Hospital. He founded +a gold medal for Latin hexameters. + +Page 24, foot. _S---- ... M----_. According to the Key "Scott, died in +Bedlam," and "Maunde, dismiss'd school." + +Page 24, foot. "_Finding some of Edward's race._" From Prior's Carmen +Seculare for 1700:-- + + Finding some of Stuart's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Lamb alters Stuart to Edward because Edward VI. founded Christ's +Hospital. + +Page 25, line 12. _C.V. Le G----_. Charles Valentine Le Grice +(1773-1858), whom we meet also in the essay on "Grace Before Meat." +Le Grice, in his description of Lamb as a schoolboy in Talfourd's +_Memorials_, remarked: "I never heard his name mentioned without +the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the +name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there was an implied +kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle manners excited +that kindness." + +Page 25, line 20. _Allen_. Robert Allen, whom we meet again in the +essay on "Newspapers." After a varied and not fortunate career he died +of apoplexy in 1805. + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _The junior Le G----_. Samuel Le Grice +became a soldier and died in the West Indies. Lamb wrote of him to +Coleridge in 1796, after the tragedy at his home, at a time when +friends were badly needed, "Sam Le Grice who was then in town was with +me the first 3 or 4 days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every +hour of his time to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in +constant attendance and humouring my poor father." + +Page 25, line 8 from foot. _F----_. Joseph Favell, afterwards Captain, +who had a commission from the Duke of York--as had Sam Le Grice--and +was killed in the Peninsula, at Salamanca, 1812. Lamb states in the +essay on "Poor Relations," where Favell figures as "W.," that he met +his death at St. Sebastian. Both Sam Le Grice and Favell were to have +accompanied Coleridge and Southey to the Susquehanna as Pantisocrats. + +Page 26, line 1. _Fr----_. Frederick William Franklin, master of the +Hertford branch of the school from 1801 to 1827. He died in 1836. + +Page 26, line 2. _Marmaduke T----_. Marmaduke Thompson, to whom Lamb +dedicated _Rosamund Gray_ in 1798. + +Page 26, line 3. _Catalogue of Grecians_. Lamb was at Christ's +Hospital from 1782 to 1789, and his list is not quite complete. +He himself never was a Grecian; that is to say, one of the picked +scholars on the grammar side of the school, two of whom were sent +up to Cambridge with a hospital exhibition every year, on the +understanding that they should take orders. Lamb was one of the +Deputy-Grecians from whom the Grecians were chosen, but his stammer +standing in his way and a Church career being out of the question, he +never became a full Grecian. Writing to George Dyer, who had been a +Grecian, in 1831, Lamb says: "I don't know how it is, but I keep my +rank in fancy still since school days. I can never forget I was a +deputy Grecian!... Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk, or +India pensioner, to a deputy Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!" + +Lamb's memory is preserved at Christ's Hospital by a medal which is +given for the best English essays. It was first struck in 1875, the +centenary of his birth. + + * * * * * + +Page 26. THE TWO RACES OF MEN. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1820. + +Writing to Wordsworth in April of 1816, Lamb says:--"I have not bound +the poems yet. I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think +I shall get a chain and chain them to my shelves, _more Bodleiano_, +and people may come and read them at chain's length. For of those who +borrow, some read slow; some mean to read but don't read; and some +neither read nor meant to read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of +their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends the justice to +say that there is nothing of this caprice or wantonness of alienation +in them. When they borrow my money they never fail to make use of it." + +Probably the germ of the essay is to be found in this passage, as Lamb +never forgot his thoughts. + +Page 26, line 17 of essay. _Brinsley_. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the +dramatist and a great spendthrift. He died in 1816. Lamb knew him +slightly. + +Page 26, line 9 from foot. _Beyond Tooke_. That is, beyond the +philological theories of _The Diversions of Purley_ by John Home Tooke +(1736-1812). + +Page 27, line 22. _Ralph Bigod_. John Fenwick, an unlucky friend of +the Lambs, an anticipatory Micawber, of whom we know too little, +and seem likely to find out little more. Lamb mentions him again in +the essay on "Chimney Sweepers," and in that on "Newspapers," in +his capacity as editor of _The Albion_, for which Lamb wrote its +extinguishing epigram in the summer of 1801. There are references to +the Fenwicks in Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart and in Lamb's +letters; but nothing very informing. After financial embarrassments in +England they emigrated to America. + +Page 29, line 12. _Comberbatch_. Coleridge, who had enlisted as a +young man in the 15th Light Dragoons as Silas Titus Comberback. + +Page 29, line 16. _Bloomsbury_. Lamb was then in rooms at 20 Great +Russell Street (now Russell Street), Covent Garden, which is not in +Bloomsbury. + +Page 29, line 27. _Should he go on acting_. The _Letters_ contain +references to this habit of Coleridge's. Writing to him in 1809 Lamb +says, referring among other loans to the volume of Dodsley with +Vittoria Corombona ("The White Devil," by John Webster) in it:--"While +I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch'd away my books which you had at the +_Courier_ Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, +containing the 'White Devil, 'Green's 'Tu Quoque,' and the 'Honest +Whore,' perhaps the most valuable volume of them all--_that_ I could +not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where +you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word, for, to use +the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had +three), the _Arcadia_ and _Daniel_, enriched with manuscript notes. I +wish every book I have were so noted. They have thoroughly converted +me to relish _Daniel_, or to say I relish him, for after all, I +believe I did relish him." + +And several years later (probably in 1820) we find him addressing +Coleridge with reference to Luther's _Table Talk:_--"Why will you make +your visits, which should give pleasure, matter of regret to your +friends? You never come but you take away some folio, that is part of +my existence. With a great deal of difficulty I was made to comprehend +the extent of my loss. My maid, Becky, brought me a dirty bit of +paper, which contained her description of some book which Mr. +Coleridge had taken away. It was _Luster's Tables_, which, for some +time, I could not make out. 'What! has he carried away any of the +_tables_, Becky?' 'No, it wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he +called _Luster's Tables_.' I was obliged to search personally among my +shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the true nature +of the damage I had sustained." + +Allsop tells us that Lamb once said of Coleridge: "He sets his mark +upon whatever he reads; it is henceforth sacred. His spirit seems to +have breathed upon it; and, if not for its author, yet for his sake, +we admire it." + +Page 30, line 1. _John Buncle_. Most of Lamb's books are in America; +Lamb's copy of _John Buncle_, with an introductory note written in by +Coleridge, was sold, with other books from his library, in New York +in 1848. _The Life of John Buncle, Esq_., a book highly praised by +Hazlitt, was by Thomas Amory (1691?-1788), published, Part I. in 1756 +and Part II. in 1766. A condensed reprint was issued in 1823 entitled +_The Spirit of Buncle_, in which, Mr. W.C. Hazlitt suggests, Lamb may +have had a hand with William Hazlitt. + +Page 30, line 19. _Spiteful K._ James Kenney (1780-1849), the +dramatist, then resident at Versailles, where Lamb and his sister +visited him in 1822. He married Louisa Mercier, daughter of Louis +Sebastian Mercier, the French critic, and widow of Lamb's earlier +friend, Thomas Holcroft. One of their two sons was named Charles Lamb +Kenney (1821-1881). Lamb recovered Margaret of Newcastle's _Letters_ +(folio, 1664), which is among the books in America, as is also the +Fulke Greville (small folio, 1633). + +Page 31, line 4. _S.T.C.... annotations_. Lamb's copy of Daniel's +_Poetical Works_, two volumes, 1718, and of Browne's _Enquiries +into Vulgar and Common Errors_, folio, 1658, both with marginalia +by himself and Coleridge, are in existence, but I cannot say where: +probably in America. Lamb's copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, with +Coleridge's notes (see "Old China"), is, however, safe in the British +Museum. His Fulke Greville, as I have said, is in America, but I +fancy it has nothing of Coleridge in it, nor has his Burton--quarto, +1621--which still exists. + +Coleridge's notes in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio are not numerous, +but usually ample and seriously critical. At the foot of a page of the +"Siege of Corinth," on which he had written two notes (one, "O flat! +flat! flat! Sole! Flounder! Place! all stinking! stinkingly flat!"), +he added:-- + + _N.B._--I shall not be long here, Charles!--I gone, you will not + mind my having spoiled a book in order to leave a Relic. + + S.T.C. + + Octr. 1811. + +Underneath the initials S.T.C. are the initials W.W. which suggest +that Wordsworth was present. + +The Museum also has Lamb's Milton, with annotations by himself and +Coleridge. + +In the _Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Charles Lamb_, +privately issued by the New York Dibdin Club in 1897, is a list +of five of Lamb's books now in America containing valuable and +unpublished marginalia by Coleridge: _The Life of John Buncle_, +Donne's _Poems_ ("I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you +will not be vexed that I have scribbled your book. S.T.C., 2d May, +1811"), Reynolds' _God's Revenge against ... Murder_, 1651 ("O what +a beautiful _concordia discordantium_ is an unthinking good man's +soul!"), _The History of Philip de Commines_ in English, and Petwin's +_Letters Concerning the Mind_. + + * * * * * + +Page 31. NEW YEAR'S EVE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1821. + +The melancholy pessimism of this essay led to some remonstrance from +robuster readers of the _London Magazine_. In addition to the letter +from "A Father" referred to below, the essay produced, seven months +later, in the August number of the _London Magazine_, a long poetical +"Epistle to Elia," signed "Olen," in which very simply and touchingly +Lamb was reminded that the grave is not the end, was asked to consider +the promises of the Christian faith, and finally was offered a glimpse +of some of the friends he would meet in heaven--among them Ulysses, +Shakespeare and Alice W----n. Taylor, the publisher and editor of the +magazine, sent Lamb a copy. He replied, acknowledging the kindness of +the author, and adding:--"Poor Elia ... does not pretend to so very +clear revelations of a future state of being as 'Olen' seems gifted +with. He stumbles about dark mountains at best; but he knows at least +how to be thankful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for +certain relationships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible +resumption of the gift. He is too apt to express himself lightly, and +cannot be sorry for the present occasion, as it has called forth a +reproof so Christian-like." + +Lamb thought the poet to be James Montgomery, but it was in reality +Charles Abraham Elton. The poem was reprinted in a volume entitled +_Boyhood and other Poems_, in 1835. + +It is conceivable that Lamb was reasoned with privately upon the +sentiments expressed in this essay; and perhaps we may take the +following sonnet which he contributed over his own name to, the +_London Magazine_ for April, 1821, as a kind of defiant postscript +thereto, a further challenge to those who reproached him for his +remarks concerning death, and who suggested that he did not really +mean them:-- + + They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, + That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, + Which only works and business can redress: + Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, + Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. + But might I, fed with silent meditation, + Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-- + _Improbus labor_, which my spirits hath broke-- + I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit-- + Fling in more days than went to make the gem + That crowned the white top of Methusalem-- + Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, + Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, + The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity. + +It was also probably the present essay which led to Lamb's difference +with Southey and the famous letter of remonstrance. Southey accused +_Elia_ of wanting "a sounder religious feeling," and Lamb suggests in +his reply that "New Year's Eve" was the chief offender. See Vol. I. +for Lamb's amplification of one of its passages. + +It may be interesting here to quote Coleridge's description of Lamb +as "one hovering between heaven and earth, neither hoping much nor +fearing anything." + +Page 31, line 10 from foot. _Bells_. The music of bells seems always +to have exerted fascination over Lamb. See the reference in the story +of the "First Going to Church," in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, Vol. +III.; in his poem "Sabbath Bells," Vol. IV.; and his "John Woodvil," +Vol. IV. + +Page 31, foot. "_I saw the skirts of the departing Year_." From +Coleridge's "Ode to the Departing Year," as printed in 1796 and +1797. Lamb was greatly taken by this line. He wrote to Coleridge on +January 2, 1797, in a letter of which only a small portion has been +printed:--"The opening [of the Ode] is in the spirit of the sublimest +allegory. The idea of the 'skirts of the departing year, seen far +onwards, waving in the wind,' is one of those noble Hints at which +the Reader's imagination is apt to kindle into grand conceptions." +Afterwards Coleridge altered "skirts" to "train." + +Page 32, line 21. _Seven.... years_. See note to "Dream-Children." +Alice W--n is identified with Ann Simmons, who lived near Blakesware +when Lamb was a youth, and of whom he wrote his love sonnets. +According to the Key the name is "feigned." + +Page 32, line 25. _Old Dorrell_. See the poem "Going or Gone," +Vol. IV. There seems really to have been such an enemy of the Lamb +fortunes. He was one of the witnesses to the will of John Lamb, the +father--William Dorrell. + +Page 33, line 5. _Small-pox at five_. There is no other evidence than +this casual mention that Lamb ever suffered from this complaint. +Possibly he did not. He went to Christ's Hospital at the age of seven. + +Page 33, line 13. _From what have I not fallen_. Lamb had had this +idea many years before. In 1796 he wrote this sonnet (text of 1818):-- + + We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, + The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, + And Innocence her name. The time has been + We two did love each other's company; + Time was, we two had wept to have been apart: + But when by show of seeming good beguil'd, + I left the garb and manners of a child, + And my first love for man's society, + Defiling with the world my virgin heart-- + My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled, + And hid in deepest shades her awful head. + Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-- + In what delicious Eden to be found-- + That I may seek thee the wide world around? + +Page 33, line 27. _Phantom cloud of Elia_. The speculations in the +paragraph that ends with these words were fantastical at any rate to +one reader, who, under the signature "A Father," contributed to the +March number of the _London Magazine_ a eulogy of paternity, in which +Elia was reasoned with and rebuked. "Ah! Elia! hadst thou possessed +'offspring of thine own to dally with,' thou wouldst never have made +the melancholy avowal that thou hast 'almost ceased to hope!'" Lamb +did not reply. + +Page 33, line 7 from foot. _Not childhood alone ..._ The passage +between these words and "freezing days of December" was taken by +Charles Lloyd, Lamb's early friend, as the motto of a poem, in his +_Poems_, 1823, entitled "Stanzas on the Difficulty with which, in +Youth, we Bring Home to our Habitual Consciousness the Idea of Death." + +Page 34, line 15 from foot. _Midnight darlings_. Leigh Hunt +records, in his essay "My Books," that he once saw Lamb kiss an old +folio--Chapman's _Homer_. + +Page 34, line 8 from foot. "_Sweet assurance of a look_." A favourite +quotation of Lamb's (here adapted) from Matthew Roydon's elegy on Sir +Philip Sidney:-- + + A sweet attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks. + +A portion of the poem is quoted in the Elia essay on "Some Sonnets of +Sir Philip Sidney." + + * * * * * + +Page 37. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. + +_London Magazine_, February, 1821. + +Mrs. Battle was probably, in real life, to a large extent Sarah +Burney, the wife of Rear-Admiral James Burney, Lamb's friend, and the +centre of the whist-playing set to which he belonged. The theory that +Lamb's grandmother, Mrs. Field, was the original Mrs. Battle, does +not, I think, commend itself, although that lady may have lent a trait +or two. It has possibly arisen from the relation of the passage in the +essay on Blakesware, where Mrs. Battle is said to have died in the +haunted room, to that in "Dream-Children," where Lamb says that Mrs. +Field occupied this room. + +The fact that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were both Sarahs is a small +piece of evidence towards their fusion, but there is something more +conclusive in the correspondence. Writing in March, 1830, concerning +the old whist days, to William Ayrton, one of the old whist-playing +company, and the neighbour of the Burneys in Little James Street, +Pimlico, Lamb makes use of an elision which, I think, may be taken as +more than support of the theory that Mrs. Battle and Mrs. Burney were +largely the same--practically proof. "Your letter, which was only +not so pleasant as your appearance would have been, has revived some +old images; Phillips (not the Colonel), with his few hairs bristling +up at the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible; the old +Captain's significant nod over the right shoulder (was it not?); +Mrs. B----'s determined questioning of the score, after the game was +absolutely gone to the d----l." Lamb, I think, would have written out +Mrs. Burney in full had he not wished to suggest Mrs. Battle too. + +This conjecture is borne out by the testimony of the late Mrs. +Lefroy, in her youth a friend of the Burneys and the Lambs, who +told Canon Ainger that though Mrs. Battle had many differing points +she was undoubtedly Mrs. Burney. But of course there are the usual +cross-trails--the reference to the pictures at Sandham; to Walter +Plumer; to the legacy to Lamb; and so forth. Perhaps among the +Blakesware portraits was one which Lamb chose as Mrs. Battle's +presentment; perhaps Mrs. Field had told him of an ancient dame who +had certain of Mrs. Battle's characteristics, and he superimposed Mrs. +Burney upon this foundation. + +For further particulars concerning the Burney whist parties see the +notes to the "Letter to Southey," Vol. I. + +Admiral Burney (1750-1821), a son of Dr. Burney, the historian of +music, and friend of Johnson and Reynolds, was the brother of Fanny +Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay. See also "The Wedding," page 275 +of this volume, for another glimpse of Lamb's old friend. Admiral +Burney wrote _An Essay on the Game of Whist_, which was published in +1821. As he lived until November, 1821, he probably read the present +essay. Writing to Wordsworth, March 20, 1822, Lamb says: "There's +Capt. Burney gone!--what fun has whist now; what matters it what you +lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking over you?" + +Page 37, line 1 of essay. "_A clean hearth_." To this, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put the footnote:-- + +"This was before the introduction of rugs, reader. You must remember +the intolerable crash of the unswept cinder, betwixt your foot and the +marble." + +Page 37, line 8 of essay. _Win one game, and lose another_. To this, +in the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the note:-- + + "As if a sportsman should tell you he liked to kill a fox one day, + and lose him the next." + +Page 38, line 26. _Mr. Bowles_. The Rev. William Lisle Bowles +(1762-1850), whose sonnets had so influenced Coleridge's early +poetical career. His edition of Pope was published in 1806. I have +tried in vain to discover if Mr. Bowles' MS. and notes for this +edition are still in existence. If so, they might contain Lamb's +contribution. But it is rather more likely, I fear, that Lamb invented +the story. The game of ombre is in Canto III. of _The Rape of the +Lock_. + +The only writing on cards which we know Lamb to have done, apart from +this essay, is the elementary rules of whist which he made out for +Mrs. Badams quite late in his life as a kind of introduction to the +reading of Admiral Burney's treatise. This letter is in America and +has never been printed except privately; nor, if its owner can help +it, will it. + +Page 40, line 26. _Old Walter Plumer_. See the essay on "The South-Sea +House." + +Page 42, line 18 from foot. _Bad passions_. Here came in the _London +Magazine_, in parenthesis, "(dropping for a while the speaking mask of +old Sarah Battle)." + +Page 43, line 2. _Bridget Elia_. This is Lamb's first reference in +the essays to Mary Lamb under this name. See "Mackery End" and "Old +China." + +A little essay on card playing in the _Every-Day Book_, the authorship +of which is unknown, but which may be Hone's, ends with the following +pleasant passage:-- + + Cousin Bridget and the gentle Elia seem beings of that age wherein + lived Pamela, whom, with "old Sarah Battle," we may imagine + entering their room, and sitting down with them to a _square_ + game. Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times: she, full of + kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;--he, no less + kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse + with the world, and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu + and De Foe would admire, and portraits that Deuner and Hogarth + would rise from their graves to paint. + + * * * * * + +Page 43. A CHAPTER ON EARS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1821. + +Lamb was not so utterly without ear as he states. Crabb Robinson in +his diary records more than once that Lamb hummed tunes, and Barron +Field, in the memoir of Lamb contributed by him to the _Annual +Biography and Obituary_ for 1836, mentions his love for certain +beautiful airs, among them Kent's "O that I had wings like a dove" +(mentioned in this essay), and Handel's "From mighty kings." Lamb says +that it was Braham who awakened a love of music in him. Compare Lamb's +lines to Clara Novello, Vol. IV., page 101, and also Mary Lamb's +postscript to his "Free Thoughts on Eminent Composers," same volume. + +Page 43, foot. _I was never ... in the pillory_. This sentence led +to an amusing article in the _London Magazine_ for the next month, +April, 1821, entitled "The Confessions of H.F.V.H. Delamore, Esq.," +unmistakably, I think, by Lamb, which will be found in Vol. I. of this +edition, wherein Lamb confesses to a brief sojourn in the stocks at +Barnet for brawling on Sunday, an incident for the broad truth of +which we have the testimony of his friend Brook Pulham. + +Page 44, lines 6 and 7. "_Water parted from the sea_," "_In Infancy_." +Songs by Arne in "Artaxerxes," Lamb's "First Play" (see page 113). + +Page 44, line 11. _Mrs. S----_. The Key gives "Mrs. Spinkes." We meet +a Will Weatherall in "Distant Correspondents," page 120; but I have +not been able to discover more concerning either. + +Page 44, line 17. _Alice W----n_. See note to "Dream Children." + +Page 44, line 26. _My friend A._ Probably William Ayrton (1777-1818), +the musical critic, one of the Burneys' whist-playing set, and a +friend and correspondent of Lamb's. See the musical rhyming letter to +him from Lamb, May 17, 1817. + +Page 47, line 5. _My friend, Nov----_. Vincent Novello (1781-1861), +the organist, the father of Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and a great friend of +Lamb. + +Page 47, footnote. Another friend of Vincent Novello's uses the same +couplet (from Watt's _Divine Songs for Children_, Song XXVIII., +"For the Lord's Day, Evening") in the description of glees by the +old cricketers at the Bat and Ball on Broad Halfpenny Down, near +Hambledon--I refer to John Nyren, author of _The Young Cricketer's +Tutor_, 1833. There is no evidence that Lamb and Nyren ever met, but +one feels that they ought to have done so, in Novello's hospitable +rooms. + +Page 48, line 3. _Lutheran beer_. Edmund Ollier, the son of Charles +Ollier, the publisher of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, in his reminiscences of +Lamb, prefixed to one edition of _Elia_, tells this story: "Once at a +musical party at Leigh Hunt's, being oppressed with what to him was +nothing but a prolonged noise ... he said--'If one only had a pot of +porter, one might get through this.' It was procured for him and he +weathered the Mozartian storm." + +In the _London Magazine_ this essay had the following postscript:-- + + "P.S.--A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who + has been entertaining the town for the last twelve months, with + some very pleasant lucubrations, under the assumed signature of + _Leigh Hunt_[1], in his Indicator, of the 31st January last, has + thought fit to insinuate, that I _Elia_ do not write the little + sketches which bear my signature, in this Magazine; but that the + true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe the critical period + at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on the very + eve of the publication of our last number--affording no scope + for explanation for a full month--during which time, I must + needs lie writhing and tossing, under the cruel imputation of + nonentity.--Good heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed + _to be_-- + + "They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of + anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. + + "Take away my moral reputation: I may live to discredit that + calumny. + + "Injure my literary fame,--I may write that up again-- + + "But when a gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he? + + "Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing + trifle at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very + essence; who not only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have + been_ at all. Let our ancestors look to it-- + + "Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes-street, + Cavendish-square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years + ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we + flourished four centuries back, before the barbarous name of + Boldero[2] was known to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly + scion of our name, transplanted into England, in the reign of the + seventh Henry, nothing? Are the archives of the steel yard, in + succeeding reigns (if haply they survive the fury of our envious + enemies) showing that we flourished in prime repute, as merchants, + down to the period of the commonwealth, nothing? + + "Why then the world, and all that's in't is nothing-- + The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia is nothing.-- + + "I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move + me so." + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Indicator_, January 31 and February 7, 1821, had +reprinted from _The Examiner_ a review of Lamb's _Works_, with a few +prefatory remarks in which it was stated: "We believe we are taking no +greater liberty with him [Charles Lamb] than our motives will warrant, +when we add that he sometimes writes in the _London Magazine_ under +the signature of Elia." + +In _The Indicator_ of March 7, 1821, Leigh Hunt replied to Elia. Leigh +Hunt was no match for Lamb in this kind of raillery, and the first +portion of the reply is rather cumbersome. At the end, however, he +says: "There _was_, by the bye, a family of the name of Elia who came +from Italy,--Jews; which may account for this boast about Genoa. See +also in his last article in the London Magazine [the essay on "Ears"] +some remarkable fancies of conscience in reference to the Papal +religion. They further corroborate what we have heard; _viz._ that the +family were obliged to fly from Genoa for saying that the Pope was +the author of Rabelais; and that Elia is not an anagram, as some have +thought it, but the Judaico-Christian name of the writer before us, +whose surname, we find, is not Lamb, but Lomb;--Elia Lomb! What a +name! He told a friend of ours so in company, and would have palmed +himself upon him for a Scotchman, but that his countenance betrayed +him." + +It is amusing to note that Maginn, writing the text to accompany the +Maclise portrait of Lamb in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1835, gravely +states that Lamb's name was really Lomb, and that he was of Jewish +extraction. + +The subject of Lamb's birth reopened a little while later. In +the "Lion's Head," which was the title of the pages given to +correspondence in the _London Magazine_, in the number for November, +1821, was the following short article from Lamb's pen:-- + + "ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS.--A Correspondent, who writes himself + Peter Ball, or Bell,--for his hand-writing is as ragged as his + manners--admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under + a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had + need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' + I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamours + upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems that + in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had + called my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on + Ears,') I profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish + Square, deducing my remoter origin from Italy. But who does not + see, except this tinkling cymbal, that in that idle fiction + of Genoese ancestry I was answering a fool according to his + folly--that Elia there expresseth himself ironically, as to an + approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and can be + no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to his + delusions; or, leading him from error still to contradictory + error, to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give + him line till he suspend himself. No understanding reader could + be imposed upon by such obvious rhodomontade to suspect me + for an alien, or believe me other than English.--To a second + Correspondent, who signs himself 'a Wiltshire man,' and claims me + for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in my + 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over + the Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely + detects a more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to + strike upon. Referring to the passage (in page 484 of our second + volume[3]), I must confess, that the term 'native town,' applied + to Calne, _prima facie_ seems to bear out the construction which + my friendly Correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context + too, I am afraid, a little favours it. But where the words of + an author, taken literally, compared with some other passage + in his writings, admitted to be authentic, involve a palpable + contradiction, it hath been the custom of the ingenuous + commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition, that + in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly + intended. So by the word 'native,' I may be supposed to mean a + town where I might have been born; or where it might be desirable + that I should have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, + upon a dry chalky soil, in which I delight; or a town, with the + inhabitants of which I passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, + so agreeably, that they and it became in a manner native to me. + Without some such latitude of interpretation in the present case, + I see not how we can avoid falling into a gross error in physics, + as to conceive that a gentleman may be born in two places, from + which all modern and ancient testimony is alike abhorrent. Bacchus + cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to have honoured + with the epithet 'Twice born.'[4] But not to mention that he is so + called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather + than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth + he may probably be challenged for a Theban--in a strict way of + speaking, he was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense + as he had been before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but + a secondary and tralatitious way of being born, and he but a + denizen of the second house of his geniture. Thus much by way of + explanation was thought due to the courteous 'Wiltshire man.'--To + 'Indagator,' 'Investigator,' 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, + that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth--as + if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his + parish--to all such churchwarden critics he answereth, that, any + explanation here given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his + nativity (like a rusty vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he + seeth occasion, or the argument shall demand it, he will be born + again, in future papers, in whatever place, and at whatever + period, shall seem good unto him. + + "Modo me Thebis--modo Athenis. + + "ELIA." + +[Footnote 1: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."] + +[Footnote 2: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."] + +[Footnote 3: See page 15 of this volume.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo + Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum est) + Insuitur femori-- + Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi. + + "_Metamorph._ lib. iii., 310."] + + * * * * * + +Page 48. ALL FOOLS' DAY. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Page 49, line 1. _Empedocles_. Lamb appended this footnote in the +_London Magazine_:-- + + He who, to be deem'd + A god, leap'd fondly into Etna's flames. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 470-471 [should be 469-470]. + +Page 49, line 5. _Cleombrotus_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ footnote:-- + + He who, to enjoy + Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the sea. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 471-472. + +Page 49, line 8. _Plasterers at Babel_. Lamb's _London Magazine_ +note:-- + + The builders next of Babel on the plain + Of Sennaar. + +_Paradise Lost_, III., lines 466-467. + +Page 49, line 10. _My right hand_. Lamb, it is probably unnecessary to +remind the reader, stammered too. + +Page 49, line 13 from foot. _Duns_, Duns Scotus (1265?-1308?), +metaphysician, author of _De modis significandi sive Grammatica +Speculativa_ and other philosophic works. Known as Doctor Subtilis. +There was nothing of Duns in the _London Magazine_; the sentence ran: +"Mr. Hazlitt, I cannot indulge you in your definitions." This was at a +time when Lamb and Hazlitt were not on good terms. + +Page 49, last line. _Honest R----_. Lamb's Key gives "Ramsay, London +Library, Ludgate Street; now extinct." I have tried in vain to find +out more about Ramsay. The London Library was established at 5 Ludgate +Street in 1785. Later, the books were lodged at Charles Taylor's house +in Hatton Garden, and were finally removed to the present London +Institute in Finsbury Circus. + +Page 50, line 6. _Good Granville S----_. Lamb's Key gives Granville +Sharp. This was the eccentric Granville Sharp, the Quaker abolitionist +(1735-1813). + + * * * * * + +Page 51. A QUAKER'S MEETING. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with Quakers was somewhat intimate throughout +his life. In early days he was friendly with the Birmingham +Lloyds--Charles, Robert and Priscilla, of the younger generation, +and their father, Charles Lloyd, the banker and translator of Horace +and Homer (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, 1898); and later with +Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet of Woodbridge. Also he had loved from +afar Hester Savory, the subject of his poem "Hester" (see Vol. IV.). A +passage from a letter written in February, 1797, to Coleridge, bears +upon this essay:--"Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning Quaker, +and have been reading, or am rather just beginning to read, a most +capital book, good thoughts in good language, William Penn's 'No +Cross, No Crown,' I like it immensely. Unluckily I went to one of his +meetings, tell him, in St. John Street [Clerkenwell] yesterday, and +saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some 'inevitable presence.' +This cured me of Quakerism; I love it in the books of Penn and +Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the +Spirit...." + +Both Forster and Hood tell us that Lamb in outward appearance +resembled a Quaker. + +Page 52, line 13. _The uncommunicating muteness of fishes_. Lamb had +in mind this thought on the silence of fishes when he was at work on +_John Woodvil_. Simon remarks, in the exquisite passage (Vol. IV.) in +reply to the question, "What is it you love?" + + The fish in th' other element + That knows no touch of eloquence. + +Page 53, second quotation. "_How reverend ..._" An adaptation of +Congreve's description of York Minster in "The Mourning Bride" (Mary +Lamb's "first play"), Act I., Scene 1:-- + + How reverend is the face of this tall pile ... + Looking tranquillity! + +Page 53, middle. _Fox and Dewesbury_. George Fox (1624-1691) founded +the Society of Friends. William Dewesbury was one of Fox's first +colleagues, and a famous preacher. William Penn (1644-1718), the +founder of Pennsylvania, was the most illustrious of the early +converts to Quakerism. Lamb refers to him again, before his judges, in +the essay on "Imperfect Sympathies," page 73. George Fox's _Journal_ +was lent to Lamb by a friend of Bernard Barton's in 1823. On returning +it, Lamb remarked (February 17, 1823):--"I have quoted G.F. in my +'Quaker's Meeting' as having said he was 'lifted up in spirit' (which +I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase),' and the Judge and Jury +were as dead men under his feet.' I find no such words in his Journal, +and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure +I did not mean to invent. I must have put some other Quaker's words +into his mouth." + +Sewel was a Dutchman--William Sewel (1654-1720). His title runs: +_History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the Christian People +called Quakers, written originally in Low Dutch by W. Sewel, and by +himself translated into English_, 1722. James Naylor (1617-1660) was +one of the early Quaker martyrs--"my favourite" Lamb calls him in a +letter. John Woolman (1720-1772) was an American Friend. His principal +writings are to be found in _A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, +and Christian Experiences of that faithful minister of Jesus Christ, +John Woolman, late of Mount Holly in the Province of Jersey, North +America_, 1795. Modern editions are obtainable. + + * * * * * + +Page 56. THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1821. + +Page 56, line 9. _Ortelius ... Arrowsmith_. Abraham Ortellius +(1527-1598), the Dutch geographer and the author of _Theatrum +Orbis Terrae_, 1570. Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) was a well-known +cartographer at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lamb would +perhaps have known something of his _Atlas of Southern India_, a very +useful work at the East India House. + +Page 56, line 13. _A very dear friend_. Barren Field (see the essay on +"Distant Correspondents"). + +Page 56, line 10 from foot. _My friend M_. Thomas Manning (1772-1840), +the mathematician and traveller, and Lamb's correspondent. + +Page 56, last line. "_On Devon's leafy shores_." From Wordsworth's +_Excursion_, III. + +Page 57, line 16. _Daily jaunts_. Though Lamb was then (1821) living +at 20 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, he rented rooms at 14 +Kingsland Row, Dalston, in which to take holidays and do his literary +work undisturbed. At that time Dalston, which adjoins Shackleton, was +the country and Kingsland Green an open space opposite Lamb's lodging. + +Page 58, line 23. _The North Pole Expedition_. This would probably +be Sir John Franklin's expedition which set out in 1819 and ended in +disaster, the subject of Franklin's book, _Narrative of a Journey to +the Shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, 22_ (1823). Sir +John Ross made an expedition in 1818, and Sir William Edward Parry in +1819, and again in 1821-1823 with Lyon. The panorama was possibly +at Burford's Panorama in the Strand, afterwards moved to Leicester +Square. + +Page 60, line 17. _Tractate on Education_. Milton's _Tractate on +Education_, addressed to his friend, Samuel Hartlib, was published in +1644. The quotation above is from that work. This paragraph of Lamb's +essay was afterwards humorously expanded in his "Letter to an Old +Gentleman whose Education has been Neglected" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 60, last line. _Mr. Bartley's Orrery._ George Bartley +(1782?-1858), the comedian, lectured on astronomy and poetry at the +Lyceum during Lent at this time. An orrery is a working model of the +solar system. The Panopticon was, I assume, a forerunner of the famous +Panopticon in Leicester Square. + +Page 61, line 8. "_Plaything for an hour_." A quotation, from Charles +and Mary Lamb's _Poetry for Children_--"Parental Recollections":-- + + A child's a plaything for an hour. + +Page 63, end of essay. "_Can I reproach her for it_." After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + + "These kind of complaints are not often drawn from me. I am aware + that I am a fortunate, I mean a prosperous man. My feelings + prevent me from transcribing any further." + + * * * * * + +Page 63. VALENTINE'S DAY. + +This essay first appeared in _The Examiner_, February 14 and 15, 1819, +and again in _The Indicator_, February 14, 1821. Signed *** + +Page 64, line 18. _Twopenny postman._ Hone computed, in his _Every-Day +Book_, Vol. I., 1825, that "two hundred thousand letters beyond the +usual daily average annually pass through the two-penny post-office in +London on Valentine's Day." The Bishop's vogue is now (1911) almost +over. + +Page 65, line 15 from foot. E.B. Lamb's Key gives "Edward Burney, half +brother of Miss Burney." This was Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848), +who illustrated many old authors, among them Richardson. + + * * * * * + +Page 66. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1821, where the title ran: "Jews, Quakers, +Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies." + +Page 69, line 18 from foot. _A print ... after Leonardo._ The Virgin +of the Rocks. See Vol. IV. for Lamb's and his sister's verses on this +picture. Crabb Robinson's MS. diary tells us that the Scotchman was +one Smith, a friend of Godwin. His exact reply to Lamb's remark about +"my beauty" was: "Why, sir, from all I have heard of you, as well +as from what I have myself seen, I certainly entertain a very high +opinion of your abilities, but I confess that I have not formed any +opinion concerning your personal pretensions." + +Page 70, line 10. _The poetry of Burns._ "Burns was the god of my +idolatry," Lamb wrote to Coleridge in 1796. Coleridge's lines on +Burns, "To a Friend who had declared his intention of writing no more +poetry," were addressed to Lamb. Barry Cornwall records seeing Lamb +kiss his copy of the poet. + +Page 70, line 17. _You can admire him_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added:-- + + "I have a great mind to give up Burns. There is certainly + a bragging spirit of generosity, a swaggering assertion of + independence, and _all that_, in his writings." + +Page 70, line 18. _Smollett_. Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), the +novelist, came of a Dumbartonshire family. Rory was Roderick Random's +schoolboy name. His companion was Strap. See _Roderick Random_, +Chapter XIII., for the passage in question. Smollett continued the +_History of England_ of David Hume (1711-1776), also a Scotchman, and +one of the authors whom Lamb could not read (see "Detached Thoughts on +Books and Reading," page 196). + +Lamb's criticism of Scotchmen did not pass without comment. The +pleasantest remark made upon it was that of Christopher North +(John Wilson) some dozen years later (after he had met Lamb), in a +_Blackwood_ paper entitled "Twaddle on Tweedside" (May, 1833), wherein +he wrote:-- + + Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant + way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield; for Scotland + loves Charles Lamb; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, + and conceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than + Christopher North. But what will not Christopher forgive to Genius + and Goodness? Even Lamb bleating libels on his native land. Nay, + he learns lessons of humanity, even from the mild malice of Elia, + and breathes a blessing on him and his household in their Bower of + Rest. + +Coleridge was much pleased by this little reference to his friend. He +described it as "very sweet indeed" (see his _Table Talk_, May 14, +1833). + +Page 70, line 14 from foot. _Hugh of Lincoln_. Hugh was a small +Lincoln boy who, tradition states, was tortured to death by the Jews. +His dead body being touched by a blind woman, she received sight. + +Many years earlier Lamb had spoken of the Jew in English society with +equal frankness (see his note to the "Jew of Malta" in the _Dramatic +Specimens_). + +Page 71, line 18. _B----_. John Braham, _nee_ Abraham (1774?-1856), +the great tenor. Writing to Manning in 1808, Lamb says:--"Do you like +Braham's singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like +as the boys followed Tom the Piper. He cures me of melancholy as +David cured Saul.... I was insensible to music till he gave me a new +sense.... Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. +Siddons's or Mr. Kemble's acting! and when it is not impassioned it is +as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little +Jew!" + +Two years later Lamb tells Manning of Braham's absence from London, +adding: "He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the +angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could +not tell which preponderated." In this essay Lamb refers to Braham's +singing in Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt." Concerning Braham's +abandonment of the Jewish faith see Lamb's sarcastic essay "The +Religion of Actors," Vol. I., page 338. + +Page 73, line 17 from foot. _I was travelling_. Lamb did not really +take part in this story. It was told him by Sir Anthony Carlisle +(1768-1840), the surgeon, as he confessed to his Quaker friend, +Bernard Barton (March 11, 1823), who seemed to miss its point. Lamb +described Carlisle as "the best story-teller I ever heard." + + * * * * * + +Page 74. WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1821. + +Compare with this essay Maria Howe's story of "The Witch Aunt," in +_Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.), which Lamb had written +thirteen years earlier. + +Page 75, line 12 from foot. _History of the Bible, by Stackhouse_. +Thomas Stackhouse (1677-1752) was rector of Boldon, in Durham; his +_New History of the Holy Bible from the Beginning of the World to the +Establishment of Christianity_--the work in question--was published in +1737. + +Page 75, line 6 from foot. _The Witch raising up Samuel_. This +paragraph was the third place in which Lamb recorded his terror of +this picture of the Witch of Endor in Stackhouse's _Bible_, but the +first occasion in which he took it to himself. In one draft of _John +Woodvil_ (see Vol. IV.), the hero says:-- + + I can remember when a child the maids + Would place me on their lap, as they undrest me, + As silly women use, and tell me stories + Of Witches--make me read "Glanvil on Witchcraft," + And in conclusion show me in the Bible, + The old Family Bible, with the pictures in it, + The 'graving of the Witch raising up Samuel, + Which so possest my fancy, being a child, + That nightly in my dreams an old Hag came + And sat upon my pillow. + +Then again, in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in the story of Maria Howe, +called "The Witch Aunt," one of the three stories in that book which +Lamb wrote, Stackhouse's _Bible_ is found once more. In my large +edition I give a reproduction of the terrible picture. Page 77, foot. +_Dear little T.H._ This was the unlucky passage which gave Southey his +chief text in his criticism of _Elia_ as a book wanting "a sounder +religious feeling," and which led to Lamb's expostulatory "Letter" +(see Vol. I.). Southey commented thus:-- + + This poor child, instead of being trained up in the way in which + he should go, had been bred in the ways of modern philosophy; he + had systematically been prevented from knowing anything of that + Saviour who said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and + forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven;" care had + been taken that he should not pray to God, nor lie down at night + in reliance upon His good Providence! + +T.H. was Thornton Hunt, Leigh Hunt's eldest son and Lamb's "favourite +child" (see verses to him in Vol. IV.). + +Page 79, line 18 from foot. _Barry Cornwall_. Bryan Waller Procter +(1787-1874), Lamb's friend. The reference is to "A Dream," a poem in +Barry Cornwall's _Dramatic Scenes_, 1819, which Lamb greatly admired. +See his sonnet to the poet in Vol. IV., where it is mentioned again. + +Page 80, last paragraph of essay. In the original MS. of this essay +(now in the Dyce and Forster collection at South Kensington) the last +paragraph ran thus:-- + + "When I awoke I came to a determination to write prose all the + rest of my life; and with submission to some of our young writers, + who are yet diffident of their powers, and balancing perhaps + between verse and prose, they might not do unwisely to decide the + preference by the texture of their natural dreams. If these are + prosaic, they may depend upon it they have not much to expect in + a creative way from their artificial ones. What dreams must not + Spenser have had!" + + * * * * * + +Page 80. MY RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1821. + +Page 80, beginning. _At that point of life_. Lamb was forty-six on +February 10, 1821. + +Page 80, line 12 of essay. _I had an aunt_. Aunt Hetty, who died in +1797 (see the essay on "Christ's Hospital"). + +Page 81, line 6. _The chapel in Essex-street_. The headquarters of +"that heresy," Unitarianism. Lamb was at first a Unitarian, but +afterwards dropped away from all sects. + +Page 81, line 23. _Brother, or sister, I never had any--to know them_. +Lamb is writing strictly as the imagined Elia, Elia being Lamb in mind +rather than Lamb in fact. It amused him to present his brother John +and his sister Mary as his cousins James and Bridget Elia. We have +here an excellent example of his whimsical blending of truth and +invention: brothers and sisters he denies, yet admits one sister, +Elizabeth, who died in both their infancies. Lamb had in reality two +sisters named Elizabeth, the former of whom he never knew. She was +born in 1762. The second Elizabeth, his parents' fifth child, was born +in 1768, seven years before Charles. Altogether the Lambs had seven +children, of whom only John (born 1763), Mary Anne (born 1764) and +Charles (born 1775) grew up. Again Lamb confesses to several cousins +in Hertfordshire, and to two others. The two others were fictitious, +but it was true that he had Hertfordshire relations (see the essay +"Mackery End, in Hertfordshire"). + +John Lamb's character is perhaps sufficiently described in this essay +and in "Dream-Children." He was a well-to-do official in the South-Sea +House, succeeding John Tipp as accountant. Crabb Robinson found him +too bluff and noisy to be bearable; and he once knocked Hazlitt down +in a dispute about painting. He died on October 26, 1821, to his +brother's great grief, leaving Charles everything. He married late in +life a Mrs. Dowden. Probably she had her own money and needed none of +her second husband's. Hence the peculiarity of the will. Mrs. John +Lamb died in 1826. + +John Lamb's sympathy with animals led him to write in 1810 a pamphlet +entitled _A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on his +opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals_--Mr. Windham having expressed it as his opinion that the +subject was not one for legislation. Lamb sent the pamphlet to Crabb +Robinson on February 7, 1810, saying:--"My Brother whom you have met +at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written +a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the +Publisher has put it in his head that you can get it Reviewed for him. +I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could +put it into any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted +Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with +chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a +moment's notice.--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw +at and would willingly consign them all to Hell flames and Megaera's +snaky locks. + +"But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember +she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are +directed against that very process." + +This is the passage--one red-hot sentence--concerning eels:-- + + "If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in + the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that + it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that + he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's + usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use + her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for + food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for + however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the + culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness + therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if + the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin + him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the + extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to + death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the + dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call + the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he + had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which + man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines + him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that + men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such + insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the + only sufferers; that lobsters and other shell fish were put into + cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of + the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities, + were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of + mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion + that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals + designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow + so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that + she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have + desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he + inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel + spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon + animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty + Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, + highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar + and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that + man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to + his use are imperfect obligations!" + +The poem "The Beggar-Man," in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. +III.), was also from John Lamb's pen. + +Page 85, asterisks. _Society for the Relief of_--Distrest Sailors, +says Lamb's Key. + +Page 86, last line of essay. "_Through the green plains of pleasant +Hertfordshire_." This line occurs in a sonnet of Lamb's written many +years before the essay (see Vol. IV.). Probably, however, Lamb did +not invent it, for (the late W.J. Craig pointed out) in Leland's +_Itinerary_, which Lamb must have known, if only on account of the +antiquary's remarks on Hertfordshire, is quoted a poem by William +Vallans (_fl._ 1578-1590), "The Tale of the Two Swans," containing +the line-- + + The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire-- + +which one can easily understand would have lingered in Lamb's mind +very graciously. + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay ended with the words, "Till then, +Farewell." + + * * * * * + +Page 86. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1821. Reprinted in _Elia_, 1823, as written, +save for the omission of italics from many passages. + +Bridget Elia, who is met also in "Mrs. Battle," in "My Relations," and +in "Old China," was, of course, Mary Lamb. + +Page 86, line 11 from foot. _She must have a story_. Thomas Westwood, +in his reminiscences of the Lambs in later years, printed in _Notes +and Queries_, speaks of Mary Lamb's passion for novel-reading in the +Enfield days, when he was a boy. + +Page 87, line 6. _Margaret Newcastle_. Lamb's devotion to this lady is +expressed again in the essay on "The Two Races of Men," in the essay +on Beggars, and in "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading." + +Page 87, line 8. _Free-thinkers_ ... William Godwin, perhaps alone +among Lamb's friends, quite answers to the description of leader +of novel philosophies and systems; but there had been also Thomas +Holcroft and John Thelwall among the Lambs' acquaintance. And Hazlitt +and Leigh Hunt would come within this description. + +Page 87, foot. _Good old English reading_. The reference is to Samuel +Salt's library in the Temple (see note to "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple"). + +Page 88, line 14. _Mackery End_. The farmhouse still stands, although +new front rooms have been added. At the end of the present hall, one +passes through what was in Lamb's time the front door, and thereafter +the house is exactly as it used to be save that its south windows have +been filled in. By kind invitation of Mr. Dolphin Smith, the farmer, +who had been there over forty years, I spent in 1902 some time in the +same parlour in which the Lambs had been entertained. Harpenden, on +the north-west, has grown immensely since Lamb's day, and the houses +at the Folly, between Wheathampstead and the Cherry Trees, are new; +but Mackery End, or Mackrye End as the farmer's waggons have it, +remains unencroached upon. Near by is the fine old mansion which is +Mackery End house proper; Lamb's Mackery End was the farm. + +Lamb's first visit there must have been when he was a very little +boy--somewhere about 1780. Probably we may see recollections of it in +Mary Lamb's story "The Farmhouse" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III. of this edition). + +Page 88, line 18. _A great-aunt_. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, was +Mary Bruton, whose sister married, as he says, a Gladman, and was the +great-aunt mentioned. The present occupier of the farm is neither +Gladman nor Bruton; but both names are still to be found in the +county. A Miss Sarah Bruton, a direct descendant of Lamb's great-aunt, +was living at Wheathampstead in 1902. She had on her walls two +charming oval portraits of ancestresses, possibly--for she was +uncertain as to their identity--two of the handsome sisters whom Lamb +extols. + +Writing to Manning, May 28, 1819, Lamb says:--"How are my cousins, +the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton is a +glorious woman. + + "Hail, Mackery End! + +"This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but +got no further." + +Page 89, verse. "_But thou, that didst appear so fair ..._" From +Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," Stanza 6. Writing to Wordsworth in +1815, Lamb said of this stanza that he thought "no lovelier" could be +found in "the wide world of poetry." From a letter to Taylor, of the +_London Magazine_, belonging to the summer of 1821, we gather that the +proof-reader had altered the last word of the third line to "air" to +make it rhyme to "fair." Lamb says: "_Day_ is the right reading, and +_I implore you to restore it_." + +Page 90, line 4. _B.F._ Barron Field (see note to "Distant +Correspondents"), then living in Sydney, where he composed, and had +printed for private circulation in 1819, a volume of poems reviewed by +Lamb (see Vol. I.), in 1819, one of which was entitled "The Kangaroo." +It was the first book printed in Australia. Field edited Heywood for +the old Shakespeare Society. Although a Field, he was no kinsman of +Lamb's. + + * * * * * + +Page 90. MODERN GALLANTRY. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1822. + +De Quincey writes in "London Reminiscences" concerning the present +essay:-- + + Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not how it is + that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis and depth of + his courtesy. This quality was in him a really chivalrous feeling, + springing from his heart, and cherished with the sanctity of a + duty. He says somewhere in speaking of himself[?] under the mask + of a third person, whose character he is describing, that, in + passing a servant girl, even at a street-crossing, he used to take + off his hat. Now, the _spirit_ of Lamb's gallantry would have + prompted some such expression of homage, though the customs of + the country would not allow it to be _literally_ fulfilled, for + the very reason that would prompt it--_viz_., in order to pay + respect--since the girl would, in such a case, suppose a man + laughing at her. But the instinct of his heart was to think + highly of female nature, and to pay a real homage (not the hollow + demonstration of outward honour which a Frenchman calls his + "homage," and which is really a mask for contempt) to the sacred + _idea_ of pure and virtuous womanhood. + +Barry Cornwall has the following story in his Memoir of Lamb:-- + + Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy + package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles + inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon + his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place + of destination. Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a + female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope + that she would intercede with the poor boy's master, in order to + prevent his being over-weighted in future. "Sir," said the dame, + after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, "I buy my sugar + and have nothing to do with the man's manner of sending it." Lamb + at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off + his hat, said, humbly, "Then I hope, ma'am, you'll give me a drink + of small beer." This was of course refused. He afterwards called + upon the grocer, on the boy's behalf. With what effect I do not + know. + +Page 90, line 2 of essay. _Upon the point of gallantry_. Here, in the +_London Magazine_, came the words:-- + + "as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old classic ages. + This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or + deferential respect, paid to females, as females." + +Page 92, line 3. _Joseph Paice_. Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out +to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that +Lamb records. According to Miss Anne Manning's _Family Pictures_, +1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb +into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 +to learn book-keeping and business habits. He passed thence to the +South-Sea House and thence to the East India House. Miss Manning (who +was the author of _Flemish Interiors_) helps to fill out Lamb's sketch +into a full-length portrait. She tells us that Mr. Paice's life was +one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities. + + Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a + market-woman's fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a + sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who + was requesting him to direct her on her way. These traits are + quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:--his + carrying presents of game _himself_, for instance, to humble + friends, who might ill have spared a shilling to a servant; and + his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, + draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy + day. Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial + companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad + weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the + hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his + fare. At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits + from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in + buying shares of an unlucky number. About the time the numbers + were being drawn, there would be a ring at the gate-bell, perhaps + at dinner time. His spectacles would be elevated, an anxious + expression would steal over his face, as he half raised himself + from his seat, to obtain a glance at the intruder--"Ah, I thought + so, I expected as much," he would gently say. "I expected I should + soon have a visit from poor Mrs. ---- or Mrs. ----. Will you + excuse me, my dear madam," (to my grandmother) "for a moment, + while I just tell her it is quite out of my power to help her?" + counting silver into his hand all the time. Then, a parley would + ensue at the hall-door--complainant telling her tale in a doleful + voice: "My good woman, I really cannot," etc.; and at last the + hall-door would be shut. "Well, sir," my grandmother used to say, + as Mr. Paice returned to his seat, "I do not think you have sent + Mrs. ---- away quite penniless." "Merely enough for a joint of + meat, my good madam--just a trifle to buy her a joint of meat." + +_Family Pictures_ should be consulted by any one who would know more +of this gentleman and of Susan Winstanly. + +Page 92, line 5. _Edwards_. Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of +_Canons of Criticism_, 1748. The sonnet in question, which was +modelled on that addressed by Milton to Cyriack Skinner, was addressed +to Paice, as the author's nephew, bidding him carry on the family +line. Paice, however, as Lamb tells us, did not marry. + + * * * * * + +Page 94. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1821. + +Lamb's connection with the Temple was fairly continuous until 1817, +when he was thirty-eight. He was born at No. 2 Crown Office Row in +1775, and he did not leave it, except for visits to Hertfordshire, +until 1782, when he entered Christ's Hospital. There he remained, save +for holidays, until 1789, returning then to Crown Office Row for the +brief period between leaving school and the death of Samuel Salt, +under whose roof the Lambs dwelt, in February, 1792. The 7 Little +Queen Street, the 45 and 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, and the first +34 Southampton Buildings (with Gutch) periods, followed; but in 1801 +Lamb and his sister were back in the Temple again, at 16 Mitre Court +Buildings, since rebuilt. They moved from there, after a brief return +to 34 Southampton Buildings, to 4 Inner Temple Lane (since rebuilt and +now called Johnson's Buildings) in 1809, where they remained until the +move to 20 Great Russell Street in 1817. With each change after that +(except for another and briefer sojourn in Southampton Buildings +in 1830), Lamb's home became less urban. His last link with the +Temple may be said to have snapped with the death of Randal Morris, +sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, in 1827 (see "A Death-Bed"), +although now and then he slept at Crabb Robinson's chambers. + +The Worshipful Masters of the Bench of the Hon. Society of the Inner +Temple--to give the Benchers their full title--have the government of +the Inner Temple in their hands. + +Page 97, line 12 from foot, _J----ll_. Joseph Jekyll, great-nephew of +Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, well known as a wit and diner-out. +He became a Bencher in 1795, and was made a Master in Chancery in +1815, through the influence of the Prince Regent. Under his direction +the hall of the Inner Temple and the Temple Church were restored, and +he compiled a little book entitled _Facts and Observations relating to +the Temple Church and the Monuments contained in it_, 1811. He became +a K.C. in 1805, and died in 1837, aged eighty-five. Jekyll was a +friend of George Dyer, and was interested in Lamb's other friends, the +Norrises. & letter from him, thanking Lamb for a copy of the _Last +Essays of Elia_, is printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _The Lambs_. He had +another link of a kind with Lamb in being M.P. for "sweet Calne in +Wiltshire." Jekyll's chambers were at 6 King's Bench Walk. On the same +staircase lived for a while George Colman the Younger. + +Page 97, line 9 from foot. _Thomas Coventry_. Thomas Coventry became a +Bencher in 1766. He was the nephew of William, fifth Earl of Coventry, +and resided at North Cray Place, near Bexley, in Kent, and in +Serjeant's Inn, where he died in 1797, in his eighty-fifth year. He +is buried in the Temple Church. Coventry was a sub-governor of the +South-Sea House, and it was he who presented Lamb's friend, James +White, to Christ's Hospital. He was M.P. for Bridport from 1754 to +1780. As an illustration of Coventry's larger benefactions it may +be remarked that he presented L10,000 worth of South Sea stock to +Christ's Hospital in 1782. + +Page 98, line 9. _Samuel Salt_. Samuel Salt was the son of the Rev. +John Salt, of Audley, in Staffordshire; and he married a daughter of +Lord Coventry, thus being connected with Thomas Coventry by marriage. +He was M.P. for Liskeard for some years, and a governor of the +South-Sea House. Samuel Salt, who became a Bencher in 1782, rented +at No. 2 Crown Office Row two sets of chambers, in one of which the +Lamb family dwelt. John Lamb, Lamb's father, who is described as a +scrivener in Charles's Christ's Hospital application form, was Salt's +right-hand man, not only in business, but privately, while Mrs. Lamb +acted as housekeeper and possibly as cook. Samuel Salt played the part +of tutelary genius to John Lamb's two sons. It was he who arranged +for Charles to be nominated for Christ's Hospital (by Timothy Yeats); +probably he was instrumental also in getting him into the East India +House; and in all likelihood it was he who paved the way for the +younger John Lamb's position in the South-Sea House. It was also +Samuel Salt who gave to Charles and Mary the freedom of his library +(see the reference in the essay on "Mackery End"): a privilege which, +to ourselves, is the most important of all. Salt died in February, +1792, and is buried in the vault of the Temple Church. He left to John +Lamb L500 in South Sea stock and a small annual sum, and to Elizabeth +Lamb L200 in money; but with his death the prosperity of the family +ceased. + +Page 98, line 21. _Lovel_. See below. + +Page 98, line 9 from foot. _Miss Blandy_. Mary Blandy was the daughter +of Francis Blandy, a lawyer at Henley-on-Thames. The statement that +she was to inherit L10,000 induced an officer in the marines, named +Cranstoun, a son of Lord Cranstoun, to woo her, although he already +had a wife living. Her father proving hostile, Cranstoun supplied her +with arsenic to bring about his removal. Mr. Blandy died on August +14, 1751. Mary Blandy was arrested, and hanged on April 6 in the next +year, after a trial which caused immense excitement. The defence was +that Miss Blandy was ignorant of the nature of the powder, and thought +it a means of persuading her father to her point of view. In this +belief the father, who knew he was being tampered with, also shared. +Cranstoun avoided the law, but died in the same year. Lamb had made +use of Salt's _faux pas_, many years earlier, in "Mr. H." (see Vol. +IV.). + +Page 99, line 13. _His eye lacked lustre_. At these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "Lady Mary Wortley Montague was an exception to her sex: she says, + in one of her letters, 'I wonder what the women see in S. I do not + think him by any means handsome. To me he appears an extraordinary + dull fellow, and to want common sense. Yet the fools are all + sighing for him.'" + +I have not found the passage. + +Page 99, line 14. _Susan P----_. This is Susannah Peirson, sister of +the Peter Peirson to whom we shall come directly. Samuel Salt left her +a choice of books in his library, together with a money legacy and a +silver inkstand, hoping that reading and reflection would make her +life "more comfortable." B----d Row would be Bedford Row. + +Page 99, line 12 from foot, _F., the counsel_. I cannot be sure who +this was. The Law Directory of that day does not help. + +Page 99, foot. _Elwes_. John Elwes, the miser (1714-1789), whose +_Life_ was published in 1790 after running through _The World_--the +work of Topham, that paper's editor, who is mentioned in Lamb's essay +on "Newspapers." + +Page 100, line 15. _Lovel_. Lovel was the name by which Lamb refers to +his father, John Lamb. We know nothing of him in his prime beyond what +is told in this essay, but after the great tragedy, there are in the +_Letters_ glimpses of him as a broken, querulous old man. He died in +1799. Of John Lamb's early days all our information is contained in +this essay, in his own _Poetical Pieces_, where he describes his life +as a footman, and in the essay on "Poor Relations," where his boyish +memories of Lincoln are mentioned. Of his verses it was perhaps too +much (though prettily filial) to say they were "next to Swift and +Prior;" but they have much good humour and spirit. John Lamb's poems +were printed in a thin quarto under the title _Poetical Pieces on +Several Occasions_. The dedication was to "The Forty-Nine Members of +the Friendly Society for the Benefit of their Widows, of whom I have +the honour of making the Number Fifty," and in the dedicatory epistle +it is stated that the Society was in some degree the cause of Number +Fifty's commencing author, on account of its approving and printing +certain lines which were spoken by him at an annual meeting it the +Devil Tavern. The first two poetical pieces are apologues on marriage +and the happiness that it should bring, the characters being drawn +from bird life. Then follow verses written for the meetings of the +Society, and miscellaneous compositions. Of these the description +of a lady's footman's daily life, from within, has a good deal of +sprightliness, and displays quite a little mastery of the mock-heroic +couplet. The last poem is a long rhymed version of the story of +Joseph. With this exception, for which Lamb's character-sketch does +not quite prepare us, it is very natural to think of the author as +Lovel. One of the pieces, a familiar letter to a doctor, begins +thus:-- + + My good friend, + For favours to my son and wife, + I shall love you whilst I've life, + Your clysters, potions, help'd to save, + Our infant lambkin from the grave. + +The infant lambkin was probably John Lamb, but of course it might have +been Charles. The expression, however, proves that punning ran in the +family. Lamb's library contained his father's copy of _Hudibras_. + +Lamb's phrase, descriptive of his father's decline, is taken with a +variation from his own poems--from the "Lines written on the Day of my +Aunt's Funeral" (_Blank Verse_, 1798):-- + + One parent yet is left,--a wretched thing, + A sad survivor of his buried wife + A palsy-smitten, childish, old, old man, + A semblance most forlorn of what he was-- + A merry cheerful man. + +Page 100, line 17. "_Flapper_." This is probably an allusion to the +flappers in _Gulliver's Travels_--the servants who, in Laputa, carried +bladders with which every now and then they flapped the mouths and +ears of their employers, to recall them to themselves and disperse +their meditations. + +Page 100, line 9 from foot. _Better was not concerned_. At these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came:-- + +"He pleaded the cause of a delinquent in the treasury of the Temple so +effectually with S. the then treasurer--that the man was allowed +to keep his place. L. had the offer to succeed him. It had been a +lucrative promotion. But L. chose to forego the advantage, because the +man had a wife and family." + +Page 101, line 10. _Bayes_. Mr. Bayes is the author and stage manager +in Buckingham's "Rehearsal." This phrase is not in the play and must +have been John Lamb's own, in reference to Garrick. + +Page 101, line 23. _Peter Pierson_. Peter Peirson (as his name was +rightly spelled) was the son of Peter Peirson of the parish of St. +Andrew's, Holborn, who lived probably in Bedford Row. He became a +Bencher in 1800, died in 1808, and is buried in the Temple Church. +When Charles Lamb entered the East India House in April, 1792, Peter +Peirson and his brother, John Lamb, were his sureties. + +Page 101, line 11 from foot. _Our great philanthropist_. Probably John +Howard, whom, as we have seen in the essay on "Christ's Hospital," +Lamb did not love. He was of singular sallowness. + +Page 101, line 9 from foot. _Daines Barrington_. Daines Barrington +(1727-1800), the correspondent of Gilbert White, many of whose letters +in _The Natural History of Selborne_ are addressed to him. Indeed it +was Barrington who inspired that work:--a circumstance which must +atone for his exterminatory raid on the Temple sparrows. His Chambers +were at 5 King's Bench Walk. Barrington became a Bencher in 1777 and +died in 1800. He is buried in the Temple Church. His Episcopal brother +was Shute Barrington (1734-1826), Bishop successively of Llandaff, +Salisbury and Durham. + +Page 102, line 1. _Old Barton_. Thomas Barton, who became a Bencher in +1775 and died in 1791. His chambers were in King's Bench Walk. He is +buried in the vault of the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 6. _Read_. John Reade, who became a Bencher in 1792 and +died in 1804. His rooms were in Mitre Court Buildings. + +Page 102, line 6. _Twopenny_. Richard, Twopenny was not a Bencher, but +merely a resident in the Temple. He was strikingly thin. Twopenny was +stockbroker to the Bank of England, and died in 1809. + +Page 102, line 8. _Wharry_. John Wharry, who became a Bencher in 1801, +died in 1812, and was buried in the Temple Church. + +Page 102, line 22. _Jackson_. This was Richard Jackson, some time M.P. +for New Romney, to whom Johnson, Boswell tells us, refused the epithet +"Omniscient" as blasphemous, changing it to "all knowing." He was made +a Bencher in 1770 and died in 1787. + +Page 102, foot. _Mingay_. James Mingay, who was made a Bencher in +1785, died in 1812. He was M.P. for Thetford and senior King's +Counsel. He was also Recorder of Aldborough, Crabbe's town. He lived +at 4 King's Bench Walk. + +Page 103, line 1. _Baron Maseres_. This was Francis Maseres +(1731-1824), mathematician, reformer and Cursiter Baron of the +Exchequer. He lived at 5 King's Bench Walk, and at Reigate, and wore a +three-cornered hat and ruffles to the end. In April, 1801, Lamb wrote +to Manning:--"I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot +off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we +should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for +convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He +keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, +not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the +higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the +belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a +harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together." + +Baron Maseres, who was made a Bencher in 1774, died in 1824. + +Page 104, line 13. _Hookers and Seldens_. Richard Hooker (1554?-1600), +the "judicious," was Master of the Temple. John Selden (1584-1654), +the jurist, who lived in Paper Buildings and practised law in the +Temple, was buried in the Temple Church with much pomp. + + * * * * * + +Page 104. GRACE BEFORE MEAT. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1821. + +This was the essay, Lamb suggested, which Southey may have had in mind +when in an article in the _Quarterly Review_ he condemned _Elia_ as +wanting "a sounder religious feeling." In his "Letter to Southey" +(Vol. I.), which contained Lamb's protest against Southey's +strictures, he wrote:--"I am at a loss what particular essay you had +in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you +were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, +foremost.--Perhaps the Paper on 'Saying Graces' was the obnoxious +feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty--good in +place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded--from the charge +of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not +against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the +carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of +it." + +Page 108, line 12 from foot. _C----_. Coleridge; but Lamb may really +have said it. + +Page 108, foot. _The author of the Rambler_. Veal pie with prunes in +it was perhaps Dr. Johnson's favourite dish. + +Page 109, line 10. _Dagon_. The fish god worshipped by the +Philistines. See Judges xvi. 23 and I Samuel v. for the full +significance of Lamb's reference. + +Page 110, line 16. _C.V.L._ Charles Valentine le Grice. Later in life, +in 1798, Le Grice himself became a clergyman. + +Page 110, line 19. _Our old form at school_. The Christ's Hospital +graces in Lamb's day were worded thus:-- + + GRACE BEFORE MEAT + + Give us thankful hearts, O Lord God, for the Table which thou hast + spread for us. Bless thy good Creatures to our use, and us to thy + service, for Jesus Christ his sake. _Amen_. + + GRACE AFTER MEAT + + Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our + Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou + hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our + Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and + Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And + preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. _Amen_. + + * * * * * + +Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1821. + +Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the "Table Talk" in Leigh +Hunt's _Examiner_, December 9, 1813, under the title "Playhouse +Memoranda" (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in _The Indicator_, +December 13, 1820. + +Page 111, line 1. _Garrick's Drury_. Garrick's Drury Lane was +condemned in 1791, and superseded in 1794 by the new theatre, the +burning of which in 1809 led to the _Rejected Addresses_. It has +recently come to light that Lamb was among the competitors who sent in +to the management the real addresses. The present Drury Lane Theatre +dates from 1812. + +Page 111, line 11. _My godfather F._ Lamb's godfather was Francis +Fielde. _The British Directory_ for 1793 gives him as Francis +Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn. Whether or no he played the part in +Sheridan's matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know +(Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an +invented story. Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the +oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, +in March, 1772, and placed her in France. They were married near +Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773. Sheridan became +manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first +performance under his control being on September 21. Lamb is supposed +to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan. Mary Lamb speaks +of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; +but of the work we know nothing definite. I do not consider the play +printed in part in the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb, on the +authority of P.G. Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to +Mary Lamb's description. + +Page 118, line 8. _His testamentary beneficence_. Lamb was not joking. +Writing to _The Athenaeum_, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:-- + + Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb's + possession I am happy to tell the world--or that small portion of + it to whom any fact about his life is precious--exactly where and + what this landed property is. By indentures of lease and release + dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two + yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis + Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the county + of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of L20., all that + messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, + edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances + therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West + Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said + county of Hertford, etc. On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New + Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of + two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, + real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde. + + This will was proved on November 5, 1809. By indentures of lease + and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed + the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, + gentleman. By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, + made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said + Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, + of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was + conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for L50. + +The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said +property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West +Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 +conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford's +Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same +condition as it was in 1815. + +The evidence that the Charles Lamb who conveyed the property in 1815 +is Elia himself is overwhelming. + +1. The essay itself gives the locality correctly: it is about two and +a half miles from Puckeridge. + +2. The plot of land contains as near as possible three-quarters of an +acre, with an old thatched cottage and small barn standing upon it. +The barn, specially mentioned in all the deeds, is a most unusual +adjunct of so small a cottage. The property, the deeds of which go +back to 1708, appears to have been isolated and held by small men, and +consists of a long narrow tongue of land jutting into the property now +of the Savile family (Earls of Mexborough), but formerly of the Earls +of Hardwicke. + +3. The witness to Charles Lamb's signature on the deed of 1815 is +William Hazlitt, of 19, York Street, Westminster. + +4. Lamb was living in Inner Temple Lane in 1815, and did not leave the +Temple till 1817. + +5. The essay was printed in the _London Magazine_ for December, 1821, +six years after "the estate has passed into more prudent hands." + +6. And lastly, the following letter in Charles Lamb's own handwriting, +found with the deeds which are in my possession, clinches the +matter:-- + + "MR. SARGUS,--This is to give you notice that I have parted with + the Cottage to Mr. Grig Junr. to whom you will pay rent from + Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not + wish you to pay me. I forgive it you as you may have been at some + expences in repairs. + + "Yours + + "CH. LAMB. + + "Inner Temple Lane, London, + + "_23 Feb., 1815._" + +It is certainly not the fact that Lamb acquired the property, as he +states, by the will of his godfather, for it was conveyed to him +some three years after the latter's death by Mrs. Fielde. But strict +accuracy of fact in Lamb's '_Essays_' we neither look for nor desire. +In all probability Mrs. Fielde conveyed him the property in accordance +with an expressed wish of her husband in his lifetime. Reading also +between the lines of the essay, it is interesting to notice that +Francis Fielde, the Holborn oilman of 1779, in 1809 has become Francis +Fielde, Esq., of New Cavendish Street. In the letter quoted above +Lamb speaks of his purchaser as "Mr. Grig Junr.," more, I am inclined +to think, from his desire to have his little joke than from mere +inaccuracy, for he must have known the correct name of his purchaser. +But Mr. Greg, Jun., was only just twenty-one when he bought the +property, and the expression "as merry as a grig" running in Lamb's +mind might have proved irresistible to him. Lastly, the property is +now called, and has been so far back as I can trace, "Button Snap." No +such name is found in any of the title-deeds, and it was impossible +before to understand whence it arose. Now it is not: Lamb must have so +christened his little property in jest, and the name has stuck. + +THOMAS GREG. + +Page 113, line 1. _The maternal lap_. With the exception of a brief +mention on page 33--"the gentle posture of maternal tenderness"--this +is Lamb's only reference to his mother in all the essays--probably +from the wish not to wound his sister, who would naturally read all he +wrote; although we are told by Talfourd that she spoke of her mother +with composure. But it is possible to be more sensitive for others +than they are for themselves. + +Page 113, line 3. _The play was Artaxerxes_. The opera, by Thomas +Augustine Arne (1710-1778), produced in 1762, founded on Metastasio's +"Artaserse." The date of the performance was in all probability +December 1, 1780, although Lamb suggests that it was later; for that +was the only occasion in 1780-81-82 on which "Artaxerxes" was followed +by "Harlequin's Invasion," a pantomime dating from 1759, the work of +Garrick. It shows Harlequin invading the territory of Shakespeare; +Harlequin is defeated and Shakespeare restored. + +Page 113, line 20. _The Lady of the Manor_. Here Lamb's memory, I +fancy, betrayed him. This play (a comic opera by William Kenrick) was +not performed at Drury Lane or Covent Garden in the period mentioned. +Lamb's pen probably meant to write "The Lord of the Manor," General +Burgoyne's opera, with music by William Jackson, of Exeter, which was +produced in 1780. It was frequently followed in the bill by "Robinson +Crusoe," but never by "Lun's Ghost," whereas Wycherley's "Way of the +World" was followed by "Lun's Ghost" at Drury Lane on January 9, 1782. +We may therefore assume that Lamb's second visit to the theatre was to +see "The Lord of the Manor," followed by "Robinson Crusoe," some time +in 1781, and his third to see "The Way of the World," followed by +"Lun's Ghost" on January 9, 1782. "Lun's Ghost" was produced on +January 3, 1782. Lun was the name under which John Rich (1682?-1761), +the pantomimist and theatrical manager, had played in pantomime. + +Page 113, last line. _Round Church ... of the Templars_. This allusion +to the Temple Church and its Gothic heads was used before by Lamb in +his story "First Going to Church" in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see +Vol. III.). In that volume Mary Lamb had told the story of what we +may take to be her first play (see "Visit to the Cousins"), the piece +being Congreve's "Mourning Bride." + +Page 114, line 1. _The season 1781-2_. Lamb was six on February 10, +1781. He says, in his "Play-house Memoranda," of the same occasion, +"Oh when shall I forget first seeing a play, at the age of five or +six?" + +Page 114, line 3. _At school_. Lamb was at Christ's Hospital from 1782 +to 1789. + +Page 114, end. _Mrs. Siddons in "Isabella."_ Mrs. Siddons first played +this part at Drury Lane on October 10, 1782. The play was "Isabella," +a version by Garrick of Southerne's "Fatal Marriage." Mrs. Siddons +also appeared frequently as Isabella in "Measure for Measure;" but +Lamb clearly says "in" Isabella, meaning the play. Lamb's sonnet, +in which he collaborated with Coleridge, on Mrs. Siddons, which was +printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ in December, 1794 (see Vol. IV.), +was written when he was nineteen. It runs (text of 1797):-- + + As when a child on some long winter's night + Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees + With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight + Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees + Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell; + Or of those hags, who at the witching time + Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, + And mingle foul embrace with fiends of Hell: + Cold Horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear + More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell + Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, + Murder'd by cruel Uncle's mandate fell: + Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, + Ev'n so thou, SIDDONS! meltest my sad heart! + + * * * * * + +Page 115. DREAM-CHILDREN. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1822. + +John Lamb died on October 26, 1821, leaving all his property to his +brother. Charles was greatly upset by his loss. Writing to Wordsworth +in March, 1822, he said: "We are pretty well save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to every thing, which I think I may +date from poor John's Loss.... Deaths over-set one, and put one out +long after the recent grief." (His friend Captain Burney died in the +same month.) Lamb probably began "Dream-Children,"--in some ways, +I think, his most perfect prose work--almost immediately upon his +brother's death. The essay "My Relations" may be taken in connection +with this as completing the picture of John Lamb. His lameness was +caused by the fall of a stone in 1796, but I doubt if the leg were +really amputated. + +The description in this essay of Blakesware, the seat of the Plumers, +is supplemented by the essay entitled "Blakesmoor in H----shire." +Except that Lamb substitutes Norfolk for the nearer county, the +description is accurate; it is even true that there is a legend in the +Plumer family concerning the mysterious death of two children and the +loss of the baronetcy thereby--Sir Walter Plumer, who died in the +seventeenth century, being the last to hold the title. In his poem +"The Grandame" (see Vol. IV.), Lamb refers to Mrs. Field's garrulous +tongue and her joy in recounting the oft-told tale; and it may be to +his early associations with the old story that his great affection +for Morton's play, "The Children in the Wood," which he so often +commended--particularly with Miss Kelly in the caste--was due. The +actual legend of the children in the wood belongs, however, to +Norfolk. + +William Plumer's newer and more fashionable mansion was at Gilston, +which is not in the adjoining county, but also in Hertfordshire, near +Harlow, only a few miles distant from Blakesware. Mrs. Field died +of cancer in the breast in August, 1792, and was buried in Widford +churchyard, hard by Blakesware. + +According to Lamb's Key the name Alice W----n was "feigned." If by +Alice W----n Lamb, as has been suggested, means Ann Simmons, of +Blenheims, near Blakesware, he was romancing when he said that he had +courted her for seven long years, although the same statement is made +in the essay on "New Year's Eve." We know that in 1796 he abandoned +all ideas of marriage. Writing to Coleridge in November of that year, +in reference to his love sonnets, he says: "It is a passion of which I +retain nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even +a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me." This was +1796. Therefore, as he was born in 1775, he must have begun the wooing +of Alice W----n when he was fourteen in order to complete the seven +long years of courtship. My own feeling, as I have stated in the notes +to the love sonnets in Vol. IV., is that Lamb was never a very serious +wooer, and that Alice W----n was more an abstraction around which now +and then to group tender imaginings of what might have been than any +tangible figure. + +A proof that Ann Simmons and Alice W----n are one has been found +in the circumstance that Miss Simmons did marry a Mr. Bartrum, or +Bartram, mentioned by Lamb in this essay as being the father of +Alice's real children. Bartrum was a pawnbroker in Princes Street, +Coventry Street. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that Hazlitt had seen Lamb +wandering up and down before the shop trying to get a glimpse of his +old friend. + + * * * * * + +Page 118. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1822. + +The germ of this essay will be found in a letter to Barron Field, to +whom the essay is addressed, of August 31, 1817. Barron Field was a +son of Henry Field, apothecary to Christ's Hospital. His brother, +Francis John Field, through whom Lamb probably came to know Barron, +was a clerk in the India House. + +Barron Field was associated with Lamb on Leigh Hunt's _Reflector_ in +1810-1812. He also was dramatic critic for _The Times_ for a while. In +1816 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, +where he remained until 1824. For other information see the note, in +Vol. I., to his _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_, reviewed by Lamb. +In the same number of the _London Magazine_ which included the present +essay was Field's account of his outward voyage to New South Wales. + +Page 119, line 24. _Our mutual friend P._ Not identifiable: probably +no one in particular. The Bench would be the King's Bench Prison. A +little later one of Lamb's friends, William Hone, was confined there +for three years. + +Page 121, line 8. _The late Lord C._ This was Thomas Pitt, second +Baron Camelford (1775-1804), who after a quarrelsome life, first in +the navy and afterwards as a man about town, was killed in a duel at +Kensington, just where Melbury Road now is. The spot chosen by him +for his grave was on the borders of the Lake of Lampierre, near three +trees; but there is a doubt if his body ever rested there, for it lay +for years in the crypt of St. Anne's, Soho. Its ultimate fate was the +subject of a story by Charles Reade. + +Page 123, line 11. _Bleach_. Illegitimacy, according to some old +authors, wears out in the third generation, enabling a natural son's +descendant to resume the ancient coat-of-arms. Lamb refers to this +sanction. + +Page 123, line 20. _Hare-court_. The Lambs lived at 4 Inner Temple +Lane (now rebuilt as Johnson's Buildings) from 1809 to 1817. Writing +to Coleridge in June, 1809, Lamb says:--"The rooms are delicious, and +the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always +going. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like +living in a garden." + +Barron Field was entered on the books of the Inner Temple in 1809 and +was called to the Bar in 1814. + +Page 123, last paragraph. _Sally W----r_. Lamb's Key gives "Sally +Winter;" but as to who she was we have no knowledge. + +Page 123, end. _J.W._ James White. See next essay. + + * * * * * + +Page 124. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1822, where it has a sub-title, "A May-Day +Effusion." + +This was not Lamb's only literary association with chimney-sweepers. +In Vol. I. of this edition will be found the description of a sweep +in the country which there is good reason to believe is Lamb's work. +Again, in 1824, James Montgomery, the poet, edited a book--_The +Chimney-Sweepers' Friend and Climbing Boys' Album_--with the +benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the +climbing boys' life and producing legislation to alleviate it. The +first half of the book is practical: reports of committees, and so +forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William +Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children +forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes. Among the +"favourite poets of the day" to whom Montgomery applied were Scott, +Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Joanna Baillie and Lamb. Lamb replied +by copying out (with the alteration of Toddy for Dacre) "The +Chimney-Sweeper" from Blake's _Songs of Innocence_, described by +Montgomery as "a very rare and curious little work." In that poem it +will be remembered the little sweep cries "weep, weep, weep." Lamb +compares the cry more prettily to the "peep, peep" of the sparrow. + +Page 125, line 6. _Shop ..._ Mr. Thomas Read's Saloop Coffee House was +at No. 102 Fleet Street. The following lines were painted on a board +in Read's establishment:-- + + Come, all degrees now passing by, + My charming liquor taste and try; + To Lockyer come, and drink your fill; + Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. + The fumes of wine, punch, drams and beer, + It will expell; your spirits cheer; + From drowsiness your spirits free. + Sweet as a rose your breath will be, + Come taste and try, and speak your mind; + Such rare ingredients here are joined, + Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind. + +Page 127, line 12 from foot. _The young Montagu_. Edward Wortley +Montagu (1713-1776), the traveller, ran away from Westminster School +more than once, becoming, among other things, a chimney-sweeper. + +Page 127, line 9 from foot. _Arundel Castle_. The Sussex seat of the +Dukes of Norfolk. The "late duke" was Charles Howard, eleventh duke, +who died in 1815, and who spent enormous sums of money on curiosities. +I can find no record of the story of the sweep. Perhaps Lamb invented +it, or applied it to Arundel. + +Page 128, line 14 from foot. _Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), +who was at Christ's Hospital with Lamb, and who wrote _Falstaff's +Letters_, 1796, in his company (see Vol. I.). "There never was his +like," Lamb told another old schoolfellow, Valentine Le Grice, in +1833; "we shall never see such days as those in which he flourished." +See the essay "On Some of the Old Actors," for an anecdote of White. + +Page 128, line 8 from foot. _The fair of St. Bartholomew_. Held +on September 3 at Smithfield, until 1855. George Daniel, in his +recollections of Lamb, records a visit they paid together to the Fair. +Lamb took Wordsworth through its noisy mazes in 1802. + +Page 129, line 14. _Bigod_. John Fenwick (see note to "The Two Races +of Men"). + +Leigh Hunt, in _The Examiner_ for May 5, 1822, quoted some of the best +sentences of this essay. On May 12 a correspondent (L.E.) wrote a very +agreeable letter supporting Lamb's plea for generosity to sweeps and +remarking thus upon Lamb himself:-- + + I read the modicum on "Chimney-Sweepers," which your last paper + contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that + sort of mind which you justly denominate "gifted;" but which is + greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because they have no + sympathies in common with it. Many who might partially appreciate + such a spirit, do nevertheless object to it, from the snap-dragon + nature of its coruscations, which shine themselves, but shew every + thing around them to disadvantage. Your deep philosophers also, + and all the laborious professors of the art of sinking, may + elevate their nasal projections, and demand "cui bono"? For my + part I prefer a little enjoyment to a great deal of philosophy. It + is these gifted minds that enliven our habitations, and contribute + so largely to those _every-day_ delights, which constitute, after + all, the chief part of mortal happiness. Such minds are ever + active--their light, like the vestal lamp, is ever burning--and in + my opinion the man who refines the common intercourse of life, and + wreaths the altars of our household gods with flowers, is more + deserving of respect and gratitude than all the sages who waste + their lives in elaborate speculations, which tend to nothing, and + which _we_ cannot comprehend--nor they neither. + +On June 2, however, "J.C.H." intervened to correct what he considered +the "dangerous spirit" of Lamb's essay, which said so little of the +hardships of the sweeps, but rather suggested that they were a happy +class. J.C.H. then put the case of the unhappy sweep with some +eloquence, urging upon all householders the claims of the mechanical +sweeping machine. + + * * * * * + +Page 130. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1822. + +The origin of this essay was the activity at that time of the Society +for the Suppression of Mendicity, founded in 1818, of which a Mr. W.H. +Bodkin was the Hon. Secretary. The Society's motto was "Benefacta male +collocata, malefacta existima;" and it attempted much the same work +now performed by the Charity Organisation Society. Perhaps the delight +expressed in its annual reports in the exposure of impostors was a +shade too hearty--at any rate one can see therein cause sufficient for +Lamb's counter-blast. Lamb was not the only critic of Mr. Bodkin's +zeal. Hood, in the _Odes and Addresses_, published in 1825, included a +remonstrance to Mr. Bodkin. + +The Society's activity led to a special commission of the House +of Commons in 1821 to inquire into the laws relating to vagrants, +concerning which Lamb speaks, the clergyman alluded to being Dr. +Henry Butts Owen, of Highgate. The result of the commission was an +additional stringency, brought about by Mr. George Chetwynd's bill. + +It was this essay, says Hood, which led to his acquaintance with +Charles Lamb. After its appearance in the _London Magazine_, of which +Hood was then sub-editor, he wrote Lamb a letter on coarse paper +purporting to come from a grateful beggar; Lamb did not admit the +discovery of the perpetrator of the joke, but soon afterwards Lamb +called on Hood when he was ill, and a friendship followed to which we +owe Hood's charming recollections of Lamb--among the best that were +written of him by any one. + +Page 131, line 14. _The Blind Beggar_. The reference is to the ballad +of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the _Percy +Reliques_ relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son +of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and +left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb had written "Earl of Flanders," which +he altered to "Earl of Cornwall" in _Elia_. The ballad says Earl of +Leicester. + +Page 131, line 28. _Dear Margaret Newcastle_. One of Lamb's recurring +themes of praise (see "The Two Races of Men," "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," and "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading"). +"Romancical," according to the _New English Dictionary_, is Lamb's own +word. This is the only reference given for it. + +Page 133, line 7. _Spital sermons_. On Monday of Easter week it was +the custom for the Christ's Hospital boys to walk in procession to the +Royal Exchange, and on Tuesday to the Mansion House; on each occasion +returning with the Lord Mayor to hear a special sermon--a spital +sermon, as it was called--and an anthem. The sermon is now preached +only on Easter Tuesday. + +Page 133, line 24. _Overseers of St. L----_. Lamb's Key states that +both the overseers and the mild rector were inventions. In the _London +Magazine_ the rector's parish is "P----." + +Page 133, line 27. _Vincent Bourne_. See Lamb's essay on Vincent +Bourne, Vol. I. This poem was translated by Lamb himself, and was +first published in _The Indicator_ for May 3, 1820. See Vol. IV. for +Lamb's other translations from Bourne. + +Page 135, line 2. _A well-known figure_. This beggar I take to be +Samuel Horsey. He is stated to have been known as the King of the +Beggars, and a very prominent figure in London. His mutilation is +ascribed to the falling of a piece of timber in Bow Lane, Cheapside, +some nineteen years before; but it may have been, as Lamb says, in the +Gordon Riots of 1780. + +There is the figure of Horsey on his little carriage, with several +other of the more notable beggars of the day plying their calling, +in an etching of old houses at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, made by J.T. Smith in 1789 for his _Ancient Topography of +London_, 1815. I give it in my large edition. + +Page 137, end of essay. _Feigned or not._ In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued thus:-- + + "'Pray God your honour relieve me,' said a poor beadswoman to my + friend L---- one day; 'I have seen better days.' 'So have I, my + good woman,' retorted he, looking up at the welkin which was just + then threatening a storm--and the jest (he will have it) was as + good to the beggar as a tester. + + "It was at all events kinder than consigning her to the stocks, or + the parish beadle-- + + "But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical light + on some occasions. + + "ELIA. + + "P.S.--My friend Hume (not MP.) has a curious manuscript in his + possession, the original draught of the celebrated 'Beggar's + Petition' (who cannot say by heart the 'Beggar's Petition?') as it + was written by some school usher (as I remember) with corrections + interlined from the pen of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the + doctor's improvement, I recollect one most judicious alteration-- + + "_A pamper'd menial drove me from the door._ + + "It stood originally-- + + "_A livery servant drove me, &c._ + + "Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly + substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against + Wordsworth. + + "I think I must get H. to send it to the LONDON, as a corollary to + the foregoing." + +The foregoing passage needs some commentary. Lamb's friend L---- was +Lamb himself. He tells the story to Manning in the letter of January +2,1810.--Lamb's friend Hume was Joseph Hume of the victualling office, +Somerset House, to whom letters from Lamb will be found in Mr. W.C. +Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900. Hume translated _The Inferno_ of +Dante into blank verse, 1812.--The "Beggar's Petition," a stock piece +for infant recitation a hundred years ago, was a poem beginning +thus:-- + + Pity the sorrows of a poor old man + Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, + Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; + Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. + +In the reference to Wordsworth Lamb pokes fun at the statement, in his +friend's preface to the second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, that +the purpose of that book was to relate or describe incidents and +situations from common life as far as possible in a selection of +language really used by men. + +Lamb's _P.S._ concerning the "Beggar's Petition" was followed in the +_London Magazine_ by this _N.B._:-- + + "N.B. I am glad to see JANUS veering about to the old quarter. I + feared he had been rust-bound. + + "C. being asked why he did not like Gold's 'London' as well as + ours--it was in poor S.'s time--replied-- + + "_--Because there is no WEATHERCOCK + And that's the reason why._" + +The explanation of this note is that "Janus Weathercock"--one of the +pseudonyms of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright--after a long absence from +its pages, had sent to the previous month's _London Magazine_, May, +1822, an amusing letter of criticism of that periodical, commenting on +some of its regular contributors. Therein he said: "Clap Elia on the +back for such a series of good behaviour."--Who C. is cannot be said; +possibly Lamb, as a joke, intends Coleridge to be indicated; but poor +S. would be John Scott, the first editor of the _London Magazine_, +who was killed in a duel. C.'s reply consisted of the last lines +of Wordsworth's "Anecdote for Fathers; or, Falsehood Corrected." +Accurately they run:-- + + At Kelve there was no weather-cock + And that's the reason why. + +The hero of this poem was a son of Lamb's friend Basil Montagu. + +Gold's _London Magazine_ was a contemporary of the better known London +magazine of the same name. In Vol. III. appeared an article entitled +"The Literary Ovation," describing an imaginary dinner-party given by +Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock & Joy in February, 1821, at which Lamb was +supposed to be present and to sing a song by Webster, one of his old +dramatists. Mr. Bertram Dobell conjectures that Wainewright may have +written this squib. + + * * * * * + +Page 137. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1822. + +There has been some discussion as to the origin of the central idea of +this essay. A resemblance is found in a passage in _The Turkish Spy_, +where, after describing the annual burnt-offering of a bull by the +Athenians, _The Spy_ continues:-- + + In process of time a certain priest, in the midst of his bloody + sacrifice, taking up a piece of the broiled flesh which had fallen + from the altar on the ground, and burning his fingers therewith, + suddenly clapt them to his mouth to mitigate the pain. But, when + he had once tasted the sweetness of the fat, not only longed for + more of it, but gave a piece to his assistant; and he to others; + who, all pleased with the new-found dainties, fell to eating of + flesh greedily. And hence this species of gluttony was taught to + other mortals. + + +"Este," a contributor to _Notes and Queries_, June 21, 1884, wrote:-- + + A quarto volume of forty-six pages, once in "Charles Lamb's + library" (according to a pencilled note in the volume) is before + me, entitled: _Gli Elogi del Porco, Capitoli Berneschi di Tigrinto + Bistonio P.A., E. Accademico Ducale de' Dissonanti di Modena. + In Modena per gli Eredi di Bartolmeo Soliani Stampatori Ducali + MDCCLXI. Con Licenza de' Superiori_, [wherein] some former owner + of the volume has copied out Lamb's prose with many exact verbal + resemblances from the poem. + +It has also been suggested that Porphyry's tract on _Abstinence from +Animal Food_, translated by William Taylor, bears a likeness to the +passage. Taylor's translation, however, was not published till 1823, +some time after Lamb's essay. + +These parallels merely go to show that the idea was a commonplace; at +the same time it is not Lamb, but Manning, who told him the story, +that must declare its origin. Not only in the essay, but in a letter +to Barton in March, 1823, does Lamb express his indebtedness to his +traveller friend. Allsop, indeed, in his _Letters of Coleridge_, +claims to give the Chinese story which Manning lent to Lamb and which +produced the "Dissertation." It runs thus:-- + + A child, in the early ages, was left alone by its mother in a + house in which was a pig. A fire took place; the child escaped, + the pig was burned. The child scratched and pottered among the + ashes for its pig, which at last it found. All the provisions + being burnt, the child was very hungry, and not yet having any + artificial aids, such as golden ewers and damask napkins, began to + lick or suck its fingers to free them from the ashes. A piece of + fat adhered to one of his thumbs, which, being very savoury alike + in taste and odour, he rightly judged to belong to the pig. Liking + it much, he took it to his mother, just then appearing, who also + tasted it, and both agreed that it was better than fruit or + vegetables. + + They rebuilt the house, and the woman, after the fashion of good + wives, who, says the chronicle, are now very scarce, put a pig + into it, and was about to set it on fire, when an old man, one + whom observation and reflection had made a philosopher, suggested + that a pile of wood would do as well. (This must have been the + father of economists.) The next pig was killed before it was + roasted, and thus + + "From low beginnings, + We date our winnings." + +Manning, by the way, contributed articles on Chinese jests to the _New +Monthly Magazine_ in 1826. + +A preliminary sketch of the second portion of this essay will be found +in the letter to Coleridge dated March 9, 1822. See also the letters +to Mr. and Mrs. Bruton, January 6, 1823, to Mrs. Collier, November 2, +1824, and to H. Dodwell, October 7, 1827, all in acknowledgment of +pigs sent to Lamb probably from an impulse found in this essay. + +Later, Lamb abandoned the extreme position here taken. In the little +essay entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," 1833 (see Vol. I.), he +says: "Time was, when Elia ... preferred to all a roasted pig. But he +disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future." + +Page 141, verse. "Ere sin could blight ..." From Coleridge's "Epitaph +on an Infant." + +Page 142, line 7 from foot. _My good old aunt_. Probably Aunt Hetty. +See the essay on "Christ's Hospital," for another story of her. The +phrase, "Over London Bridge," unless an invention, suggests that +before this aunt went to live with the Lambs--probably not until they +left the Temple in 1792--she was living on the Surrey side. But it was +possibly an Elian mystification. Lamb had another aunt, but of her we +know nothing. + +Page 143, line 11 from foot. _St. Omer's_. The French Jesuit College. +Lamb, it is unnecessary to say, was never there. + + * * * * * + +Page 144. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE. + +This is, by many years, the earliest of these essays. It was printed +first in _The Reflector_, No. IV., in 1811 or 1812. When Lamb brought +his _Works_ together, in 1818, he omitted it. In September, 1822, it +appeared in the _London Magazine_ as one of the reprints of Lamb's +earlier writings, of which the "Confessions of a Drunkard" (see Vol. +I.)was the first. In that number also appeared the "Dissertation upon +Roast Pig," thereby offering the reader an opportunity of comparing +Lamb's style in 1811 with his riper and richer style of 1822. The +germ of the essay must have been long in Lamb's mind, for we find him +writing to Hazlitt in 1805 concerning Mrs. Rickman: "A good-natured +woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, +whom you got acquainted with as a bachelor." + +Page 147, line 6. "_Love me, love my dog_." See "Popular Fallacies," +page 302, for an expansion of this paragraph. + + * * * * * + +Page 150. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS. + +In February, 1822, Lamb began a series of three articles in the +_London Magazine_ on "The Old Actors." The second was printed in April +and the third in October of the same year. Afterwards, in reprinting +them in _Elia_, he rearranged them into the essays, "On Some of the +Old Actors," "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century," and "On +the Acting of Munden," omitting a considerable portion altogether. The +essay in its original tripart form will be found in the Appendix to +this volume. + +In one of his theatrical notices in _The Examiner_ (see Vol. I.) Lamb +remarks, "Defunct merit comes out upon us strangely," and certain +critics believe that he praised some of the old actors beyond their +deserts. But no one can regret any such excesses. + +Page 150, beginning. _Twelfth Night_. When recalling early playgoing +days in "Old China," Lamb refers again to this play--Viola in Illyria. + +Page 150, foot. _Whitfield, Packer, Benson, Burton, Phillimore_ and +_Barrymore_. Whitfield, who made his London debut as Trueman in +"George Barnwell" about 1776, was a useful man at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--John Hayman Packer (1730-1806), known in Lamb's time for +his old men. He acted at Drury Lane until 1805.--Benson, who married a +sister of Mrs. Stephen Kemble, wrote one or two plays, and was a good +substitute in emergencies. He committed suicide during brain fever +in 1796.--Burton was a creditable utility actor at Covent Garden and +Drury Lane.--Phillimore filled small parts at Drury Lane.--Barrymore +was of higher quality, a favourite character actor both at Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. + +Page 151, line 6. _Mrs. Jordan_. Mrs. Jordan, born in 1762, ceased to +act in England in 1814 and died in 1816. Nell was her famous part, in +Coffey's "The Devil to Pay." Miss Hoyden is in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." +Lamb is referring to Viola in Act I., Scene 5, and Act II., Scene 4, +of "Twelfth Night." + +Page 151, line 8 from foot. _Mrs. Powel_. Mrs. Powel, previously known +as Mrs. Farmer, and afterwards Mrs. Renaud, was at Drury Lane from +1788 to 1811. She ended her London career in 1816 and died in 1829. + +Page 152, line 8. _Of all the actors_. The _London Magazine_ article +began at this point. Robert Bensley (1738?-1817?) was at Drury +Lane from 1775 to 1796, when he retired (alternating it with the +Haymarket). G.H. Boaden and George Colman both bear out Lamb's eulogy +of Bensley as Malvolio; but otherwise he is not the subject of much +praise. + +Page 152, line 15. _Venetian incendiary_. Pierre in Otway's "Venice +Preserved." Lamb appended the passage in a footnote in the _London +Magazine_. + +Page 153, line 12. _Baddeley ... Parsons ... John Kemble_. Robert +Baddeley (1733-1794), the husband of Mrs. Baddeley, and the original +Moses in the "School for Scandal." William Parsons (1736-1795), the +original Crabtree in the "School for Scandal," and a favourite actor +of Lamb's. John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), who managed Drury Lane from +1788 to 1801. + +Page 153, line 11 from foot. _Of birth and feeling_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 153, line 6 from foot. _Length of service_. In the _London +Magazine_ a footnote came here (see page 316). + +Page 154, line 24. _House of misrule_. A long passage came here in the +_London Magazine_ (see page 317). + +Page 154, line 8 from foot. _Hero of La Mancha_. Compare a similar +analysis of Don Quixote's character on page 264. + +Page 155, line 23. _Dodd_. James William Dodd (1740?-1796). + +Page 155, line 24. _Lovegrove_. William Lovegrove (1778-1816), famous +in old comedy parts and as Peter Fidget in "The Boarding House." + +Page 155, foot. _The gardens of Gray's Inn._ These gardens are said to +have been laid out under the supervision of Bacon, who retained his +chambers in the Inn until his death. As Dodd died in 1796 and Lamb +wrote in 1822, it would be fully twenty-six years and perhaps more +since Lamb met him. + +Page 156, lines 26-29. _Foppington, etc._ Foppington in Vanbrugh's +"Relapse," Tattle in Congreve's "Love for Love," Backbite in +Sheridan's "School for Scandal," Acres in "The Rivals" by the same +author, and Fribble in Garrick's "Miss in her Teens." + +Page 157, line 13. _If few can remember._ The praise of Suett that +follows is interpolated here from the third part of Lamb's original +essay (see page 332). Richard Suett, who had been a Westminster +chorister (not St. Paul's), left the stage in June, 1805, and died in +July. + +Page 157, footnote, _Jem White_. See note above. + +Page 158, line 22. _His friend Mathews._ Charles Mathews (1776-1835), +whom Lamb knew. + +Page 159, line 1. _Jack Bannister._ John Bannister retired from the +stage in 1815. He died in 1836. + +Page 159, line 7. _Children in the Wood._ Morton's play, of which Lamb +was so fond. It is mentioned again in "Barbara S----" and "Old China." + +Page 159, line 19. _The elder Palmer._ The first part of the essay is +here resumed again. The elder Palmer was John Palmer, who died on the +stage, in 1798, when playing in "The Stranger." Lamb's remarks tend +to confuse him with Gentleman Palmer, who died before Lamb was born. +Robert Palmer, John's brother, died about 1805. + +Page 159, line 22. _Moody_. John Moody (1727?-1812), famous as Teague +in "The Committee." + +Page 159, lines 31 to 36. _The Duke's Servant, etc._ The Duke's +servant in Garrick's "High Life below Stairs," Captain Absolute in +Sheridan's "Rivals," Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's "Confederacy." + +Page 160, line 1. _Young Wilding ... Joseph Surface._ In Foote's +"Liar" and Sheridan's "School for Scandal." + + * * * * * + +Page 161. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors." + +See also "A Vision of Horns" (Vol. I.) for, as it seems to me, a +whimsical extension to the point of absurdity of the theory expressed +in this essay--a theory which Lord Macaulay, in his review of Leigh +Hunt's edition of the Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, etc., in +1840, opposed with characteristic vigour. + +Hartley Coleridge, in a letter to Edward Moxon concerning Leigh Hunt's +edition of Wycherley and Congreve, happily remarked: "Nothing more or +better can be said in defence of these writers than what Lamb has said +in his delightful essay ... which is, after all, rather an apology for +the audiences who applauded and himself who delighted in their plays, +than for the plays themselves.... But Lamb always took things by the +better handle." + +Page 163, line 16. _The Fainalls, etc_. Fainall in Congreve's "Way +of the World," Mirabel in Farquhar's "Inconstant," Dorimant in +Etheredge's "Man of Mode," and Lady Touchstone in Congreve's "Double +Dealer." + +Page 163, line 12 from foot. _Angelica_. In "Love for Love." + +Page 164, line 26, etc. _Sir Simon, etc_. All these characters are in +Wycherley's "Love in a Wood." + +Page 166, line 21. _King_. Thomas King (1730-1805), at one time +manager of Drury Lane, the original Sir Peter Teazle, on May 8, 1777, +the first night of the "School for Scandal," and the most famous actor +in the part until he retired in 1802. + +Page 167, line 14. _Miss Pope_. Jane Pope (1742-1818), the original +Mrs. Candour, left the stage in 1808. + +Page 167, line 15 from foot. _Manager's comedy_. Sheridan was manager +of Drury Lane when the "School for Scandal" was produced. + +Page 167, same line. _Miss Farren ... Mrs. Abingdon_. Elizabeth +Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, played Lady Teazle for the last +time in 1797. Mrs. Abingdon had retired from Drury Lane in 1782. + +Page 167, line 10 from foot. _Smith_. "Gentleman" Smith took his +farewell of the stage, as Charles Surface, in 1788. + +Page 168, end of essay. _Fashionable tragedy_. See page 328, line 21, +for the continuation of this essay in the _London Magazine_. + + * * * * * + +Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN. + +See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors" above. Lamb lifted +this essay into the _London Magazine_ from _The Examiner_, where it +had appeared on November 7 and 8, 1819, with slight changes. + +Page 168, title. _Munden_. Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832) acted at +Covent Garden practically continuously from 1790 to 1811. He moved +to Drury Lane in 1813, and remained there till the end. His farewell +performance was on May 31, 1824. We know Lamb to have met Munden from +Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_. + +Page 168, line 2 of essay. _Cockletop_. In O'Keeffe's farce "Modern +Antiques." This farce is no longer played, although a skilful hand +might, I think, make it attractive to our audiences. Barry Cornwall in +his memoir of Lamb has a passage concerning Munden as Cockletop, which +helps to support Lamb's praise. Support is not necessary, but useful; +it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live +only in the praise of his critics. + + In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed + him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of + the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor. + Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary + credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an + almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people + around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon. + What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial + visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true. + The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial + nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's + tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it. + "What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands + a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern + gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit + ditties of no tone;" and you imagine AEolian strains. At last, + William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat + him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the + scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of + acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap + of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and + solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning + himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and + enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he + tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and + finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly, + and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear + the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you + tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile, + and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint + in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several + times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of + Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that + archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the + son of Hagar, wandered about the Judaean deserts and became an + archer. + +Page 169, line 16. _Edwin_. This would probably be John Edwin the +Elder (1749-1790). But John Edwin the Younger (1768-1805) might have +been meant. He was well known in Nipperkin, one of Munden's parts. + +Page 169, line 21. _Farley...Knight...Liston_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), mainly known as the deviser of Covent Garden pantomimes; +Edward Knight (1774-1826), an eccentric little comedian; John Listen +(1776?-1846), whose mock biography Lamb wrote (see Vol. I.). + +Page 169, line 7 from foot. _Sir Christopher Curry...Old Dornton_. Sir +Christopher in "Inkle and Yarico," by the younger Colman; Old Dornton +in Holcroft's "Road to Ruin." + +Page 170, line 6. _The Cobbler of Preston_. A play, founded on "The +Taming of the Shrew," by Charles Johnson, written in 1716. + + + + +THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA + + +Page 171. PREFACE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823, where it was entitled "A Character +of the late Elia. By a Friend." Signed Phil-Elia. Lamb did not reprint +it for ten years, and then with certain omissions. + +In the _London Magazine_ the "Character" began thus:-- + + "A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA + + "BY A FRIEND + + "This gentleman, who for some months past had been in a declining + way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. He just + lived long enough (it was what he wished) to see his papers + collected into a volume. The pages of the LONDON MAGAZINE will + henceforth know him no more. + + "Exactly at twelve last night his queer spirit departed, and + the bells of Saint Bride's rang him out with the old year. The + mournful vibrations were caught in the dining-room of his friends + T. and H.; and the company, assembled there to welcome in another + First of January, checked their carousals in mid-mirth and were + silent. Janus wept. The gentle P----r, in a whisper, signified his + intention of devoting an Elegy; and Allan C----, nobly forgetful + of his countrymen's wrongs, vowed a Memoir to his _manes_, full + and friendly as a Tale of Lyddal-cross." + +_Elia_ had just been published when this paper appeared, and it was +probably Lamb's serious intention to stop the series. He was, however, +prevailed to continue. T. and H. were Taylor & Hessey, the owners of +the _London Magazine_. Janus was Janus Weathercock, Thomas Griffiths +Wainewright; P----r was Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, who +afterwards wrote Lamb's life, and Allan C---- was Allan Cunningham, +who called himself "Nalla" in the _London Magazine_. "The Twelve Tales +of Lyddal Cross" ran serially in the magazine in 1822. + +Page 171, line 9 from foot. _A former Essay_. In the _London Magazine_ +"his third essay," referring to "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty +Years Ago." + +Page 172, line 7. _My late friend_. The opening sentences of this +paragraph seem to have been deliberately modelled, as indeed is the +whole essay, upon Sterne's character of Yorick in _Tristram Shandy_, +Vol. I., Chapter XI. + +Page 172, line 12 from foot. _It was hit or miss with him_. Canon +Ainger has pointed out that Lamb's description of himself in +company is corroborated by Hazlitt in his essay "On Coffee-House +Politicians":-- + + I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in + the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company + he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom + it may be said, _Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your + manners_. He is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever + opinion you seem to entertain of him. He cannot outgo the + apprehensions of the circle; and invariably acts up or down to + the point of refinement or vulgarity at which they pitch him. He + appears to take a pleasure in exaggerating the prejudices of + strangers against him; a pride in confirming the prepossessions + of friends. In whatever scale of intellect he is placed, he is as + lively or as stupid as the rest can be for their lives. If you + think him odd and ridiculous, he becomes more and more so every + minute, _a la folie_, till he is a wonder gazed at by all--set him + against a good wit and a ready apprehension, and he brightens more + and more ... + +P.G. Patmore's testimony is also corroborative:-- + + To those who did not know him, or, knowing, did not or could + not appreciate him, Lamb often passed for something between an + imbecile, a brute, and a buffoon; and the first impression he made + on ordinary people was always unfavourable--sometimes to a violent + and repulsive degree. + +Page 174, line 3. _Some of his writings_. In the _London Magazine_ the +essay did not end here. It continued:-- + + "He left property behind him. Of course, the little that is left + (chiefly in India bonds) devolves upon his cousin Bridget. A few + critical dissertations were found in his escritoire, which have + been handed over to the Editor of this Magazine, in which it is + to be hoped they will shortly appear, retaining his accustomed + signature. + + "He has himself not obscurely hinted that his employment lay in a + public office. The gentlemen in the Export department of the East + India House will forgive me, if I acknowledge the readiness with + which they assisted me in the retrieval of his few manuscripts. + They pointed out in a most obliging manner the desk at which he + had been planted for forty years; showed me ponderous tomes of + figures, in his own remarkably neat hand, which, more properly + than his few printed tracts, might be called his 'Works.' They + seemed affectionate to his memory, and universally commended his + expertness in book-keeping. It seems he was the inventor of some + ledger, which should combine the precision and certainty of the + Italian double entry (I think they called it) with the brevity + and facility of some newer German system--but I am not able to + appreciate the worth of the discovery. I have often heard him + express a warm regard for his associates in office, and how + fortunate he considered himself in having his lot thrown + in amongst them. There is more sense, more discourse, more + shrewdness, and even talent, among these clerks (he would say) + than in twice the number of authors by profession that I have + conversed with. He would brighten up sometimes upon the 'old + days of the India House,' when he consorted with Woodroffe, and + Wissett, and Peter Corbet (a descendant and worthy representative, + bating the point of sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet), and + Hoole who translated Tasso, and Bartlemy Brown whose father (God + assoil him therefore) modernised Walton--and sly warm-hearted old + Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those days), and Campe, + and Fombelle--and a world of choice spirits, more than I can + remember to name, who associated in those days with Jack Burrell + (the _bon vivant_ of the South Sea House), and little Eyton (said + to be a _facsimile_ of Pope--he was a miniature of a gentleman) + that was cashier under him, and Dan Voight of the Custom House + that left the famous library. + + "Well, Elia is gone--for aught I know, to be reunited with + them--and these poor traces of his pen are all we have to show for + it. How little survives of the wordiest authors! Of all they said + or did in their lifetime, a few glittering words only! His Essays + found some favourers, as they appeared separately; they shuffled + their way in the crowd well enough singly; how they will _read_, + now they are brought together, is a question for the publishers, + who have thus ventured to draw out into one piece his 'weaved-up + follies.' + + "PHIL-ELIA." + +This passage calls for some remark. Cousin Bridget was, of course, +Mary Lamb.--Lamb repeated the joke about his _Works_ in his +"Autobiography" (see Vol. I.) and in "The Superannuated Man."--Some +record of certain of the old clerks mentioned by Lamb still remains; +but I can find nothing of the others. Whether or not Peter Corbet +really derived from the Bishop we do not know, but the facetious +Bishop Corbet was Richard Corbet (1582-1635), Bishop of Oxford and +Norwich, whose conviviality was famous and who wrote the "Fairies' +Farewell." John Hoole (1727-1803), who translated Tasso and wrote the +life of Scott of Amwell and a number of other works, was principal +auditor at the end of his time at the India House. He retired about +1785, when Lamb was ten years old. Writing to Coleridge on January 5, +1797, Lamb speaks of Hoole as "the great boast and ornament of the +India House," and says that he found Tasso, in Hoole's translation, +"more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared." The moderniser +of Walton would be Moses Browne (1704-1787), whose edition of _The +Complete Angler_, 1750, was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. +Johnson. + + * * * * * + +Page 174. BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE + +_London Magazine_, September, 1824. + +With this essay Lamb made his reappearance in the magazine, after +eight months' absence. + +By Blakesmoor Lamb meant Blakesware, the manor-house near Widford, in +Hertfordshire, where his grandmother, Mary Field, had been housekeeper +for many years. Compare the essay "Dream-Children." + +Blakesware, which was built by Sir Francis Leventhorpe about 1640, +became the property of the Plumers in 1683, being then purchased by +John Plumer, of New Windsor, who died in 1718. It descended to William +Plumer, M.P. for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, and afterwards for +Hertfordshire, who died in 1767, and was presumably Mrs. Field's first +employer. His widow and the younger children remained at Blakesware +until Mrs. Plumer's death in 1778, but the eldest son, William Plumer, +moved at once to Gilston, a few miles east of Blakesware, a mansion +which for a long time was confused with Blakesware by commentators on +Lamb. This William Plumer, who was M.P. for Lewes, for Hertfordshire, +and finally for Higham Ferrers, and a governor of Christ's Hospital, +kept up Blakesware after his mother's death in 1778 (when Lamb was +three) exactly as before, but it remained empty save for Mrs. Field +and the servants under her. Mrs. Field became thus practically +mistress of it, as Lamb says in "Dream-Children." Hence the increased +happiness of her grandchildren when they visited her. Mrs. Field died +in 1792, when Lamb was seventeen. William Plumer died in 1822, aged +eighty-six, having apparently arranged with his widow, who continued +at Gilston, that Blakesware should be pulled down--a work of +demolition which at once was begun. This lady, _nee_ Jane Hamilton, +afterwards married a Mr. Lewin, and then, in 1828, Robert Ward +(1765-1846), author of _Tremaine_ and other novels, who took the name +of Plumer-Ward, and may be read of, together with curious details of +Gilston House, in P.G. Patmore's _My Friends and Acquaintances_. + +Nothing now remains but a few mounds, beneath which are bricks and +rubble. The present house is a quarter of a mile behind the old +one, high on the hill. In Lamb's day this hillside was known as the +Wilderness, and where now is turf were formal walks with clipped yew +hedges and here and there a statue. The stream of which he speaks is +the Ashe, running close by the walls of the old house. Standing there +now, among the trees which mark its site, it is easy to reconstruct +the past as described in the essay. + +The Twelve Caesars, the tapestry and other more notable possessions of +Blakesware, although moved to Gilston on the demolition of Blakesware, +are there no longer, and their present destination is a mystery. +Gilston was pulled down in 1853, following upon a sale by auction, +when all its treasures were dispersed. Some, I have discovered, +were bought by the enterprising tenant of the old Rye House Inn +at Broxbourne, but absolute identification of anything now seems +impossible. + +Blakesware is again described in _Mrs. Leicester's School_, in Mary +Lamb's story of "The Young Mahometan." There the Twelve Caesars are +spoken of as hanging on the wall, as if they were medallions; but Mr. +E.S. Bowlby tells me that he perfectly remembers the Twelve Caesars at +Gilston, about 1850, as busts, just as Lamb says. In "Rosamund Gray" +(see Vol. I.) Lamb describes the Blakesware wilderness. See also notes +to "The Last Peach," Vol. I., to "Dream-Children" in this volume, and +to "Going or Gone," Vol. IV. + +Lamb has other references to Blakesware and the irrevocability of his +happiness there as a child, in his letters. Writing to Southey on +October 31, 1799, he says:--"Dear Southey,--I have but just got +your letter, being returned from Herts, where I have passed a few +red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to +you, as you have done by Devonshire; but alas! I am a poor pen at that +same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bedroom, the +'Judgment of Solomon' composing one pannel, and 'Actaeon spying Diana +naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's +prints, and the Roman Caesars in marble hung round. I could tell of +a _wilderness_, and of a village church, and where the bones of my +honoured grandam lie; but there are feelings which refuse to be +translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised in another +soil. Of this nature are old family faces, and scenes of infancy." + +And again, to Bernard Barton, in August, 1827:--"You have well +described your old-fashioned grand paternall Hall. Is it not odd that +every one's earliest recollections are of some such place. I had my +Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the 'London'). Nothing fills a child's mind +like a large old Mansion ... better if un- or partially-occupied; +peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the County and +Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of +one, with my feelings at 7 years old! + +"Those marble busts of the Emperors, they seem'd as if they were to +stand for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in +that old Marble Hall, and I to partake of their permanency; Eternity +was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are +toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old Dwelling and +its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about +the grounds escaped his scythe only by my littleness. Ev'n now he is +whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. +Well!" + +Writing to Barton in August, 1824, concerning the present essay, Lamb +describes it as a "futile effort ... 'wrung from me with slow pain'." + +Page 175, line 15 from foot. _Mrs. Battle_. There was a haunted room +at Blakesware, but the suggestion that the famous Mrs. Battle died +in it was probably due to a sudden whimsical impulse. Lamb states in +"Dream-Children" that Mrs. Field occupied this room. + +Page 177, line 22. _The hills of Lincoln_. See Lamb's sonnet "On the +Family Name," Vol. IV. Lamb's father came from Lincoln. + +Page 177, line 11 from foot. _Those old W----s_. Lamb thus disguised +the name of Plumer. He could not have meant Wards, for Robert Ward did +not marry William Plumer's widow till four years after this essay was +printed. + +Page 178, line 2. _My Alice_. See notes to "Dream-Children." + +Page 178, line 2. _Mildred Elia, I take it_. Alter these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came this passage:-- + + "From her, and from my passion for her--for I first learned love + from a picture--Bridget took the hint of those pretty whimsical + lines, which thou mayst see, if haply thou hast never seen them, + Reader, in the margin.[1] But my Mildred grew not old, like the + imaginery Helen." + +This ballad, written in gentle ridicule of Lamb's affection for the +Blakesware portrait, and Mary Lamb's first known poem, was printed in +the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, and in the _Works_, 1818. + +[Footnote 1: + "High-born Helen, round your dwelling, + These twenty years I've paced in vain: + Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty + Hath been to glory in his pain. + + "High-born Helen, proudly telling + Stories of thy cold disdain; + I starve, I die, now you comply, + And I no longer can complain. + + "These twenty years I've lived on tears, + Dwelling for ever on a frown; + On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; + I perish now you kind are grown. + + "Can I, who loved ray beloved + But for the scorn 'was in her eye,' + Can I be moved for my beloved, + When she returns me sigh for sigh? + + "In stately pride, by my bedside, + High-born Helen's portrait hung; + Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays + Are nightly to the portrait sung. + + "To that I weep, nor ever sleep, + Complaining all night long to her.-- + Helen, grown old, no longer cold, + Said--'you to all men I prefer.'"] + + * * * * * + +Page 178. POOR RELATIONS. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1823. + +Page 179, line 10. _A pound of sweet._ After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came one more descriptive clause--"the bore _par +excellence_." + +Page 181, line 4, _Richard Amlet, Esq._ In "The Confederacy" by Sir +John Vanbrugh--a favourite part of John Palmer's (see the essay "On +Some of the Old Actors"). + +Page 181, line 16. _Poor W----_. In the Key Lamb identifies W---- with +Favell, who "left Cambridge because he was asham'd of his father, who +was a house-painter there." Favell has already been mentioned in the +essay on "Christ's Hospital." + +Page 183, line 22. _At Lincoln._ The Lambs, as we have seen, came from +Lincolnshire. The old feud between the Above and Below Boys seems now +to have abated, but a social gulf between the two divisions of the +city remains. + +Page 184, line 11 from foot. _John Billet_. Probably not the real +name. Lamb gives the innkeeper at Widford, in "Rosamund Gray," the +name of Billet, when it was really Clemitson. + + * * * * * + +Page 185. STAGE ILLUSION. + +_London Magazine_, August, 1825, where it was entitled "Imperfect +Dramatic Illusion." + +This was, I think, Lamb's last contribution to the _London_, which had +been growing steadily heavier and less hospitable to gaiety. Some one, +however, contributed to it from time to time papers more or less in +the Elian manner. There had been one in July, 1825, on the Widow +Fairlop, a lady akin to "The Gentle Giantess." In September, 1825, was +an essay entitled "The Sorrows of ** ***" (an ass), which might, +both from style and sympathy, be almost Lamb's; but was, I think, by +another hand. And in January, 1826, there was an article on whist, +with quotations from Mrs. Battle, deliberately derived from her +creator. These and other essays are printed in Mr. Bertram Dobell's +_Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903, with interesting comments. + +The present essay to some extent continues the subject treated of in +"The Artificial Comedy," but it may be taken also as containing some +of the matter of the promised continuation of the essay "On the +Tragedies of Shakspeare," which was to deal with the comic characters +of that dramatist (see Vol. I.). + +Page 185, line 15 from foot. _Jack Bannister_. See notes to the essay +on "The Old Actors." His greatest parts were not those of cowards; but +his Bob Acres was justly famous. Sir Anthony Absolute and Tony Lumpkin +were perhaps his chief triumphs. He left the stage in 1815. + +Page 186, line 24. _Gatty_. Henry Gattie (1774-1844), famous for +old-man parts, notably Monsieur Morbleu in Moncrieffs "Monsieur +Tonson." He was also the best Dr. Caius, in "The Merry Wives of +Windsor," of his time. He left the stage in 1833, and settled down as +a tobacconist and raconteur at Oxford. + +Page 186, line 30. _Mr. Emery._ John Emery (1777-1822), the best +impersonator of countrymen in his day. Zekiel Homespun in Colman's +"Heir at Law" was one of his great parts. Tyke was in Morton's "School +of Reform," produced in 1805, and no one has ever played it so well. +He also played Caliban with success. + +Page 187, line 4 from foot. _A very judicious actor._ This actor +I have not identified. Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843) was a dashing +comedian, a Wyndham of his day. In "Free and Easy" he played Sir John +Freeman. + + * * * * * + +Page 188. To THE SHADE OF ELLISTON. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831, where it formed, with the +following essay, one article, under the title "Reminiscences of +Elliston." + +Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), actor and manager, famous for his +stage lovers, both in comedy and tragedy. His Charles Surface was said +to be unequalled, and both in Hotspur and Hamlet he was great. His +last performance was in June, 1831, a very short time before his +death. + +Page 189, line 7. _Thin ghosts._ In the _London Magazine_ the passage +ran:-- + + "Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) admire, while + with uplifted toe retributive you inflict vengeance incorporeal + upon the shadowy rear of obnoxious author, just arrived:-- + + "'what _seem'd_ his tail + The likeness of a kingly kick had on. + * * * * * + "'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout + Vital in every part, not as frail man + In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, + Can in the liquid texture mortal wound + Receive no more, than can the liquid air, + All heart they live, all head, all eye.'" + +Page 189, line 11 from foot. _A la Foppington_. In Vanbrugh's +"Relapse." + +In the _Englishman's Magazine_ the article ended, after "Plaudito, et +Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive at +his d----n." + +The article was signed Mr. H., the point being that Elliston had +played Mr. H. at Drury Lane in Lamb's unlucky farce of that name in +1806. + + * * * * * + +Page 190. ELLISTONIANA. + +See note at the head of "To the Shade of Elliston," above. + +Page 190, line 3 of essay. _My first introduction._ This paragraph was +a footnote in the _Englishman's Magazine_. Elliston, according to +the _Memoirs_ of him by George Raymond, which have Lamb's phrase, +"Joyousest of once embodied spirits," for motto, opened a circulating +library at Leamington in the name of his sons William and Henry, and +served there himself at times. + +Possibly Lamb was visiting Charles Chambers at Leamington when he saw +Elliston. That he did see him there we know from Raymond's book, where +an amusing occurrence is described, illustrating Munden's frugality. +It seems that Lamb, Elliston and Munden drove together to Warwick +Castle. On returning Munden stopped the carriage just outside +Leamington, on the pretext that he had to make a call on an old +friend--a regular device, as Elliston explained, to avoid being +present at the inn when the hire of the carriage was paid. + +Page 191, line 11. _Wrench_. See notes to "The Old Actors." Wrench +succeeded Elliston at Bath, and played in the same parts, and with +something of the same manner. + +Page 191, line 11 from foot. _Appelles ... G.D._ Apelles, painter to +Alexander the Great, was said to let no day pass without experimenting +with his pencil. G.D. was George Dyer, whom we first met in "Oxford in +the Vacation." + +Page 192, line 6. _Ranger_. In Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," one of +Elliston's great parts. + +Page 192, line 17 from foot. _Cibber_. Colley Cibber (1671-1757), the +actor, who was a very vain man, created the part of Foppington in +1697--his first great success. + +Page 192, last line. _St. Dunstan's ... punctual giants._ Old St. +Dunstan Church, in Fleet Street, had huge figures which struck the +hours, and which disappeared with the church, pulled down to make room +for the present one some time before 1831. They are mentioned in Emily +Barton's story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ (see Vol. III.). Moxon +records that Lamb shed tears when the figures were taken away. + +Page 193, line 6. _Drury Lane_. Drury Lane opened, under Elliston's +management, on October 4, 1819, with "Wild Oats," in which he played +Rover. He left the theatre, a bankrupt, in 1826. + +Page 193, line 19. _The ... Olympic._ Lamb is wrong in his dates. +Elliston's tenancy of the Olympic preceded his reign at Drury Lane. +It was to the Surrey that he retired after the Drury Lane period, +producing there Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan" in 1829. + +Page 193, line 12 from foot. _Sir A---- C----_. Sir Anthony Carlisle +(see note to "A Quakers' Meeting"). + +Page 194, line 7. _A Vestris_. Madame Vestris (1797-1856), the great +comedienne, who was one of Elliston's stars at Drury Lane. + +Page 195, line 6. _Latinity_. Elliston was buried in St. John's +Church, Waterloo Road, and a marble slab with a Latin inscription +by Nicholas Torre, his son-in-law, is on the wall. Elliston was the +nephew of Dr. Elliston, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, +who sent him to St. Paul's School--not, however, that founded by +Colet--but to St. Paul's School, Covent Garden. He was intended for +the Church. + + * * * * * + +Page 195. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1822, where, at the end, were the words, "To +be continued;" but Lamb did not return to the topic. + +For some curious reason Lamb passed over this essay when collecting +_Elia_ for the press. It was not republished till 1833, in the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 195, motto. _The Relapse_. The comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. +Lamb liked this quotation. He uses it in his letter about William +Wordsworth, junior, to Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25, 1819; and +again in his "Reminiscence of Sir Jeffery Dunstan" (see Vol. I.). + +Page 195, foot. _I can read any thing which I call a book_. Writing to +Wordsworth in August, 1815, Lamb says: "What any man can write, surely +I may read." + +Page 195, last line. _Pocket Books_. In the _London Magazine_ Lamb +added in parenthesis "the literary excepted," the reference being to +the _Literary Pocket Book_ which Leigh Hunt brought out annually from +1819 to 1822. + +Page 196, line 2. _Hume ... Jenyns_. Hume would be David Hume +(1711-1776), the philosopher and historian of England; Edward Gibbon +(1737-1794), historian of Rome; William Robertson, D.D. (1721-1793), +historian of America, Charles V., Scotland and India; James Beattie +(1735-1803), author of "The Minstrel" and a number of essays, who +had, however, one recommendation to Lamb, of which Lamb may have been +unaware--he loved Vincent Bourne's poems and was one of the first +to praise them; and Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), author of _The Art +of Dancing_, and the _Inquiry into Evil_ which Johnson reviewed so +mercilessly. It is stated in Moore's _Diary_, according to Procter, +that Lamb "excluded from his library Robertson, Gibbon and Hume, +and made instead a collection of the works of the heroes of _The +Dunciad_." + +Page 196, line 14. _Population Essay_. That was the day of population +essays. Malthus's _Essay on Population_, 1798, had led to a number of +replies. + +Page 196, line 22. _My ragged veterans_. Crabb Robinson recorded in +his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he +ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, +I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My +Books" in _The Literary Examiner_, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's library +had + + an handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a + selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;--now + a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas + Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old + English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are + "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline + of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old + Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: + there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, + Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir + Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high + fantastical" Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, + is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to + trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids. + +It is in the same essay that Leigh Hunt mentions that he once saw +Lamb kiss an old folio--Chapman's Homer--the work he paraphrased for +children under the title _The Adventures of Ulysses_. + +Page 197, line 15. _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_. Lamb's copy, a +folio containing also the "Philosophical Letters," is in America. + +Page 197, line 20. _Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton_... I cannot say +where are Lamb's copies of Sidney and Fuller; but the British Museum +has his Milton, rich in MS. notes, a two-volume edition, 1751. The +Taylor, which Lamb acquired in 1798, is the 1678 folio _Sermons_. I +cannot say where it now is. + +Page 197, line 26. _Shakspeare_. Lamb's Shakespeare was not sold at +the sale of his library; only a copy of the _Poems_, 12mo, 1714. +His annotated copy of the _Poems_, 1640, is in America. There is a +reference to one of Rowe's plates in the essay "My First Play." The +Shakespeare gallery engravings were the costly series of illustrations +to Shakespeare commissioned by John Boydell (1719-1804), Lord Mayor of +London in 1790. The pictures were exhibited in the Shakespeare Gallery +in Pall Mall, and the engravings were published in 1802. + +After the word "Shakespeare," in the _London Magazine_, came the +sentence: "You cannot make a _pet_ book of an author whom everybody +reads." + +In a letter to Wordsworth, February 1, 1806, Lamb says: "Shakespear is +one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just +before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book." In the same letter +he says of binding: "The Law Robe I have ever thought as comely and +gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear." + +Page 197, line 7 from foot. _Beaumont and Fletcher._ See note to "The +Two Races of Men" for an account of Lamb's copy, now in the British +Museum. + +Page 197, line 5 from foot. _No sympathy with them._ After these +words, in the _London Magazine_, came, "nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben +Jonson." This edition by Lamb's old enemy, William Gifford, editor of +the _Quarterly_, was published in 1816. Lamb's copy of Ben Jonson was +dated 1692, folio. It is now in America, I believe. + +Page 197, foot. _The reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy_. This +reprint was, I think, published in 1800, in two volumes, marked ninth +edition. Lamb's copy was dated 1621, quarto. I do not know where it +now is. + +Page 198, line 4. _Malone_. This was Edmund Malone (1741-1812), the +critic and editor of Shakespeare, who in 1793 persuaded the Vicar of +Stratford-on-Avon to whitewash the coloured bust of the poet in the +chancel. A _Gentleman's Magazine_ epigrammatist, sharing Lamb's view, +wrote:-- + + Stranger, to whom this monument is shown, + Invoke the poet's curse upon Malone; + Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste betrays, + And daubs his tombstone, as he mars his plays. + +Lamb has been less than fair to Malone. To defend his action in the +matter of the bust of Shakespeare is impossible, except by saying that +he acted in good faith and according to the fashion of his time. But +he did great service to the fame of Shakespeare and thus to English +literature, and was fearless and shrewd in his denunciation of the +impostor Ireland. + +Page 198, line 26. _The Fairy Queen_. Lamb's copy was a folio, 1617, +12, 17, 13. Against Canto XI., Stanza 32, he has written: "Dear Venom, +this is the stave I wot of. I will maintain it against any in the +book." + +Page 199, line 14. _Nando's_. A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the +east corner of Inner Temple Lane, and thus at one time close to Lamb's +rooms. + +Page 199, line 16. "_The Chronicle is in hand, Sir._" In the _London +Magazine_ the following paragraph was here inserted:-- + + "As in these little Diurnals I generally skip the Foreign News, + the Debates--and the Politics--I find the Morning Herald by far + the most entertaining of them. It is an agreeable miscellany, + rather than a newspaper." + +The _Morning Herald_, under Alexander Chalmers, had given more +attention to social gossip than to affairs of State; but under Thomas +Wright it suddenly, about the time of Lamb's essay, became politically +serious and left aristocratic matters to the _Morning Post_. + +Page 199, line 20. _Town and Country Magazine_. This magazine +flourished between 1769 and 1792. + +Page 199, line 26. _Poor Tobin_. Possibly John Tobin (1770-1804), the +playwright, though I think not. More probably the Tobin mentioned in +Lamb's letter to Wordsworth about "Mr. H." in June, 1806 (two years +after John Tobin's death), to whom Lamb read the manager's letter +concerning the farce. This would be James, John Tobin's brother. + +Page 200, line 13. _The five points_. After these words came, in the +_London Magazine_, the following paragraph:-- + + "I was once amused--there is a pleasure in _affecting_ + affectation--at the indignation of a crowd that was justling in + with me at the pit-door of Covent Garden theatre, to have a sight + of Master Betty--then at once in his dawn and his meridian--in + Hamlet. I had been invited quite unexpectedly to join a party, + whom I met near the door of the playhouse, and I happened to have + in my hand a large octavo of Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, + which, the time not admitting of my carrying it home, of course + went with me to the theatre. Just in the very heat and pressure + of the doors opening--the _rush_, as they term it--I deliberately + held the volume over my head, open at the scene in which the young + Roscius had been most cried up, and quietly read by the lamplight. + The clamour became universal. 'The affectation of the fellow,' + cried one. 'Look at that gentleman _reading_, papa,' squeaked a + young lady, who in her admiration of the novelty almost forgot her + fears. I read on. 'He ought to have his book knocked out of his + hand,' exclaimed a pursy cit, whose arms were too fast pinioned to + his side to suffer him to execute his kind intention. Still I read + on--and, till the time came to pay my money, kept as unmoved, + as Saint Antony at his Holy Offices, with the satyrs, apes, and + hobgoblins, mopping, and making mouths at him, in the picture, + while the good man sits undisturbed at the sight, as if he were + sole tenant of the desart.--The individual rabble (I recognised + more than one of their ugly faces) had damned a slight piece of + mine but a few nights before, and I was determined the culprits + should not a second time put me out of countenance." + +Master Betty was William Henry West Betty (1791-1874), known as the +"Young Roscius," whose Hamlet and Douglas sent playgoers wild in +1804-5-6. Pitt, indeed, once adjourned the House in order that his +Hamlet might be witnessed. His most cried-up scenes in "Hamlet" were +the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, and the fencing scene before the +king and his mother. The piece of Lamb's own which had been hissed +was, of course, "Mr. H.," produced on December 10, 1806; but very +likely he added this reference as a symmetrical afterthought, for he +would probably have visited Master Betty much earlier in his career, +that phenomenon's first appearance at Covent Garden being two years +before the advent of the ill-fated Hogsflesh. + +Page 200, line 22. _Martin B----_. Martin Charles Burney, son of +Admiral Burney, and a lifelong friend of the Lambs--to whom Lamb +dedicated the prose part of his _Works_ in 1818 (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 200, line 28. _A quaint poetess_. Mary Lamb. The poem is in +_Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol. III. of this edition). In line +17 the word "then" has been inserted by Lamb. The punctuation also +differs from that of the _Poetry for Children_. + + * * * * * + +Page 201. THE OLD _MARGATE HOY_. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1823. This, like others of Lamb's essays, was +translated into French and published in the _Revue Britannique_ in +1833. It was prefaced by the remark: "L'auteur de cette delicieuse +esquisse est Charles Lamb, connu sous le nom d'Eliah." + +Page 201, beginning. _I have said so before._ See "Oxford in the +Vacation." + +Page 201, line 5 of essay. _My beloved Thames._ Lamb describes a +riparian holiday at and about Richmond in a letter to Robert Lloyd in +1804. + +Page 201, line 8 of essay. _Worthing_... There is no record of the +Lambs' sojourn at Worthing or Eastbourne. They were at Brighton in +1817, and Mary Lamb at any rate enjoyed walking on the Downs there; in +a letter to Miss Wordsworth of November 21, 1817, she described them +as little mountains, _almost as good as_ Westmoreland scenery. They +were at Hastings--at 13 Standgate Street--in 1823 (see Lamb's letters +to Bernard Barton, July 10, 1823, to Hood, August 10, 1824, and to +Dibdin, June, 1826). The only evidence that we have of Lamb knowing +Worthing is his "Mr. H.". That play turns upon the name Hogsflesh, +afterwards changed to Bacon. The two chief innkeepers at Worthing at +the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of its prosperity +were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, and there was a rhyme concerning them +which was well known (see notes to "Mr. H." in Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 11 of essay. _Many years ago_. A little later Lamb says +he was then fifteen. This would make the year 1790. It was probably on +this visit to Margate that Lamb conceived the idea of his sonnet, "O, +I could laugh," which Coleridge admired so much (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 201, line 17 of essay. _Thou old Margate Hoy_. This old +sailing-boat gave way to a steam-boat, the _Thames_, some time after +1815. The _Thames_, launched in 1815, was the first true steam-boat +the river had seen. The old hoy, or lighter, was probably sloop +rigged. + +Page 202, foot. _Our enemies_. Lamb refers here to the attacks of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ on the Cockneys, among whom he himself had been +included. In the _London Magazine_ he had written "unfledged" for +"unseasoned." + +Page 206, line 14. _Gebir_. _Gebir_, by Walter Savage Landor +(1775-1864), who was a fortnight older than Lamb, and who afterwards +came to know him personally, was published in 1798. + +Page 206, line 16. _This detestable Cinque Port_. A letter from Mary +Lamb to Randal Norris, concerning this, or another, visit to Hastings, +says: "We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk +up hill and down hill all day long." Lamb, in a letter to Barton, +admitted a benefit: "I abused Hastings, but learned its value." + +Page 208, line 5. _Lothbury_. Probably in recollection of Wordsworth's +"Reverie of Poor Susan," which Lamb greatly liked. + + * * * * * + +Page 208. THE CONVALESCENT. + +_London Magazine_, July, 1825. + +We learn from the _Letters_ that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown +in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House. +Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a +free man. + + * * * * * + +Page 212. SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the +Popular Fallacies under the title, "That great Wit is allied to +Madness;" beginning: "So far from this being true, the greatest wits +will ever be found to be the sanest writers..." and so forth. Compare +the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," Vol. I. Lamb's thesis is +borrowed from Dryden's couplet (in _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I., +lines 163, 164):-- + + Great wits are sure to madness near allied, + And thin partitions do their bounds divide. + +Page 213, line 14. _Kent ... Flavius_. Lamb was always greatly +impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on "Hogarth," Vol. +I.; his "Table Talk," Vol. I.; and his versions, in the _Tales from +Shakespear_, of "King Lear" and "Timon," Vol. III.). + + * * * * * + +Page 215. CAPTAIN JACKSON. + +_London Magazine_, November, 1824. + +No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson. The suggestion +has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the +circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the _Last Essays_, +included "A Death-Bed," with a differing portrait of Randal Norris +therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory. Perhaps the +captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every +now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, +1826), "to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;" although his +reality seems overpowering. + +Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in +constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly +unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber. + +Page 217, line 22. _Glover ... Leonidas_. Richard Glover (1712-1785), +the poet, author of _Leonidas_, 1737. I cannot find that he ever lived +at Westbourne Green. + +Page 218, foot. _The old ballad_. The old ballad "Waly, Waly." This +was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola's Extract Book. + +Page 219, line 8. _Tibbs, and Bobadil_. Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith's +"Citizen of the World," and Bobadil in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His +Humour." + + * * * * * + +Page 219. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. + +_London Magazine_, May, 1825. + +Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is +practically a record of fact. After thirty-three years of service at +the East India House he went home "for ever" on Tuesday, March 29, +1825, with a pension of L441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, +less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister. At +a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up: +"Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant +General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and +it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, +and is now in receipt of an income of L730 per annum, he be allowed +a pension of L450 ... to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to +Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss +Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put +it to Barton:-- + + "DEAR B.B.--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much + more mind, to compose a letter. + + "I am free, B.B.--free as air. + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such Liberty! + + "I was set free on Tuesday in last week at 4 o'clock. + + "I came home for ever!... + + "I went and sat among 'em all at my old 33 years desk yester + morning; and deuce take me if I had not yearnings at leaving all + my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry sociable lads, at leaving them + in the Lurch, fag, fag, fag. + + "I would not serve another 7 years for seven hundred thousand + pound." + +To Miss Hutchinson Lamb said; "I would not go back to my prison for +seven years longer for L10000 a year." + +In the _London Magazine_ the essay was divided into two parts, with +the two quotations now at the head apportioned each to one part. +Part II. began at "A fortnight has passed," on page 224. The essay +was signed "J.D.," whose address was given as "Beaufort-terrace, +Regent-street; late of Ironmonger-court, Fenchurch-street." + +Page 220, line 3. _Recreation_. At "recreation," in the _London +Magazine_, came the footnote:-- + + "Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's day, + could distinguish between a day of religious rest and a day of + recreation; and while they exacted a rigorous abstinence from all + amusements (even to the walking out of nursery maids with their + little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath; in the lieu of the + superstitious observance of the Saints days, which they abrogated, + they humanely gave to the apprentices, and poorer sort of people, + every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport and recreation. + A strain of piety and policy to be commended above the profane + mockery of the Stuarts and their Book of Sports." + +Lamb had said the same thing to Barton in a letter in the spring, +1824, referring there to "Southey's book" as his authority--this being +_The Book of the Church_, 1824. + +Page 220, line 25. _Native ... Hertfordshire_. This was a slight +exaggeration. Lamb was London born and bred. But Hertfordshire was his +mother and grandmother's county, and all his love of the open air was +centred there (see the essay on "Mackery End"). + +Page 221, line 1. _My health_. Lamb had really been seriously unwell +for some time, as the _Letters_ tell us. + +Page 221, line 6. _I was fifty_. Lamb was fifty on February 10, 1825. + +Page 231, line 7. _I had grown to my desk_. In his first letter to +Barton (September 11, 1822) Lamb wrote: "I am like you a prisoner to +the desk. I have been chained to that galley thirty years, a long +shot. I have almost grown to the wood." Again, to Wordsworth: "I sit +like Philomel all day (but not singing) with my breast against this +thorn of a Desk." + +Page 222, line 7. _Boldero, Merryweather ..._ Feigned names of course. +It was Boldero that Lamb once pretended was Leigh Hunt's true name. +And in his fictitious biography of Liston (Vol. I.) Liston's mother +was said to have been a Miss Merryweather. In Lamb's early city days +there was a banking firm in Cornhill, called Boldero, Adey, Lushington +& Boldero. + +Page 222, line 12 from foot. _I could walk it away_. Writing to +Wordsworth in March, 1822, concerning the possibility of being +pensioned off, Lamb had said:--"I had thought in a green old age (O +green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End--emblematic name--how +beautiful! in the Ware road, there to have made up my accounts with +heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and Cheshunt, anon +stretching on some fine Izaac Walton morning, to Hoddsdon or Amwell, +careless as a Beggar, but walking walking ever till I fairly walkd +myself off my legs, dying walking." + +And again, writing to Southey after the emancipation, he says (August, +1825): "Mary walks her twelve miles a day some days, and I twenty on +others. 'Tis all holiday with me now, you know." + +Page 224, line 9. _Ch----_. John Chambers, son of the Rev. Thomas +Chambers, Vicar of Radway-Edgehill, Warwickshire, and an old Christ's +Hospitaller, to whom Lamb wrote the famous letter on India House +society, printed in the _Letters_, Canon Ainger's edition, under +December, 1818. John Chambers lived until 1872, and had many stories +of Lamb. + +Page 224, line 9. _Do----_. Probably Henry Dodwell, to whom Lamb wrote +the letters of July, 1816, from Calne, and that of October 7, 1827, +thanking him for a gift of a sucking pig. But there seems (see the +letter to Chambers above referred to) to have been also a clerk named +Dowley. It was Dodwell who annoyed Lamb by reading _The Times_ till +twelve o'clock every morning. + +Page 224, line 10. _Pl----_. According to the late H.G. Bohn's notes +on Chambers' letter, this was W.D. Plumley. + +Page 224, line 18. My "_works_." See note to the preface to the _Last +Essays of Elia_. The old India House ledgers of Lamb's day are no +longer in existence, but a copy of Booth's _Tables of Interest_ is +preserved, with some mock notices from the press on the fly-leaves in +Lamb's hand. Lamb's portrait by Meyer was bought for the India Office +in 1902. + +Page 224, line 12 from foot. _My own master_. As a matter of fact Lamb +found the time rather heavy on his hands now and then; and he took to +searching for beauties in the Garrick plays in the British Museum as a +refuge. The Elgin marbles were moved there in 1816. + +Page 225, line 16 from foot. _And what is it all for_? At these words, +in the _London Magazine_, came the passage:-- + + "I recite those verses of Cowley, which so mightily agree with my + constitution. + + "Business! the frivolous pretence + Of human lusts to shake off innocence: + Business! the grave impertinence: + Business! the thing which I of all things hate: + Business! the contradiction of my fate. + + "Or I repeat my own lines, written in my Clerk state:-- + + "Who first invented work--and bound the free + And holyday-rejoicing spirit down + To the ever-haunting importunity + Of business, in the green fields, and the town-- + To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad, + To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood? + Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, + Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad + Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, + That round and round incalculably reel-- + For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-- + In that red realm from whence are no returnings; + Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye + He, and his thoughts, keep pensive worky-day! + + "O this divine Leisure!--Reader, if thou art furnished with the + Old Series of the London, turn incontinently to the third volume + (page 367), and you will see my present condition there touched in + a 'Wish' by a daintier pen than I can pretend to. I subscribe to + that Sonnet _toto corde_." + +The sonnet referred to, beginning-- + + They talk of time and of time's galling yoke, + +will be found quoted above, in the notes to "New Year's Eve." It was, +of course, by Lamb himself. To the other sonnet he gave the title +"Work" (see Vol. IV.). Cowley's lines are from "The Complaint." + +Page 225, line 14 from foot. _NOTHING-TO-DO_. Lamb wrote to Barton in +1827: "Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, +and next to that perhaps--good works." + + * * * * * + +Page 226. THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826, where it was one of the Popular +Fallacies, under the title, "That my Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William +Temple are models of the Genteel Style in Writing.--We should prefer +saying--of the Lordly and the Gentlemanly. Nothing," &c. + +Page 226, beginning. _My Lord Shaftesbury_, Anthony Ashley Cooper, +third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), the grandson of the great +statesman, and the author of the _Characteristicks of Men, Manners, +Opinions and Times_, 1711, and other less known works. In the essay +"Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" Lamb says, "Shaftesbury is +not too genteel for me." + +Page 226, beginning. _Sir William Temple._ Sir William Temple +(1628-1699), diplomatist and man of letters, the patron of Swift, +and the husband of the letter-writing Dorothy Osborne. His first +diplomatic mission was in 1665, to Christopher Bernard von Glialen, +the prince-bishop of Munster, who grew the northern cherries (see page +228). Afterwards he was accredited to Brussels and the Hague, and +subsequently became English Ambassador at the Hague. He was recalled +in 1670, and spent the time between then and 1674, when he returned, +in adding to his garden at Sheen, near Richmond, and in literary +pursuits. He re-entered active political life in 1674, but retired +again in 1680, and moved to an estate near Farnham; which he named +Moor Park, laid out in the Dutch style, and made famous for its wall +fruit. Hither Swift came, as amanuensis, in 1689, and he was there, +with intervals of absence, in 1699, when Temple died, "and with him," +Swift wrote in his _Diary_, "all that was good and amiable among men." +He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart, by his special +wish, was placed in a silver casket under the sun-dial at Moor Park, +near his favourite window seat. + +Temple's essays, under the title of _Miscellanea_, were published in +1680 and 1692; his works, in several volumes, between 1700 and 1709. +The best-known essay is that on "Ancient and Modern Learning," but +Lamb refers also to those "On Health and Long Life," "Of the Cure of +the Gout," "Of Gardening." The quotation on page 228 does not exactly +end Temple's garden essay, as Lamb says. Lamb has slightly altered +Temple's punctuation. + + * * * * * + +Page 230. BARBARA S----. + +_London Magazine_, April, 1825. + +This little story exhibits, perhaps better than anything that Lamb +wrote, his curious gift of blending fact and fancy, of building upon +a foundation of reality a structure of whimsicality and invention. +In the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb's works is printed a +letter from Miss Kelly, the actress, and a friend of the Lambs, +in which the true story is told; for it was she, as indeed Lamb +admitted to Wordsworth in a letter in 1825, who told him the +incident--"beautifully," he says elsewhere. + +Miss Kelly wrote, in 1875:-- + + I perfectly remember relating an incident of my childhood to + Charles Lamb and his dear sister, and I have not the least doubt + that the intense interest he seemed to take in the recital, + induced him to adopt it as the principal feature in his beautiful + story of "Barbara S----." Much, however, as I venerate the + wonderful powers of Charles Lamb as a writer--grateful as I ever + must feel to have enjoyed for so many years the friendship of + himself and his dear sister, and proudly honoured as I am by the + two exquisite sonnets he has given to the world as tributary to my + humble talent, I have never been able thoroughly to appreciate the + extraordinary skill with which he has, in the construction of his + story, desired and contrived so to mystify and characterize + the events, as to keep me out of sight, and render it utterly + impossible for any one to guess at me as the original heroine.... + + In the year 1799, Miss Jackson, one of my mother's daughters, by + her first husband, was placed under the special care of dear old + Tate Wilkinson, proprietor of the York Theatre, there to practice, + as in due progression, what she had learned of Dramatic Art, while + a Chorus Singer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, coming back, as + she did after a few years, as the wife of the late celebrated, + inimitable Charles Mathews, to the Haymarket Theatre. In 1799, + through the influence of my uncle, Michael Kelly, the celebrated + singer and composer of that day, I was allowed to become a + miniature chorister in her place.... + + One Saturday, during the limited season of nine months in the + year, Mr. Peake (dear, good old gentleman!) looking, as I remember + he always did--anxiously perplexed--doubtless as to how he could + best dole out the too frequently insufficient amount provided for + the ill-paid company, silently looked me in the face, while he + carefully folded a very _dirty, ragged_ bank note--put it into my + hand, patted my cheek, and with a slight pressure on my shoulder, + hinting there was no time for our usual gossip--as good as said, + "go, my dear," and I hurried down the long gallery, lined down + each side with performers of all degrees, more than one of whom + whispered as I passed--"Is it full pay, dear?" I nodded "Yes," and + proceeded to my seat on the window of the landing-place. + + It was a great comfort in those days, to have a bank-note to + look at; but not always easy to open one. Mine had been cut and + repaired with a line of gum paper, about twenty times as thick as + the note itself, threatening the total destruction of the thin + part. + + Now observe in what small matters Fanny and Barbara were in a + marked degree different characters. Barbara, at 11 years of age, + was some time before she felt the different size of a guinea to a + half guinea, _held tight in her hand_. I, at nine years old, was + not so untaught, or innocent. I was a woman of the world. I took + _nothing_ for granted. I had a deep respect for Mr. Peake, but the + join might have disfigured the note--destroyed its currency; and + it was my business to see all safe. So, I carefully opened it. A + two pound-note instead of one! The blood rushed into my face, the + tears into my eyes, and for a moment, something like an ecstasy + of joy passed through my mind. "Oh! what a blessing to my dear + mother!"--"To whom?"--in an instant said my violently beating + heart,--"My mother?" Why she would spurn me for the wish. How + shall I ever own to her my guilty thought? I trembled violently--I + staggered back on my way to the Treasury, but no one would let me + pass, until I said, "But Mr. Peake has given me too much." "Too + much, has he?" said one, and was followed by a coarse, cold, + derisive, general laugh. Oh! how it went to my heart; but on I + went. + + "If you please, Mr. Peake, you have given me a two--" + + "A what?" + + "A two, Sir!" + + "A two!--God bless my soul!--tut-tut-tut-tut--dear, dear, + dear!--God bless my soul! There, dear," and without another word, + he, in exchange, laid a one pound note on the desk; a new one, + quite clean,--a bright, honest looking note,--mine, the one I had + a right to,--my own,--within the limit of my poor deservings. + + Thus, my dear sir, I give (as you say you wish to have the _facts_ + as accurately stated as possible) the simple, absolute truth. + +As a matter of fact Miss Kelly did afterwards play in Morton's +"Children in the Wood," to Lamb's great satisfaction. The incident of +the roast fowl is in that play. + +In Vol. I. will be found more than one eulogy of Miss Kelly's acting. + +Page 231, last line. _Real hot tears_. In Crabb Robinson's diary Miss +Kelly relates that when, as Constance, in "King John," Mrs. Siddons +(not Mrs. Porter) wept over her, her collar was wet with Mrs. Siddons' +tears. Miss Kelly, of course, was playing Arthur. + +Page 232, line 7. _Impediment ... pulpit_. This is more true than +the casual reader may suppose. Had Lamb not had an impediment in his +speech, he would have become, at Christ's Hospital, a Grecian, and +have gone to one of the universities; and the ordinary fate of a +Grecian was to take orders. + +Page 232, line 13. _Mr. Liston_. Mrs. Cowden Clarke says that Liston +the comedian and his wife were among the visitors to the Lambs' rooms +at Great Russell Street. + +Page 232, line 14. _Mrs. Charles Kemble_, _nee_ Maria Theresa De Camp, +mother of Fanny Kemble. + +Page 232, line 16. _Macready_. The only record of any conference +between Macready and Lamb is Macready's remark in his _Diary_ that he +met Lamb at Talfourd's, and Lamb said that he wished to draw his last +breath through a pipe, and exhale it in a pun. But this was long after +the present essay was written. + +Page 232, line 17. _Picture Gallery ... Mr. Matthews_. See note below. + +Page 232, line 26. _Not Diamond's_. Dimond was the proprietor of the +old Bath Theatre. + +Page 235, first line. _Mrs. Crawford_. Anne Crawford (1734-1801), +_nee_ Street, who was born at Bath, married successively a Mr. Dancer, +Spranger Barry the actor, and a Mr. Crawford. Her great part was Lady +Randolph in Home's "Douglas." + + * * * * * + +Page 235. THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY. + +_London Magazine_, October, 1823, where, with slight differences, +it formed the concluding portion of the "Letter of Elia to Robert +Southey, Esquire," which will be found in Vol. I. The notes in that +volume should be consulted; but a little may be said here. This, the +less personal portion of the "Letter to Southey," seems to have been +all that Lamb cared to retain. He admitted afterwards, when his +anger against Southey had cooled, that his "guardian angel" had been +"absent" at the time he wrote it. + +The Dean of Westminster at the time was Ireland, the friend of +Gifford--dean from 1815 to 1842. Lamb's protest against the +two-shilling fee was supported a year or so later than its first +appearance by Reynolds, in _Odes and Addresses_, 1825, in a sarcastic +appeal to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to reduce that sum. The +passage in Lamb's essay being reprinted in 1833, suggests that the +reform still tarried. The evidence, however, of J.T. Smith, in his +_Book for a Rainy Day_, is that it was possible in 1822 to enter +Poets' Corner for sixpence. Dean Stanley, in his _Historical Memorials +of Westminster Abbey_, writes: "Free admission was given to the larger +part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first +appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts opened, and the fees +lowered in 1841...." + +Lamb's reference to Southey and to Andre's monument is +characteristically mischievous. He is reminding Southey of his early +sympathy with rebels--his "Wat Tyler" and pantisocratic days. Major +John Andre, Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-general, was caught returning +from an interview with an American traitor--a perfectly honourable +proceeding in warfare--and was hanged by Washington as a spy in 1780. +No blame attached either to judge or victim. Andre's remains were +reburied in the Abbey in 1821. Lamb speaks of injury to Andre's figure +in the monument, but the usual thing was for the figure of Washington +to be attacked. Its head has had to be renewed more than once. Minor +thefts have also been committed. According to Mrs. Gordon's _Life of +Dean Buckland_, one piece of vandalism at any rate was the work of an +American, who returned to the dean two heads which he had appropriated +as relics. + +In _The Examiner_ for April 8, 1821, is quoted from _The Traveller_ +the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which +shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for churches +was in the air. + + ON A VISIT TO ST. PAUL'S + + What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor, + For lack of two-pence, shut the church's door; + Who, true successors of the ancient leaven, + Erect a turnpike on the road to Heaven? + "Knock, and it shall be open'd," saith our LORD; + "Knock, and pay two-pence," say the Chapter Board: + The Showman of the booth the fee receives, + And God's house is again a "den of thieves." + + * * * * * + +Page 237. AMICUS REDIVIVUS. + +_London Magazine_, December, 1823. + +A preliminary sketch of the first portion of this essay will be +found in the letter from Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt, written probably in +November, 1823. In Barry Cornwall's _Memoir_ of Lamb, Chapter VI., +there is also an account of the accident to Dyer--Procter (Barry +Cornwall) having chanced to visit the Lambs just after the event. For +an account of George Dyer see notes to the essay on "Oxford in the +Vacation". In 1823 he was sixty-eight; later he became quite blind. + +We have another glimpse of G.D. on that fatal day, in the +reminiscences of Mr. Ogilvie, an India House clerk with Lamb, +as communicated to the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell (see _Scribner's +Magazine_, March, 1876):-- + + At the time George Dyer was fished out of New River in front of + Lamb's house at Islington, after he was resuscitated, Mary brought + him a suit of Charles's clothes to put on while his own were + drying. Inasmuch as he was a giant of a man, and Lamb undersized; + inasmuch, moreover, as Lamb's wardrobe afforded only knee breeches + for the nether limbs (Dyer's were colossal), the spectacle he + presented when the clothes were on--or as much on as they could + be--was vastly ludicrous. + +Allsop, in a letter to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, remarked, of Dyer's +immersion, that Lamb had said to him: "If he had been drowned it would +have made me famous. Think of having a Crowner's quest, and all the +questions and dark suspicions of murder. People would haunt the spot +and say, 'Here died the poet of Grongar Hill.'" The poet of "Grongar +Hill" was, of course, John Dyer--another of Lamb's instances of the +ambiguities arising from proper names. + +Page 238, line 19. _The rescue_. At these words, in the _London +Magazine_, Lamb put this footnote:-- + + "The topography of my cottage, and its relation to the river, + will explain this; as I have been at some cost to have the whole + engraved (in time, I hope, for our next number), as well for + the satisfaction of the reader, as to commemorate so signal a + deliverance." + +The cottage at Colebrooke Row, it should be said, stands to this day +(1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no +difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front +door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel +with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather +Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the +front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have +emerged; if so it would be the simplest thing for him to walk straight +ahead, and find himself in the river. + +Page 240, line 22. _That Abyssinian traveller_. James Bruce +(1730-1794), the explorer of the sources of the Nile, was famous many +years before his _Travels_ appeared, in 1790, the year after which +Lamb left school. The New River, made in 1609-1613, has its source +in the Chadwell and Amwell springs. It was peculiarly Lamb's river: +Amwell is close to Blakesware and Widford; Lamb explored it as a boy; +at Islington he lived opposite it, and rescued George Dyer from its +depths; and he retained its company both at Enfield and Edmonton. + +In the essay on "Newspapers" is a passage very similar to this. + +Page 240, line 32. _Eternal novity_. Writing to Hood in 1824 Lamb +speaks of the New River as "rather elderly by this time." Dyer, it +should be remembered, was of Emmanuel College, and the historian of +Cambridge University. + +Page 241, last paragraph. George Dyer contributed "all that was +original" to Valpy's edition of the classics--141 volumes. He also +wrote the _History of The University and Colleges of Cambridge, +including notices relating to the Founders and Eminent Men_. Among +the eminent men of Cambridge are Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776), of +Christ's Hospital and St. Peter's, the classical commentator; and +Thomas Gray, the poet, the sweet lyrist of Peterhouse, who died +in 1771, when Dyer was sixteen. Tyrwhitt would probably be Thomas +Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), of Queen's College, Oxford, the editor of +Chaucer; but Robert Tyrwhitt (1735-1817), his brother, the Unitarian, +might be expected to take interest in Dyer also, for G.D. was, in +Lamb's phrase, a "One-Goddite" too. The mild Askew was Anthony Askew +(1722-1772), doctor and classical scholar, who, being physician to +Christ's Hospital when Dyer was there, lent the boy books, and was +very kind to him. + + * * * * * + +Page 242. SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. + +_London Magazine_, September, 1823, where it was entitled "Nugae +Criticae. By the Author of Elia. No. 1. Defence of the Sonnets of Sir +Philip Sidney." Signed "L." The second and last of the "Nugae Criticae" +series was the note on "The Tempest" (see Vol. I.). + +It may be interesting here to relate that Henry Francis Gary, the +translator of Dante, and Lamb's friend, had, says his son in his +memoir, lent Lamb Edward Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum_, +which was returned after Lamb's death by Edward Moxon, with the leaf +folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sidney. Mr. Gary thereupon +wrote his "Lines to the memory of Charles Lamb," which begin:-- + + So should it be, my gentle friend; + Thy leaf last closed at Sidney's end. + Thou, too, like Sidney, wouldst have given + The water, thirsting and near heaven. + +Lamb has some interesting references to Sidney in the note to Beaumont +and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy" in the _Dramatic Specimens_. + +Page 243, line 5. _Tibullus, or the ... Author of the Schoolmistress_. +In the _London Magazine_ Lamb wrote "Catullus." Tibullus was one of +the tenderest of Latin poets. William Shenstone (1714-1763) wrote "The +Schoolmistress," a favourite poem with Lamb. The "prettiest of poems" +he called it in a letter to John Clare. + +Page 243, line 9. _Ad Leonoram_. The following translation of Milton's +sonnet was made by Leigh Hunt:-- + + TO LEONORA SINGING AT ROME + + To every one (so have ye faith) is given + A winged guardian from the ranks of heaven. + A greater, Leonora, visits thee: + Thy voice proclaims the present deity. + Either the present deity we hear, + Or he of the third heaven hath left his sphere, + And through the bosom's pure and warbling wells, + Breathes tenderly his smoothed oracles; + Breathes tenderly, and so with easy rounds + Teaches our mortal hearts to bear immortal sounds. + If God is all, and in all nature dwells, + In thee alone he speaks, mute ruler in all else. + +The Latin in Masson's edition of Milton differs here and there from +Lamb's version. + +Page 243. _Sonnet I_. Lamb cites the sonnets from _Astrophel and +Stella_, in his own order. That which he calls I. is XXXI.; II., +XXXIX.; III., XXIII.; IV., XXVII.; V., XLI.; VI., LIII.; VII., LXIV.; +VIII., LXXIII.; IX., LXXIV.; X., LXXV.; XI., CIII.; XII., LXXXIV. +I have left the sonnets as Lamb copied them, but there are certain +differences noted in my large edition. + +Page 247, middle. _Which I have ... heard objected_. A criticism of +Hazlitt's, in his sixth lecture on Elizabethan literature, delivered +in 1820 at the Surrey Institution, is here criticised. Hazlitt's +remarks on Sidney were uniformly slighting. "His sonnets inlaid in the +Arcadia are jejune, far-fetch'd and frigid.... [The _Arcadia_] is to +me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power +upon record.... [Sidney is] a complete intellectual coxcomb, or nearly +so;" and so forth. The lectures were published in 1821. Elsewhere, +however, Hazlitt found in Sidney much to praise. + +Page 248, line 3. _Thin diet of dainty words_. To this sentence, in +the _London Magazine_, Lamb put the following footnote:-- + + "A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of + matter and circumstance, is I think one reason of the coldness + with which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now + living; which, upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is + entitled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy + one of his Sonnets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and + unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our language. + + "TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN IN THE WINTER + + "_By Lord Thurlow_ + + "O melancholy Bird, a winter's day, + Thou standest by the margin of the pool, + And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school + To Patience, which all evil can allay. + God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey; + And given thyself a lesson to the Fool + Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, + And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. + There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair, + Though these be good, true wisdom to impart. + He who has not enough, for these, to spare + Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart, + And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair: + Nature is always wise in every part." + +This sonnet, by Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow +(1781-1829), an intense devotee of Sir Philip Sidney's muse, was a +special favourite with Lamb. He copied it into his Commonplace Book, +and De Quincey has described, in his "London Reminiscences," how Lamb +used to read it aloud. + +Page 248, line 27. _Epitaph made on him_. After these words, in the +_London Magazine_, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, +wrote Sidney's _Life_, published in 1652. After Sidney's death +appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end +of Spenser's _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_, in 1595. That which Lamb +quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem +beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly +on Lamb's authority, in Ward's _English Poets_. This is one stanza:-- + + He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind + A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined, + Declaring in his thoughts, his life and that he writ, + Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. + +Sidney was only thirty-two at his death. + + * * * * * + +Page 249. NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. + +_Englishman's Magazine_, October, 1831, being the second paper under +the heading "Peter's Net," of which "Recollections of a Late Royal +Academician" was the first (see note, Vol. I.). + +The title ran thus:-- + + PETER'S NET + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIA" + + _No. II.--On the Total Defect of the faculty of Imagination + observable in the works of modern British Artists._ + +For explanation of this title see note to the essay that follows. When +reprinting the essay in the _Last Essays of Elia_, 1833, Lamb altered +the title to the one it now bears: the period referred to thus seeming +to be about 1798, but really 1801-1803. + +Page 249, first line of essay. _Dan Stuart_. See below. + +Page 249, line 2 of essay. _The Exhibition at Somerset House._ Between +the years 1780 and 1838 the Royal Academy held its exhibitions at +Somerset House. It then moved, first to Trafalgar Square, in a portion +of the National Gallery, and then to Burlington House, its present +quarters, in 1869. The _Morning Post_ office is still almost opposite +Somerset House, at the corner of Wellington Street. + +Page 250, line 5. _A word or two of D.S._ Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), +one of the Perthshire Stuarts, whose father was out in the '45, and +his grandfather in the '15, began, with his brother, to print the +_Morning Post_ in 1788. In 1795 they bought it for L600, Daniel +assumed the editorship, and in two years' time the circulation had +risen from 350 to 1,000. Mackintosh (afterwards Sir James), Stuart's +brother-in-law, was on the staff; and in 1797 Coleridge began to +contribute. Coleridge's "Devil's Walk" was the most popular thing +printed in Stuart's time; his political articles also helped +enormously to give the paper prestige. Stuart sold the _Morning Post_ +in 1803 for L25,000, and then turned his attention to the development +of _The Courier_, an evening paper, in which he also had occasional +assistance from Coleridge and more regular help from Mackintosh. + +Lamb's memory served him badly in the essay. So far as I can discover, +his connection with the _Morning Post_, instead of ending when Stuart +sold the paper, can hardly be said to have existed until after that +event. The paper changed hands in September, 1803 (two years after the +failure of The _Albion_), and Lamb's hand almost immediately begins to +be apparent. He had, we know, made earlier efforts to get a footing +there, but had been only moderately successful. The first specimens +prepared for Stuart, in 1800, were not accepted. In the late summer of +1801 he was writing for the _Morning Chronicle_--a few comic letters, +as I imagine--under James Perry; but that lasted only a short time. At +the end of 1801 Lamb tried the _Post_ again. In January and February, +1802, Stuart printed some epigrams by him on public characters, two +criticisms of G.F. Cooke, in Richard III. and Lear, and the essay "The +Londoner" (see Vol. I.). Probably there were also some paragraphs. In +a letter to Rickman in January, 1802, Lamb says that he is leaving +the _Post_, partly on account of his difficulty in writing dramatic +criticisms on the same night as the performance. + +We know nothing of Lamb's journalistic adventures between February, +1802, and October, 1803, when the fashion of pink stockings came in, +and when he was certainly back on the _Post_ (Stuart having sold it to +establish _The Courier_), and had become more of a journalist than he +had ever been. I quote a number of the paragraphs which I take to be +his on this rich topic; but the specimen given in the essay is not +discoverable:-- + + "_Oct_. 8.--The fugitive and mercurial matter, of which a _Lady's + blush_ is made, after coursing from its natural position, the + _cheek_, to the _tip_ of the _elbow_, and thence diverging for a + time to the _knee_, has finally settled in the _legs_, where, in + the form of a pair of _red hose_, it combines with the posture and + situation of _the times_, to put on a most _warlike_ and _martial + appearance_." + + "_Nov_. 2.--Bartram, who, as a _traveller_, was possessed of a + very _lively fancy_, describes vast plains in the interior of + America, where his _horse's fetlocks_ for miles were dyed a + perfect _blood colour_, in the juice of the _wild strawberries_. + A less ardent fancy than BARTRAM'S may apply this beautiful + phenomenon of summer, to solve the present _strawberry appearance_ + of the _female leg_ this autumn in England." + + "_Nov_. 3.--The _roseate tint_, so agreeably diffused through the + silk stockings of our females, induces the belief that the _dye is + cast_ for their lovers." + + "_Nov_. 8.--A popular superstition in the North of Germany is said + to be the true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. + Who knows but that _late posterity_, when, what is regarded by + us now as _fashion_, shall have long been classed among the + superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their + signs with the antiquated personification of a Mother RED LEGS?" + + "_Nov_. 9.--Curiosity is on tip-toe for the arrival of ELPHY + BEY'S fair _Circassian_ Ladies. The attraction of their + _naturally-placed, fine, proverbial bloom_, is only wanting to + reduce the wandering colour in the 'elbows' and 'ancles' of our + _belles_, back to its native _metropolis_ and _palace_, the + 'cheek.'" + + "_Nov_. 22.--_Pink stockings_ beneath _dark pelices_ are emblems + of _Sincerity_ and _Discretion_; signifying a _warm heart_ beneath + a _cool exterior_." + + "_Nov_. 29.--The decline of red stockings is as fatal to the wits, + as the going out of a fashion to an overstocked jeweller: some + of these gentry have literally for some months past _fed_ on + _roses_." + + "_Dec_. 21.--The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, + dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be + consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions,' where sleep + in peace the _ruffs_ and _hoops_, and _fardingales_ of past + centuries; and + + "All its beauty, all its pomp, decays + Like _Courts removing_, or like _ending plays_." + +On February 7, 1804, was printed Lamb's "Epitaph on a young Lady who +Lived Neglected and Died Obscure" (see Vol. IV.), and now and then we +find a paragraph likely to be his; but, as we know from a letter from +Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart, he had left the _Post_ in the early +spring, 1804. I think this was the end of his journalism, until he +began to write a little for _The Examiner_ in 1812. + +In 1838 Stuart was drawn into a correspondence with Henry Coleridge +in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (May, June, July and August) concerning +some statements about Coleridge's connection with the _Morning Post_ +and _The Courier_ which were made in Gillman's _Life_, Stuart, in the +course of straightening out his relations with Coleridge, referred +thus to Lamb:-- + + But as for good Charles Lamb, I never could make anything out of + his writings. Coleridge often and repeatedly pressed me to settle + him on a salary, and often and repeatedly did I try; but it would + not do. Of politics he knew nothing; they were out of his line of + reading and thought; and his drollery was vapid, when given in + short paragraphs fit for a newspaper; yet he has produced some + agreeable books, possessing a tone of humour and kind feeling, + in a quaint style, which it is amusing to read, and cheering to + remember. + +For further remarks concerning Lamb's journalism see below when we +come to _The Albion_ and his connection with it. + +Page 250, line 6. _Perry, of the Morning Chronicle._ James Perry +(1756-1821) the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_--the leading Whig +paper, for many years--from about 1789. Perry was a noted talker and +the friend of many brilliant men, among them Porson. Southey's letters +inform us that Lamb was contributing to the _Chronicle_ in the summer +of 1801, and I fancy I see his hand now and then; but his identifiable +contributions to the paper came much later than the period under +notice. Coleridge contributed to it a series of sonnets to eminent +persons in 1794, in one of which, addressed to Mrs. Siddons, he +collaborated with Lamb (see Vol. IV.). + +Page 250, line 14. _The Abyssinian Pilgrim_. For notes to this passage +about the New River see the essay "Amicus Redivivus." + +Page 250, foot. _In those days ..._ This paragraph began, in the +_Englishman's Magazine_, with the following sentence:-- + + "We ourself--PETER--in whose inevitable NET already Managers and + R.A.s lie caught and floundering--and more peradventure shall + flounder--were, in the humble times to which we have been + recurring, small Fishermen indeed, essaying upon minnows; angling + for quirks, not _men_." + +The phrase "Managers and R.A.s" refers to the papers on Elliston and +George Dawe which had preceded this essay, although the Elliston essay +had not been ranged under the heading "Peter's Net." The George Dawe +paper is in Vol. I. of this edition. + +Page 252, line 25. _Basilian water-sponges._ The Basilian order of +monks were pledged to austerity; but probably Lamb intended merely a +joke upon his friend Basil Montagu's teetotalism (see note in Vol. +I. to "Confessions of a Drunkard," a paper quoted in Montagu's _Some +Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors_). In John Forster's +copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_, in the South Kensington Museum, +a legacy from Elia, there is written "Basil Montagu!" against +this passage. Moreover the context runs, "we were right toping +Capulets"--as opposed to the (Basil) Montagus. + +Page 253, line 23. _Bob Allen._ See the essay on "Christ's Hospital" +and note. + +Page 253, line 24. _The "Oracle."_ This daily paper was started in the +1780's by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, as a rival to _The +World_ (see below). + +Page 253, line 31. _Mr. Deputy Humphreys._ I am disappointed to have +been able to find nothing more about this Common Council butt. + +Page 254, lines 11 and 12. _The "True Briton_," _the "Star_," _the +"Traveller_." _The True Briton_, a government organ in the 1790's, +which afterwards assimilated Cobbett's Porcupine. _The Star_ was +founded by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, in 1788. It was +the first London evening paper to appear regularly. _The Traveller_, +founded about 1803, still flourishes under the better-known title of +_The Globe_. + +Page 254, lines 24-26. _Este ... Topham ... Boaden_. Edward Topham +(1751-1820), author of the _Life of John Elwes_, the miser, founded +_The World_, a daily paper, in 1787. Parson Este, the Rev. Charles +Este, was one of his helpers. James Boaden (1762-1839), dramatist, +biographer and journalist, and editor of _The Oracle_ for some years, +wrote the _Life of Mrs. Siddons_, 1827. + +Page 254, foot. _The Albion_. Lamb's memory of his connection with +_The Albion_ was at fault. His statement is that he joined it on the +sale of the _Morning Post_ by Stuart, which occurred in 1803; but as a +matter of fact his association with it was in 1801. This we know from +his letters to Manning in August of that year, quoting the epigram on +Mackintosh (see below) and announcing the paper's death. Mackintosh, +says Lamb, was on the eve of departing to India to reap the fruits of +his apostasy--referring to his acceptance of the post of Recordership +of Bombay offered to him by Addington. But this was a slip of memory. +Mackintosh's name had been mentioned in connection with at least +two posts before this--a judgeship in Trinidad and the office of +Advocate-General in Bengal, and Lamb's epigram may have had reference +to one or the other. In the absence of a file of _The Albion_, which I +have been unable to find, it is impossible to give exact dates or to +reproduce any of Lamb's other contributions. + +Page 255, line 6. _John Fenwick_. See the essay "The Two Races of +Men," and note. Writing to Manning on September 24, 1802, Lamb +describes Fenwick as a ruined man hiding from his creditors. In +January, 1806, he tells Stoddart that Fenwick is "coming to town on +Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison." +And we meet him again as late as 1817, in a letter to Barron Field, on +August 31, where his editorship of The Statesman is mentioned. In +Mary Lamb's letters to Sarah Stoddart there are indications that Mrs. +Fenwick and family were mindful of the Lambs' charitable impulses. + +After "Fenwick," in the _Englishman's Magazine_, Lamb wrote: "Of him, +under favour of the public, something may be told hereafter." It is +sad that the sudden discontinuance of the magazine with this number +for ever deprived us of further news of this man. + +Page 255, line 11. _Lovell_. Daniel Lovell, subsequently owner and +editor of _The Statesman_, which was founded by John Hunt, Leigh +Hunt's brother, in 1806. He had a stormy career, much chequered by +imprisonment and other punishment for freedom of speech. He died in +1818. + +Page 255, line 20. _Daily demands of the Stamp Office._ The newspaper +stamp in those days was threepence-halfpenny, raised in 1815 to +fourpence. In 1836 it was reduced to a penny, and in 1855 abolished. + +Page 255, line 28. _Accounted very good men now._ A hit, I imagine, +particularly at Southey (see note to "The Tombs in the Abbey"). Also +at Wordsworth and Mackintosh himself. + +Page 256, line 3. _Sir J----s M----h_. Sir James Mackintosh +(1765-1832), the philosopher, whose apostasy consisted in his public +recantation of the opinions in favour of the French Revolution +expressed in his _Vindiciae Gallicae_, published in 1791. In 1803 he +accepted the offer of the Recordership of Bombay. Lamb's epigram, +which, as has been stated above, cannot have had reference to this +particular appointment, runs thus in the version quoted in the letter +to Manning of August, 1801:-- + + Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, + In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: + When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf, + He went away, and wisely hang'd himself: + This thou may'st do at last; yet much I doubt, + If thou hash any bowels to gush out. + +Page 256, line 6. _Lord ... Stanhope_. This was Charles, third earl +(1753-1816), whose sympathies were with the French Revolution. His +motion in the House of Lords against interfering with France's +internal affairs was supported by himself alone, which led to a medal +being struck in his honour with the motto, "The Minority of One, +1795;" and he was thenceforward named "Minority," or "Citizen," +Stanhope. George Dyer, who had acted as tutor to his children, was one +of Stanhope's residuary legatees. + +Page 256, line 10. _It was about this time ..._ With this sentence +Lamb brought back his essay to its original title, and paved the way +for the second part--now printed under that heading. + +At the end of this paper, in the _Englishman's Magazine_, were the +words, "To be continued." For the further history of the essay see the +notes that follow. + + * * * * * + +Page 256. BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF +MODERN ART. + +_Athenaeum_, January 12, 19, 26, and February 2, 1833, where it was +thus entitled: "On the Total Defects of the Quality of Imagination, +observable in the Works of Modern British Artists." By the Author of +the Essays signed "Elia." + +The following editorial note was prefixed to the first +instalment:--"This Series of Papers was intended for a new periodical, +which has been suddenly discontinued. The distinguished writer having +kindly offered them to the ATHENAEUM, we think it advisable to perfect +the Series by this reprint; and, from the limited sale of the work in +which it originally appeared, it is not likely to have been read by +one in a thousand of our subscribers." + +The explanation of this passage has been made simple by the researches +of the late Mr. Dykes Campbell. Lamb intended the essay originally for +the _Englishman's Magazine_, November number, to follow the excursus +on newspapers. But that magazine came to an end with the October +number. In the letter from Lamb to Moxon dated October 24, 1831, Lamb +says, referring to Moxon's announcement that the periodical would +cease:--"Will it please, or plague, you, to say that when your Parcel +came I damned it, for my pen was warming in my hand at a ludicrous +description of a Landscape of an R.A., which I calculated upon sending +you to morrow, the last day you gave me." + +That was the present essay. Subsequently--at the end of 1832--Moxon +started a weekly paper entitled _The Reflector_, edited by John +Forster, in which the printing of Lamb's essay was begun. It lasted +only a short time, and on its cessation Lamb sent the ill-fated +manuscript to _The Athenaeum_, where it at last saw publication +completed. Of _The Reflector_ all trace seems to have vanished, and +with it possibly other writings of Lamb's. + +In _The Athenaeum_ of December 22, 1832, the current _Reflector_ (No. +2) is advertised as containing "An Essay on Painters and Painting by +Elia." + +Page 256, line 1 of essay. _Hogarth_. Compare Lamb's criticism of +Hogarth, Vol. I. + +Page 256, foot. _Titian's "Ariadne."_ This picture is now No. 35 +in the National Gallery. Writing to Wordsworth in May, 1833, it is +amusing to note, Lamb says: "Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling +with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition +it served me as illustrative." The legend of Ariadne tells that after +being abandoned by Theseus, whom she loved with intense passion, she +was wooed by Bacchus. + +Page 258, line 2. _Somerset House._ See note above to the essay on +"Newspapers." + +Page 258, line 14. _Neoteric ... Mr. ----_. Probably J.M.W. Turner and +his "Garden of the Hesperides," now in the National Gallery. It is +true it was painted in 1806, but Lamb does not describe it as a +picture of the year and Turner was certainly the most notable +neoteric, or innovator, of that time. + +Page 259, line 1. _Of a modern artist._ In _The Athenaeum_ this +had been printed "of M----," meaning John Martin (1789-1854). His +"Belshazzar's Feast," which Lamb analyses below, was painted in 1821, +and made him famous. It was awarded a L200 premium, and was copied on +glass and exhibited with great success as an illuminated transparency +in the Strand. Lord Lytton said of Martin that "he was more original, +more self-dependent, than Raphael or Michael Angelo." Lamb had +previously expressed his opinion of Martin, in a letter to Bernard +Barton, dated June 11, 1827, in a passage which contains the germ +of this essay:--"Martin's Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen. +Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, +the squalling, contorted little antics that are playing at being +frightened, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a +mask, are detestable. Then the _letters_ are nothing more than a +transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a +sudden at a Christmas Gambol, to scare the ladies. The _type_ is +as plain as Baskervil--they should have been dim, full of mystery, +letters to the mind rather than the eye." + +Page 259, line 13. _The late King_. George IV., who built, when Prince +of Wales, the Brighton Pavilion. As I cannot find this incident in any +memoirs of the Regency, I assume Lamb to have invented it, after his +wont, when in need of a good parallel. "Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name" +stands of course for Mrs. Fitzherbert. + +Page 259, line 33. _The ingenious Mr. Farley_. Charles Farley +(1771-1859), who controlled the pantomimes at Covent Garden from 1806 +to 1834, and invented a number of mechanical devices for them. He also +acted, and had been the instructor of the great Grimaldi. Lamb alludes +to him in the essay on "The Acting of Munden." + +Page 262, line 10. "_Sun, stand thou still ..._" See Joshua x. 12. +Martin's picture of "Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still" was +painted in 1816. Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, +Lamb says: "Just such a confus'd piece is his Joshua, fritter'd into +1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there--you should +see only the _Sun_ and _Joshua_ ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes +finding him out." + +Page 262, line 29. _The great picture at Angerstein's_. This picture +is "The Resurrection of Lazarus," by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, with +the assistance, it is conjectured, of Michael Angelo. The picture is +now No. 1 in the National Gallery, the nucleus of which collection was +once the property of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823). Angerstein's +art treasures were to be seen until his death in his house in Pall +Mall, where the Reform Club now stands. + +Page 263, line 35. _The Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend_. See +the _Biographia Literaria_, 1847 ed., Vol. II., pp. 126-127. + +Page 265, line 5. "_Truly, fairest Lady ..._" The passage quoted by +Lamb is from Skeltoa's translation of _Don Quixote_, Part II., Chapter +LVIII. The first sentence runs: "Truly, fairest Lady, Actaeon was not +more astonished or in suspense when on the sodaine he saw Diana," and +so forth. + +Page 266, line 9. "_Guzman de Alfarache_." The Picaresque romance by +Mateo Aleman--_Vida y Lechos del picaro Guzman de Alfarache_, Part I., +1599; Part II., 1605. It was translated into English by James Mabbe in +1622 as _The Rogue; or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache_. Lamb had a +copy, which is now in my possession, with Mary Lamb's name in it. + + * * * * * + +Page 266. REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE. + +_London Magazine_, January, 1823. + +This paper, being printed in the same number as that which announced +Elia's death, was signed "Elia's Ghost." + +Lamb returned to this vein of fancy two years or so later when (in +1825) he contributed to his friend William Hone's _Every-Day Book_ +the petition of the Twenty-Ninth of February, a day of which Hone had +taken no account, and of the Twelfth of August, which from being kept +as the birthday of King George IV. during the time that he was Prince +of Wales, was, on his accession to the throne, disregarded in favour +of April 23, St. George's Day. For these letters see Vol. I. of this +edition. + +Page 271, line 15. "_On the bat's back ..._" From Ariel's song in +"The Tempest." Lamb confesses, in at least two of his letters, to a +precisely similar plight. + + * * * * * + +Page 271. THE WEDDING. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1825. + +The wedding was that of Sarah Burney, daughter of Lamb's old friends, +Rear-Admiral James Burney and his wife Sarah Burney, to her cousin, +John Payne, of Pall Mall, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, in April, +1821. The clergyman was the Rev. C.P. Burney, who was not, however, +vicar of St. Mildred's in the Poultry, but of St. Paul's, Deptford, in +Kent. Admiral Burney lived only six months longer, dying in November. + +Canon Ainger pointed out that when Lamb was revising this essay for +its appearance in the _Last Essays of Elia_, he was, like the admiral, +about to lose by marriage Emma Isola, who was to him and his sister +what Miss Burney had been to her parents. She married Edward Moxon in +July, 1833. + +Page 274, line 8. _An unseasonable disposition to levity_. Writing to +P.G. Patmore in 1827 Lamb says: "I have been to a funeral, where I +made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners." Again, +writing to Southey: "I am going to stand godfather; I don't like the +business; I cannot muster up decorum for these occasions; I shall +certainly disgrace the font; I was at Hazlitt's marriage and was like +to have been turned out several times during the ceremony. Anything +awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral." + +Page 274, line 24. _Miss T----s_. In the _London Magazine_ "Miss +Turner's." + +Page 274, line 27. _Black ... the costume of an author_. See note +below. + +Page 274, line 29. _Lighter colour_. Here the _London Magazine_ had: +"a pea-green coat, for instance, like the bridegroom." + +Page 274, line 34. _A lucky apologue_. I do not find this fable; but +Lamb's father, in his volume of poems, described in a note on page +381, has something in the same manner in his ballad "The Sparrow's +Wedding":-- + + The chatt'ring Magpye undertook + Their wedding breakfast for to cook, + He being properly bedight + In a cook's cloathing, black and white. + +Page 275, foot. _The Admiral's favourite game_. Admiral Burney wrote a +treatise on whist (see notes to "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist"). + + * * * * * + +Page 276. THE CHILD ANGEL. + +_London Magazine_, June, 1823. + +Thomas Moore's _Loves of the Angels_ was published in 1823. Lamb used +it twice for his own literary purposes: on the present occasion, with +tenderness, and again, eight years later, with some ridicule, for +his comic ballad, "Satan in Search of a Wife," 1831, was ironically +dedicated to the admirers of Moore's poem (see Vol. IV.). + + * * * * * + +Page 279. A DEATH-BED. + +Hone's _Table Book_, Vol. I., cols. 425-426, 1827. Signed "L.," and +dated London, February 10, 1827. The essay is very slightly altered +from a letter written by Lamb to Crabb Robinson, January 20, 1827, +describing the death of Randal Morris. It was printed in the first +edition only of the _Last Essays of Elia_; its place being taken +afterwards by the "Confessions of a Drunkard," an odd exchange. The +essay was omitted, in deference, it is believed, to the objection of +Mrs. Norris to her reduced circumstances being made public. As the +present edition adheres to the text of the first edition, "The +Death-Bed" is included in its original place as decided by the author. +The "Confessions of a Drunkard" will be found in Vol. I. + +Randal Norris was for many years sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple +(see postscript to the essay on the "Old Benchers"). Writing to +Wordsworth in 1830 Lamb spoke of him as "sixty years ours and our +father's friend." An attempt has been made to identify him with the +Mr. Norris of Christ's Hospital who was so kind to the Lambs after the +tragedy of September, 1796. I cannot find any trace of Randal Norris +having been connected with anything but the law and the Inner Temple; +but possibly the Mr. Norris of the school was a relative. + +Mrs. Randal Norris was connected with Widford, the village adjoining +Blakesware, where she had known Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother. It was +thither that she and her son retired after Randal Norris's death, to +join her daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss Jane, who had a school for +girls known as Goddard House School. Lamb kept up his friendship with +them to the end, and they corresponded with Mary Lamb after his death. +Mrs. Norris died in 1843, aged seventy-eight, and was buried at +Widford. The grave of Richard Norris, the son, is also there. He died +in 1836. One of the daughters, Elizabeth, married Charles Tween, of +Widford, and lived until 1894. The other daughter, Jane, married +Arthur Tween, his brother, and lived until 1891. + +Mary Lamb was a bridesmaid at the Norris's wedding and after the +ceremony accompanied the bride and bridegroom to Richmond for the day. +So one of their daughters told Canon Ainger. + +Crabb Robinson seems to have exerted himself for the family, as Lamb +wished. Mr. W.C. Hazlitt says that an annuity of L80 was settled upon +Mrs. Norris. + +Page 279, last line. _To the last he called me Jemmy_. In the letter +to Crabb Robinson--"To the last he called me Charley. I have none to +call me Charley now." + +Page 280, line 2. _That bound me to B----_. In the letter to Crabb +Robinson--"that bound me to the Temple." + +Page 280, line 14. _Your Corporation Library_. In the letter--"The +Temple Library." + +Page 280, line 19. _He had one Song_. Garrick's "Hearts of Oak." + + * * * * * + +Page 281. OLD CHINA. + +_London Magazine_, March, 1823. + +This essay forms a pendant, or complement, to "Mackery End in +Hertfordshire," completing the portrait of Mary Lamb begun there. +It was, with "The Wedding," Wordsworth's favourite among the _Last +Essays_. + +Page 282, line 23. _The brown suit_. P.G. Patmore, in his +recollections of Lamb in the _Court Journal_, 1835, afterwards +reprinted, with some alterations, in his _My Friends and +Acquaintances_, stated that Lamb laid aside his snuff-coloured suit +in favour of black, after twenty years of the India House; and he +suggests that Wordsworth's stanzas in "A Poet's Epitaph" was the +cause:-- + + But who is he, with modest looks, + And clad in homely russet brown? + He murmurs near the running brooks + A music sweeter than their own. + + He is retired as noontide dew, + Or fountain in a noon-day grove; + And you must love him, ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love. + +Whatever Patmore's theory may be worth, it is certain that Lamb +adhered to black after the change. + +Page 282, line 25. _Beaumont and Fletcher_. See note to "Books and +Reading." + +Page 282, line 27. _Barker's_. Barker's old book-shop was at No. 20 +Great Russell Street, over which the Lambs went to live in 1817. It +had then, however, become Mr. Owen's, a brazier's (Wheatley's _London +Past and Present_ gives Barker's as 19, but a contemporary directory +says 20). Great Russell Street is now Russell Street. + +Page 282, line 30. _From Islington_. This would be when Lamb and his +sister lived at 36 Chapel Street, Pentonville, a stone's throw from +the Islington boundary, in 1799-1800, after the death of their father. + +Page 283, line 11. _The "Lady Blanch._" See Mary Lamb's poem on this +picture, Vol. IV. and note. + +Page 283, line 15. _Colnaghi's_. Colnaghi, the printseller, then in +Cockspur Street, now Pall Mall East. After this word came in the +_London Magazine_ "(as W---- calls it)." The reference, Mr. Rogers +Rees tells me, is to Wainewright's article "C. van Vinkbooms, his +Dogmas for Dilletanti," in the same magazine for December, 1821, where +he wrote: "I advise Colnaghi and Molteno to import a few impressions +immediately of those beautiful plates from Da Vinci. The ... and Miss +Lamb's favourite, 'Lady Blanche and the Abbess,' commonly called +'Vanitas et Modestia' (Campanella, los. ed.), for I foresee that this +Dogma will occasion a considerable call for them--let them, therefore, +be ready." + +Page 283, line 5 from foot. _To see a play_. "The Battle of Hexham" +and "The Surrender of Calais" were by George Colman the Younger; "The +Children in the Wood," a favourite play of Lamb's, especially with +Miss Kelly in it, was by Thomas Morton. Mrs. Bland was Maria Theresa +Bland, _nee_ Romanzini, 1769-1838, who married Mrs. Jordan's brother. +Jack Bannister we have met, in "The Old Actors." + +Page 286, line 12. _The Great yew R----_. This would be Nathan Meyer +Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the +family and the greatest financier of modern times. + + * * * * * + +Page 286. POPULAR FALLACIES. + +This series of little essays was printed in the _New Monthly Magazine_ +in 1826, beginning in January. The order of publication there was not +the same as that in the _Last Essays of Elia_; one of the papers, +"That a Deformed Person is a Lord," was not reprinted by Lamb at all +(it will be found in Vol. I. of this edition); and two others were +converted into separate essays (see "The Sanity of True Genius" and +"The Genteel Style in Writing"). + +After Lamb's death a new series of Popular Fallacies was contributed +to the _New Monthly Magazine_ by L.B. (Laman Blanchard) in 1835, +preceded by an invocation to the spirit of Charles Lamb. + +Page 286. I.--THAT A BULLY is ALWAYS A COWARD. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287, line 1. _Hickman_. This would be Tom Hickman, the pugilist. +In Hazlitt's fine account of "The Fight," Hickman or the Gas-Man, +"vapoured and swaggered too much, as if he wanted to grin and bully +his adversary out of the fight." And again, "'This is the _grave +digger_' (would Tom Hickman exclaim in the moments of intoxication +from gin and success, showing his tremendous right hand); 'this will +send many of them to their long homes; I haven't done with them yet.'" +But he went under to Neale, of Bristol, on the great day that Hazlitt +describes. + +Page 287, line 2. _Him of Clarissa_. Mr. Hickman, in Richardson's +novel _Clarissa_, the lover of Miss Bayes. + +Page 287. II.--THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 287. III.--THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288, line 12. _In Mandeville_. In Bernard Mandeville's Fable of +the Bees, a favourite book of Lamb's. See Vol. I., note to "The Good +Clerk." + +Page 288. IV.--THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 288. V.--THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 290. VI.--THAT ENOUGH is AS GOOD AS A FEAST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291. VII.--OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE +WRONG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 291, line 4 from foot. _Little Titubus_. I do not know who this +was, if any more than an abstraction; but it should be remembered that +Lamb himself stammered. + +Page 292. VIII.--THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Page 292. IX.--THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1826. + +Compare the reflections on puns in the essay on "Distant +Correspondents." Compare also the review of Hood's _Odes and +Addresses_ (Vol. I.). Cary's account of a punning contest after Lamb's +own heart makes the company vie with each in puns on the names +of herbs. After anise, mint and other words had been ingeniously +perverted Lamb's own turn, the last, was reached, and it seemed +impossible that anything was left for him. He hesitated. "Now then, +let us have it," cried the others, all expectant. "Patience," he +replied; "it's c-c-cumin." + +Page 293, line 18. _One of Swift's Miscellanies_. This joke, often +attributed to Lamb himself, will be found in _Ars Punica, sine flos +Linguarum, The Art of Punning; or, The Flower of Languages_, by Dr. +Sheridan and Swift, which will be found in Vol. XIII. of Scott's +edition of Swift. Among the directions to the punster is this:-- + +Rule 3. The Brazen Rule. He must have better assurance, like Brigadier +C----, who said, "That, as he was passing through a street, he made to +a country fellow who had a hare swinging on a stick over his shoulder, +and, giving it a shake, asked him whether it was his own _hair_ or a +periwig!" Whereas it is a notorious Oxford jest. + +Page 294, line 8. _Virgil ... broken Cremona_. Swift (as Lamb +explained in the original essay in the _New Monthly Magazine_), seeing +a lady's mantua overturning a violin (possibly a Cremona), quoted +Virgil's line: "Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!" (_Eclogues_, +IX., 28), "Mantua, alas! too near unhappy Cremona." + +Page 294. X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. + +Whether a Mrs. Conrady existed, or was invented or adapted by Lamb to +prove his point, I have not been able to discover. But the evidence of +Lamb's "reverence for the sex," to use Procter's phrase, is against +her existence. _The Athenaeum_ reviewer on February 16, 1833, says, +however, quoting the fallacy: "Here is a portrait of Mrs. Conrady. We +agree with the writer that 'no one that has looked on her can pretend +to forget the lady.'" The point ought to be cleared up. + +Page 296. XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, April, 1826. + +Page 297, line 13. _Our friend Mitis_. I do not identify Mitis among +Lamb's many friends. + +Page 297, line 11 from foot. _Presentation copies_. The late Mr. +Thomas Westwood, the son of the Westwoods with whom the Lambs lived +at Edmonton, writing to Notes and Queries some thirty-five years ago, +gave an amusing account of Lamb pitching presentation copies out of +the window into the garden--a Barry Cornwall, a Bernard Barton, a +Leigh Hunt, and so forth. Page 298, line 6. _Odd presents of game_. +Compare the little essay on "Presents of Game," Vol. I. + +Page 298. XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826. In that place the first sentence +began with the word "Two;" the second ended with "of our assertions;" +and (fourteenth line of essay) it was said of the very poor man +that he "can ask" no visitors. Lamb, in a letter, wished Wordsworth +particularly to like this fallacy and that on rising with the lark. + +Page 300, line 9. _It has been prettily said_. By Lamb himself, or +more probably by his sister, in _Poetry for Children_, 1809. See "The +First Tooth," Vol. III., which ends upon the line + + A child is fed with milk and praise. + +Page 301, line 3. _There is yet another home_. Writing to Mrs. +Wordsworth on February 18, 1818, Lamb gives a painful account, very +similar in part to this essay, of the homeless home to which he was +reduced by visitors. But by the time he wrote the essay, when all his +day was his own, the trouble was not acute. He tells Bernard Barton +on March 20, 1826, "My tirade against visitors was not meant +_particularly_ at you or A.K. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not +just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_." Compare +the first of the "Lepus" papers in Vol. I. + +Page 301, line 20. _It is the refreshing sleep of the day_. After this +sentence, in the magazine, came this passage:-- + + "O the comfort of sitting down heartily to an old folio, and + thinking surely that the next hour or two will be your own--and + the misery of being defeated by the useless call of somebody, who + is come to tell you, that he is just come from hearing Mr. Irving! + What is that to you? Let him go home, and digest what the good man + said to him. You are at your chapel, in your oratory." + +Mr. Irving was the Rev. Edward Irving (1792-1834), whom Lamb knew +slightly and came greatly to admire. + +Page 302. XIII.--THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "A Bachelor's Complaint." I cannot identify the particular +friend whom Lamb has hidden under asterisks; although his cousin would +seem to have some likeness to one of the Bethams mentioned in the +essay "Many Friends" (Vol. I.), and in the letter to Landor of +October, 1832 (usually dated April), after his visit to the Lambs. + +Page 304, line 15. _Honorius dismiss his vapid wife_. Writing to +Bernard Barton on March 20, 1826, Lamb says:--"In another thing I +talkd of somebody's _insipid wife_, without a correspondent object in +my head: and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way) has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are numerous. I send out a character +every now and then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my +friends." + +Page 304, line 11 from foot. _Merry, of Delia Cruscan memory_. Robert +Merry (1755-1798), an affected versifier who settled in Florence as a +young man, and contributed to the _Florence Miscellany_. He became +a member of the Delia Cruscan Academy, and on returning to England +signed his verses, in _The World_, "Delia Crusca." A reply to his +first effusion, "Adieu and Recall to Love," was written by Mrs. Hannah +Cowley, author of _The Belle's Stratagem_, and signed "Anna Matilda;" +this correspondence continued; a fashion of sentiment was thus +started; and for a while Delia Cruscan poetry was the rage. The +principal Delia Cruscan poems were published in the _British Album_ +in 1789, and the collection was popular until Gifford's _Baviad_ +(followed by his _Maeviad_) appeared in 1791, and satirised its +conceits so mercilessly that the school collapsed. A meeting with Anna +Matilda in the flesh and the discovery that she was twelve years his +senior had, however, put an end to Merry's enthusiasm long before +Gifford's attack. Merry afterwards threw in his lot with the French +Revolution, and died in America. He married, as Lamb says, Elizabeth +Brunton, an excellent tragic actress, in 1791. But that was in +England. The journey to America came later. + +The story of Merry's avoidance of the lady of his first choice is +probably true. Carlo Antonio Delpini was a famous pantomimist in his +day at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket. He also was +stage manager at the Opera for a while, and occasionally arranged +entertainments for George IV. at Brighton. He died in 1828. + +Page 305. XIV.--THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Compare "The Superannuated Man," to which this little essay, which, +with that following, is one of Lamb's most characteristic and perfect +works, serves as a kind of postscript. + +Page 308. XV.--THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, February, 1826. + +Page 309. XVI.--THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE. + +_New Monthly Magazine_, September, 1826. + +This was the last of the series and Lamb's last contribution to the +_New Monthly Magazine_. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Page 315. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, ETC. + +See notes to the essays "On Some of the Old Actors," "The Artificial +Comedy" and "The Acting of Munden." Two portions of these essays, not +reprinted by Lamb, call for comment: the story of the first night of +"Antonio," and the account of Charles Mathews' collection of pictures. + +Page 328, line 14 from foot. _My friend G.'s "Antonio."_ William +Godwin's tragedy, produced on December 13, 1800, at Drury Lane. Lamb +had written the epilogue (see Vol. IV.). Compare the letter to Manning +of December 16, 1800. + +Page 329, line 28. _M. wiped his cheek_. Writing to Godwin after the +failure Lamb says: "The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, +looked not to be more lovely than Marshal's forehead when it spit +forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines +by Marvel ... + + "'Where every Mower's wholesome heat + Smells like an Alexander's sweat.'" + +And again, to Manning: "His [Marshal's] face was lengthened, and all +over perspiration; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; I could +have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. 'From every pore of him a +perfume fell.'" + +Page 329, foot. _R----s the dramatist_. I imagine this to be Frederic +Reynolds (1764-1841), author of "The Dramatist" and many other plays. +We know Lamb to have known him later, from a mention in a letter to +J.B. Dibdin. + +Page 330, foot, _Brutus ... Appius_. Brutus in "Julius Caesar," or +possibly in the play called "Brutus," by John Howard Payne, Lamb's +friend (produced December 3, 1818), in which Brutus kills his son--a +closer parallel. Appius was probably a slip of the pen for Virginius, +who in Sheridan Knowles' drama that bears his name kills his daughter +to protect her from Appius. + +Page 331, line 7. _G. thenceforward_. Godwin did, however, write +another play, "Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote the prologue. It was +moderately successful. + +Page 331, 1st line of essay. _I do not know, etc_. The paragraph +beginning with these words is often printed by editors of Lamb as +a separate article entitled "The Old Actors." Charles Mathews' +collection of theatrical portraits is now in the Garrick Club. In +his lifetime it occupied the gallery at Ivy Lodge, Highgate (or more +properly Kentish Town). A year or so before Mathews' death in 1835, +his pictures were exhibited at the Queen's Bazaar in Oxford Street, +Lamb's remarks being printed in the catalogue _raisonne_. + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Accountants, Lamb on, 3. +Actors and acting, Lamb's essays on, 150, 161, 168, 185, 188, 190, 230, + 315, 322, 331. +Actors among Lamb's friends, 232. +Adams, Parson, 49. +Agar's wish, 348. +Aguecheek, Lamb on, 155. +Ainger, Canon, his notes on Lamb, 345, 353, 361, 403, 436, 438. +_Albion, The_, and Lamb, 254, 429, 432. +Alice W----n, 32, 44, 116, 117, 339, 363, 389. +ALL FOOLS' DAY, 48, 367. +Allen, Bob, 25, 253, 355, 431. +Allsop, Thomas, quoting Lamb, 357. +---- and "Roast Pig," 396. +---- quotes Lamb on G.H., 425. +Almsgiving, Lamb on, 137. +Alsatia, the debtors' sanctuary, 162. +America, Lamb relics in, 344, 357, 358, 362, 412. +AMICUS REDIVIVUS, 237, 424. +Anatomy and love, 64. +_Anatomy of Melancholy_ quoted, 46. +Andre, Major, 237, 424. +Anna Matilda, 443. +Antiquity, Lamb on, 11. +"Antonio," by Godwin, 328, 444. +_Arcadia, The_, by Sidney, 242. +Arrowsmith, Aaron, 369. +"Artaxerxes," 113, 387. +Artificial comedy, Lamb's essay on, 161, 399. +Artists, their want of imagination, 256. +Arundel Castle and the chimney-sweep legend, 127. +_As when a child on some long winter's night_, 388. +_Athenaeum, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 433. +_Athenian Oracle, The_, 303. +Australia, Lamb on, 122. +Ayrton, William, 361, 363. + +B + +BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE, 144, 397. +Badams, Mrs., 362. +Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 340. +Bannister, Jack, 159, 185, 399, 408. +BARBARA S----, 230, 421. +Barker's book-shop, 282, 439. +BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF MODERN ART, + 256, 433. +Barrington, Daines, 101, 383. +Bartholomew Fair, 128, 391. +Barton, Bernard, Lamb's letters to, 341, 406, 417, 420, 435, 442. +-- Thomas, 102, 383. +Baskett prayer-book, 9. +Battle, Mrs., 37, 175, 406. +---- on whist, 37. +---- her identity, 361. +Beaumont and Fletcher, Lamb's copy, 357. +Beauty, Lamb on, 295. +"Beggar's Petition," 394. +Begging, Lamb's essay on, 130, 392. +Belisarius, 131. +"Belshazzars Feast," Martin's picture of, 259, 434. +Benchers, The Old, Lamb's essay on, 94. +Bensley, Robert, 152, 318, 398. +Betty, Master, 414. +Bigod, Ralph, Lamb's name for Fenwick, 27, 356. +Billet, John, 184. +Binding, Lamb on, 412. +_Blackwood's Magazine_ and Scott, 340. +Blake, William, and Lamb, 391. +BLAKESMOOR IN H----SHIRE, 174, 405. +Blakesware near Widford, 115, 174, 388, 405. +Bland, Mrs., 283, 439. +Blandy, Miss, the poisoner, 98, 380. +Bodkin, W.H., 392. +_Book of Sports, The_, 418. +Books, Lamb on, 34, 360. +-- that are not books, 195, 411. +Booth's _Tables of Interest_ and Lamb, 419. +Borrowing, Lamb on, 26. +Bourne, Vincent, 133, 393. +Bowles, William Lisle, 38, 362. +Boyer, James, 23, 353. +Braham, John, 71, 371. +Breeding, Lamb on, 288. +Bridget, Elia. _See_ Elia. +Brighton and the Lambs, 415. +-- Lamb's imaginery scene there, 259. +British Museum, a careful vandal, 357. +Browne, Moses, 404. +-- Sir Thomas, 58, 66, 80. +Bruce, James, 240, 425. +Bruton, Miss Sarah, 376. +Brutons, Lamb's relations, 88, 89. +Buckland, Dean, and the American vandal, 424. +Bullies, Lamb on, 286, 440. +_Buncle, The Life of_, 30, 357. +Burney, Edward, 65, 370. +-- James, 361. +Burney, Martin, 200, 414. +-- Mrs., and Mrs. Battle, 361. +-- Sarah, her wedding, 271, 436. +Burns, Robert, and Lamb, 70, 370. +Burton, Robert, quoted, 46, 77. +_Business! the frivolous pretence_, 419. +Button Snap, Lamb's cottage, 385, 386, 387. +_But who is he, with modest looks_, 438. + + +C + +Cambridge, Lamb at, 345. +Camelford, Lord, 121, 390. +Candle-light, Lamb on, 308. +CAPTAIN JACKSON, 215, 416. +Card playing, essay on, in _Every-Day Book_, 362. +Carlisle, Sir Anthony, 193, 372, 410. +Cary, H.F., his verses on Lamb, 426. +-- on Lamb's puns, 441. +Cave, Edward, 344. +Chambers, John, 224, 419. +Chapman's _Homer_ kissed by Lamb, 412. +CHAPTER ON EARS, A, 43, 363. +CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA, A, 171, 402. +Chess and Mrs. Battle, 42. +CHILD ANGEL, THE, 276, 437. +Children and the dark, 77. +Chimney-sweepers, Lamb's essay on, 124, 390. +CHINA, OLD, 281, 438. +-- its first roast pork, 138. +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO, 14, 350. +---- prayer-book, 9. +---- food in Lamb's day, 14, 350. +---- holidays in Lamb's day, 15, 351. +---- the dungeon, 19. +---- flogging, 23. +---- Grecians, 26, 355. +---- its graces, 110, 384. +---- the Coleridge memorial, 354. +---- the Lamb medal, 355. +Clapdishes, 131. +"Cobbler of Preston," by Johnson, 170, 401. +Cockletop, in "Modern Antiques," 168, 400. +Colebrooke cottage, 425. +Coleridge, Hartley, on Lamb, 400. +-- S.T., at Christ's Hospital, 15, 350, 351. +-- his wit combats, 25. +-- his treatment of books, 29, 356. +-- his "Ode on the Departing Year," 31, 359. +-- on apple-dumplings, 108, 384. +-- his "Epitaph on an Infant," 141, 397. +-- on Boyer, 353. +-- and the Christ's Hospital memorial, 354. +-- his military name, 356. +-- Lamb's letters to, 356, 368, 396. +-- his marginalia, 358. +-- his notes in Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +------ in Donne, 358. +-- on Lamb, 359. +-- Lamb's letter to, concerning Quakers, 368. +-- and Christopher North, 371. +-- his sonnets with Lamb, 388. +-- and the _Morning Post_, 429, 430. +Colet, Dean, his _Accidence_, 59. +Colnaghi's print shop, 283, 439. +Comberback, Coleridge's military name, 29, 356. +_Come, all degrees now passing by_, 391. +Comedy and its licence, 161. +COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS, 130, 392. +CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD, 437. +Congreve, Lamb on, 160, 162. +Conrady, Mrs., 294, 441. +CONVALESCENT, THE, 208, 416. +Corbet, Peter, 404. +Coventry, Thomas, 97, 380. +Cowards and bullies, 286. +Cowley, on business, 419. +Crawford, Anne, 423. +Cresseid, 131. +Curry, Sir Christopher, in "Inkle and Yarico," 169, 401. + + +D + +Da Vinci, Leonardo, and Lamb's beauty, 69, 370. +Dawson, Bully, 287. +Days, Lamb's fantasy upon, 266. +DEATH-BED, A, 279, 437. +Delia Cruscan poetry, 443. +Delpini, 305, 443. +Dennis, John, 292. +De Quincey on Lamb, 377. +DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING, 195, 411. +Dickens anticipated by Lamb, 356, 417. +Disputes, Lamb on, 291. +DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG, 137, 395. +DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS, 118, 389. +Dobell, Mr. Bertram, his notes on Lamb, 342, 395, 408. +Doctor, the, at Islington, 238. +Dodd, James William, 155. +Dodwell, Henry, 224, 419. +Dornton in "The Road to Ruin," 169, 401. +Dorrell, William, the Lambs' enemy, 32, 360. +DREAM-CHILDREN, 115, 388. +Dreams, Lamb on, 79. +Drowning in dreams, 241. +Drury Lane Theatre, 111, 385. +Dyer, George, 11, 237, 241, 347, 348, 349, 424, 425, 433. +---- and the New River, 237, 424. + +E + +Early rising, Lamb on, 305. +East India House, Lamb at, 219. +------ Lamb's superannuation, 219, 417. +------ Lamb's fellow clerks, 223, 224, 403, 404. +Edwards, Thomas, 92, 379. +Eel-soup, 374. +Elgin marbles, 225, 419. +ELIA, 1823, suggested dedication, 337. +-- its poor reception, 338. +-- second series. American edition, 339. +Elia, F.A., 337. +-- Lamb on, 8. +-- his death, 171. +-- Lamb's character of, 171, 402. +-- origin of name, 337. +-- his birthplace, 365. +-- Bridget (Mary Lamb), 43, 362. +---- her taste in reading, 86. +---- her regrets for poverty, 282. +ELLISTON, TO THE SHADE OF, 188, 409. +ELLISTONIANA, 190, 410. +Elliston, R.W., Lamb's essays on, 188, 190, 409, 410. +---- at Leamington, 190. +---- his grave, 411. +---- Lamb and Munden on an excursion, 410. +Elton, Sir C.A., his poem to Lamb, 358. +Emery, John, 186, 409. +Endor, the Witch of, 75, 372. +_Englishman's Magazine_, 342. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 188, 190, 249. +Evans, William, 3, 343. +Evelyn, John, quoted, 72. +_Every-Day Book_, essay on card-playing, 362. +_Examiner, The_, and Lamb's "Chimney-Sweepers," 392. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 63, 168. +---- "On a visit to St. Paul's," 424. +Example, Lamb on, 288. +Excursions, the Lambs', 283. + + +F + +_Faerie Queene_, Lamb's copy, 413. +FALLACIES, POPULAR. _See_ POPULAR FALLACIES. +_Family Pictures_, by Anne Manning, 378. +Farley, Charles, 169, 259, 401, 435. +"Father, A," his remonstrance with Lamb, 360. +Favell, Joseph, 25, 181, 355, 408. +Feasting, Lamb on, 290. +Fenwick, John, 27, 129, 255, 356, 432. +Field, Barron, 90, 118, 363, 377, 389. +-- Mary, 361, 405. +-- Matthew, 20, 352. +Fielde, Francis, Lamb's godfather, 111, 385. +Flecknoe, quoted, 51. +Flogging, Lamb on, 23. +Fools, Lamb's essay on, 48, 367. +Fountains, Lamb on, 96. +Fox, George, 53, 368. +French translation of Lamb, 415. +Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 71. +Funerals and Lamb, 274, 436. + + +G + +Gallantry, Lamb on, 90, 377. +"Garden, The," by Marvell, 96. +Gattie, Henry, 186, 408. +Gebir and the Tower of Babel, 49. +_Gebir_, by Landor, 206, 415. +GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING, THE, 226, 420. +Gentility, Lamb on, 176. +George IV., 259, 268, 435, 436. +Gladmans, Lamb's relations, 88, 89, 90. +_Gli Elogi del Porco_, 396. +Gluttony and grace, Lamb on, 105. +Godwin, William, his play "Antonio," 328, 444. +-- Lamb's friend, 376. +-- Lamb's letter to, 444. +Gold's _London Magazine_, 395. +GRACE BEFORE MEAT, 104, 384. +Graces at Christ's Hospital, 110, 384. +Gray's Inn Gardens, 155, 399. +Grecians at Christ's Hospital, 26, 355. +Greg, Mr. Thomas, and Lamb's property, 385. +Guildhall giants, 29. +_Gulliver's Travels_, 382. + + +H + +Hare Court, Lamb's rooms in, 390. +"Harlequin's Invasion," 113, 387. +Hastings and the Lambs, 206, 416. +Hawes, Dr., 241. +Hazlitt, William, on Sidney, 247, 427. +---- on Lamb in the country, 345. +---- knocked down by John Lamb, 347. +---- his interest in John Buncle, 357. +---- as Duns Scotus, 367. +---- Lamb's letter to, 397. +---- on Lamb, 403. +---- his wedding, 436. +-- W.C., his notes on Lamb, 357, 438. +Helicon and Hippocrene confused, 37. +Hertfordshire hair, 178. +-- and Lamb, 220, 418. +-- Lamb's praise of, 375. +_He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind_, 428. +Heywood, Thomas, quoted, 67. +Hickman, Tom, the prize fighter, 287, 440. +_High-born Helen, round your dwelling_, 407. +Hodges (or Huggins), 352. +Hogarth, his chimney-sweeper, 126. +Hogsflesh and Bacon, 415. +Hogs Norton and the pigs, 109. +Holcroft, Thomas, 376. +Hone's _Table Book_, Lamb's contribution to, 279. +Hood, Thomas, his friendship with Lamb, 393. +---- on beggars, 393. +Hooker, Richard, 104, 384. +Hoole, John, 404. +Horsey, Samuel, 135, 393. +Huggins (or Hodges), 352. +Hugh of Lincoln, 70, 371. +Hume, David, 70, 371. +-- Joseph, Lamb's friend, 394. +Humphreys, Mr. Deputy, 253. +Hunt, Leigh, and Lamb, 360. +---- chaffed by Lamb, 364. +Hunt, Leigh, replies to Lamb, 365. +---- and Lamb's "Chimney Sweepers," 392. +---- on Lamb's books, 412. +---- his translation of Milton, 426. +-- Thornton, 77, 372. +Hutchinson, Sarah, Lamb's letter to, 417. + + +I + +_I can remember when a child the maids_, 372. +_I have not forgot how thou didst love thy Charles_, 350. +Illusion on the stage, 185. +Imagination, its lack in the artists of Lamb's day, 256. +Imitators of Lamb, 339. +IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES, 66, 370. +Ino Leucothea, 79. +Ireland, Dean, 423. +Irving, Edward, and Lamb, 442. +Isola, Emma, 436. + + +J + +JACKSON, CAPTAIN, 215, 416. +-- "Omniscient," 102, 383. +"Janus Weathercock." _See_ Wainewright. +Jekyll, Joseph, 97, 379. +_John Woodvil_ quoted, 368, 372. +Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 250, 344, 383. +Jokes to order, Lamb on, 252. +Jonson, Ben, quoted, 89. +Jordan, Mrs., 151, 398. +Joshua, Martin's picture of, 262, 435. +Journalism and Lamb, 251. + + +K + +Kelly, Fanny, and BARBARA S----, 421. +---- and Mrs. Siddons, 422. +Kemble, John Philip, 153, 168, 327, 398. +Kenney, James, 30, 357. +Kent, Charles, his edition of Lamb, 421. +King, Thomas, 166, 400. + + +L + +"Lady of the Manor," 113, 387. +Lamb, Charles, on the South-Sea House, 1. +---- on accountants, 3. +---- on Elia, 8. +---- on Oxford, 10. +---- on antiquity, 11. +---- on old libraries, 11. +---- on George Dyer, 11. +---- on his school-days, 14. +---- on Coleridge's school-days, 14. +---- on Matthew Fielde, 21. +---- on James Boyer, 22. +---- on borrowers and borrowing, 26. +---- on John Fenwick, 27. +---- on Coleridge as a book borrower, 29. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle, 30. +---- on the New Year, 31. +---- on bells, 31. +---- on his childhood, 32, 75. +---- on the joy of life, 33. +---- on death, 34. +---- on Mrs. Battle and whist, 37, +---- his want of ear, 43. +---- his piano playing, 44. +---- on oratorios, 45. +---- on Novello's evenings, 47. +---- on fools, 48. +---- on Quakers, 51, 55, 72. +---- on silence, 51. +---- on Sewel's _History_, 53. +---- on John Woolman, 54. +---- and the Quaker "wit," 55. +---- his reading, 56. +---- on schoolmasters, 59. +---- on Valentine's Day, 63. +---- on anatomy and love, 64. +---- on door knocks, 64. +---- on Edward Burney's valentine, 65. +---- on imperfect sympathies, 66. +---- on Scotchmen, 67. +---- on Jews, 70. +---- on Braham, 71. +---- on negroes, 71. +---- on Quakers, 72. +---- on witches, 74. +---- on his childhood, 75. +---- on children and the dark, 77. +---- on Thornton Hunt's bringing up, 77. +---- on dreams, 79. +---- on his relations, 80. +---- on Sarah Lamb, 80. +---- on John Lamb, jr., 81, 117. +---- on his sister Mary, 86. +---- his dislike of stories, 86. +---- on the Duchess of Newcastle again, 87. +---- on Mackery End, 88. +---- his Hertfordshire relations, 88. +---- on the comely Brutons, 89. +---- on gallantry, 90. +---- on Joseph Paice, 92. +---- on the Temple, 94. +---- on sun-dials, 95. +---- on fountains, 96. +---- on the old Benchers, 97. +---- on Joseph Jekyll, 97. +---- on Samuel Salt, 98, 103. +---- on Thomas Coventry, 99. +---- on his father, 99. +---- on Daines Barrington, 101. +---- on James Mingay, 102. +---- on Baron Maseres, 103. +---- on saying grace, 104. +---- on Milton, 107. +---- his godfather Field, 111. +---- as a landed proprietor, 112. +---- his first play, 112. +---- and his imaginary children, 115. +---- his grandmother, 115. +---- on Blakesware, 116. +---- on distant correspondents, 118. +---- on Lord Camelford's whim, 121. +---- on puns, 122. +---- on Australia, 122. +---- on chimney-sweepers, 124. +---- on Saloop, 125. +---- and fine teeth, 127. +---- and James White, 128. +---- on beggars, 130. +---- his translation from Bourne, 133. +Lamb, Charles, on Samuel Horsey, 135. +---- on almsgiving, 137. +---- on the origin of roast pig, 137. +---- on roast pig, 140. +---- and his plum cake, 142. +---- on married people, 144. +---- on "Twelfth Night," 150. +---- on Mrs. Jordan, 151. +---- on Mrs. Powel, 151. +---- on Bensley's Malvolio, 152. +---- on Dodd's Aguecheek, 155. +---- on Dicky Suett, 157. +---- on Jack Bannister, 159. +---- on Jack Palmer, 159, 165. +---- on the artificial comedy, 161. +---- on Wycherley and Congreve, 162. +---- on the "School for Scandal," 164. +---- on J.P. Kemble, 168. +---- on Munden's faces, 169. +---- on Elia's death, 172. +---- on family mansions, 174. +---- on Blakesware, 175. +---- on the feeling of gentility, 176. +---- on poor relations, 178. +---- on Favell's sensitiveness, 181. +---- on John Billet, 183. +---- on stage illusion, 185. +---- on Gattie's old men, 186. +---- on Emery as Tyke, 186. +---- on Elliston, 188, 190. +---- entertains Elliston, 194. +---- on reading, 195. +---- on books that are not books, 195. +---- on binding, 196. +---- on editions of the great authors, 197. +---- on the names of poets, 198. +---- on Shakespeare, 198. +---- his adventure on Primrose Hill, 199. +---- on watering-places, 201. +---- on the voyage to Margate, 21. +---- on a good liar, 202. +---- on the ocean, 205. +---- on Hastings, 206. +---- on smuggling, 207. +---- on convalescence, 208. +---- on the sanity of genius, 212. +---- on Captain Jackson, 215. +---- on his clerk-state, 219. +---- his superannuation, 221. +---- on leisure, 222. +---- on the genteel style in writing, 226. +---- on Sir William Temple, 226. +---- on Miss Kelly's reminiscence. 230. +---- on his friends among actors, 232. +---- on Westminster Abbey fees, 235. +---- on Andrews monument, 237. +---- on George Dyer's immersion, 237. +---- on the Islington doctor, 238, +---- on the New River, 240. +---- on drowning in dreams, 241. +---- on Sidney's sonnets, 242. +---- on Milton's Latin sonnet, 243. +---- on Hazlitt s opinion of Sidney, 248. +---- on James Bruce, 250. +---- on Dan Stuart, 250. +---- on the _Morning Post_ days, 250. +---- on joking to order, 252. +---- on Bob Allen, 253. +---- on _The Albion_, 254. +---- and Sir James Mackintosh, 256. +---- on modern painters, 256. +---- on Titian's "Ariadne," 256. +---- on Raphael, 257. +---- on J.M.W. Turner, 258. +---- his imaginary scene at Brighton, 259. +---- on John Martin, 260. +---- on Don Quixote, 264. +---- his fantasy on the Days, 266. +---- on Miss Burney's wedding, 271. +---- on mothers and daughters, 273. +---- on his behaviour on solemn occasions, 274. +Lamb, Charles, on Admiral Burney, 275. +---- his fantasy on the child angel, 276. +---- on Randal Norris's death, 279. +---- on old china, 281. +---- his sister's regrets for poverty, 282. +---- and the folio Beaumont and Fletcher, 282. +---- and his sister's excursions, 283. +---- and his sister's playgoing, 283. +---- on bullies and cowards, 286. +---- on ill-gotten gains, 287. +---- on jokes and laughter, 287. +---- on breeding, 288. +---- on the poor and the rich, 288. +---- on sayings concerning money, 290. +---- on disputants, 291. +---- on puns, 292. +---- on Mrs. Conrady, 294. +---- on beauty, 295. +---- on presents, 296. +---- on home, 298. +---- on friendship, 302. +---- on Merry's wedding day, 304. +---- on early rising, 305. +---- on superannuation, 307. +---- on going to bed late, 308. +---- on candle-light, 308. +---- on sulky tempers, 309. +---- on Kemble in Godwin's "Antonio," 329. +---- on Mathews' collection of portraits, 331. +---- on the name Elia, 337. +---- his dedication to _Elia_, 337, +---- his imitators, 339. +---- his Key to _Elia_, 339. +---- and the _London Magazine_, 340. +---- on Taylor's editing, 341. +---- his _post London Magazine_ days, 342. +---- at the South-Sea House, 342. +---- in the country, 345. +---- at Oxford, 346. +---- his sonnet on Cambridge, 346. +---- on Milton's MSS., 346. +---- his jokes with George Dyer, 347. +---- on George Dyer's career, 348, 349. +---- his lines to his aunt, 350. +---- his popularity at school, 355. +---- on Grecians and Deputy-Grecians, 355. +---- on reading and borrowing, 356. +---- and Luther's _Table Talk_, 357. +---- Coleridge as a reader, 357. +---- his copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, 357. +---- his copy of Donne, 358. +---- his books in America, 358. +---- his reply to "Olen," 358. +---- his sonnet "Leisure," 359. +---- Coleridge's description of him, 359. +---- on Coleridge's "Ode," 359. +---- his sonnet on Innocence, 360. +---- rebuked by "A Father," 360. +---- and the Burneys, 361. +---- elementary rules of whist, 362. +---- his ear for music, 363. +---- weathering a Mozartian storm, 364. +---- his chaff of Hunt, 364. +---- on Elia's ancestors, 364. +---- chaffed by Hunt, 365. +---- Maginn thinks him a Jew, 365. +---- on birthplaces, 365. +---- on turning Quaker, 368. +---- kisses a copy of Burns, 371. +---- his threat concerning Burns, 371. +---- rebuked by Christopher North, 371. +---- his admiration of Braham, 371. +---- on Sir Anthony Carlisle, 372. +---- his sisters, 373. +---- on John Lamb's pamphlet, 374. +Lamb, Charles, his cousins, 376. +---- his blank verse fragment, 377. +---- on Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," 377. +---- De Quincey's description of him, 377. +---- his chivalry, 377. +---- Barry Cornwall's anecdote of him, 377. +---- his birthplace, 379. +---- his patron, 380. +---- his father, 381. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +---- and Southey's criticism of _Elia_, 384. +---- as a landowner, 385. +---- his letter to his tenant, 386. +---- and his mother, 387. +---- his sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, 388. +---- and Alice W----, 389. +---- his love period, 389. +---- and chimney-sweepers, 390. +---- at Bartholomew Fair, 391. +---- his acquaintance with Hood, 393. +---- his joke to a beggar, 394. +---- on the "Beggar's Petition," 394. +---- his joke on Wainewright, 395. +---- the origin of his "Roast Pig," 395. +---- his recantation, 397. +---- his aunts, 397. +---- on Mrs. John Rickman, 397. +---- criticised by Macaulay, 399. +---- praised by Hartley Coleridge, 400. +---- on Elia's character, 402. +---- on the East India House clerks, 404. +---- letter to Southey about Blakesware, 406. +---- letter to Barton on same subject, 406. +---- his excursion with Elliston and Munden, 410. +---- his books described by Leigh Hunt, 412. +---- his affectation of affectation, 414. +---- and watering-places, 415. +---- at Hastings, 416. +---- leaves the India House, 417. +---- letter to Barton on his liberty, 417. +---- on the Puritans, 418. +---- his love of walking, 419. +---- his sonnet on "Work," 419. +---- his remark to Macready, 423. +---- his remark to Allsop about Dyer, 425. +---- the last book he read, 426. +---- on Lord's Thurlow's poems, 427. +---- his paragraphs for the _Morning Post_, 429. +---- as he appeared to Dan Stuart, 430. +---- his epigrams on Mackintosh, 433. +---- his real opinion of Titian's "Ariadne," 434. +---- letter to Barton on John Martin, 435. +---- at Hazlitt's wedding, 436. +---- his clothes, 438. +---- his pun at Cary's, 441. +---- his treatment of presentation copies, 441. +-- Elizabeth, Lamb's mother, 387. +-- John (Lovel), 100, 381. +---- his boyhood, 183, 408. +---- quoted, 437. +---- jr., his character, 81. +---- his childhood, 117. +---- at the South-Sea House, 344. +---- and Hazlitt, 347. +---- his _Letter ... on Cruelty to Animals_, 374. +---- his death, 388. +-- Mary (Bridget Elia), Lamb's sister, 43, 86, 362, 376. +---- her account of a schoolmaster, 62. +---- a quaint poetess, 200, 414. +---- her first play, 387. +---- her poem "Helen," 407. +-- Sarah (Lamb's aunt), 15, 142, 350, 397. +---- her character, 80. +Lamb, Sarah, her sarcasm, 184. +-- family, 81, 373. +"LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA," 339. +Laughter, Lamb on, 287. +"Lazarus, The Raising of," by Piombo, 262, 435. +Le Grice, Charles Valentine, 25, 110, 354, 384. +---- Samuel, 25, 355. +Leisure, Lamb on, 420. +Letter-writing, Lamb on, 118. +Liar, a good, 202. +Libraries, Lamb on, 11. +_Life of John Buncle_, by Amory, 30, 357. +Lincoln, John Lamb's boyhood, 183, 408. +Liston, John, 169, 401, 423. +Lloyd, Charles, 360. +Lombardy and the pawnbrokers, 254. +London, Lamb's homes in, 379. +_London Magazine_, history of, 340. +---- Lamb's contributions to, 1-56, 66-185, 195-208, 215, 219, 230, + 235, 237, 242, 271, 276, 281, 315, 322, 331. +---- Lamb's last contribution to, 408. +Love and anatomy, 64. +"Love for Love," by Congreve, 160. +Lovel. _See_ John Lamb. +Lovell, Daniel, 255, 432. +Lully, Raymond, 49, 196. +"Lun's Ghost," 113, 387. +Luther's _Table Talk_ and Coleridge, 357. +"Lycidas" in its original form, 346. + + +M + +Macaulay, Lord, 399. +MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 86, 375. +Mackintosh, Sir James, 433. +Macready, W.C., and Lamb, 423. +Maginn, William, 365. +Make-believe, an artist in, 215. +Malone, Edmund, 198, 413. +Malvolio, the character of, 316. +Man, Henry, 6, 344. +Manning, Miss Anne, quoted, 378. +-- Thomas, 56, 369. +---- and "Roast Pig," 137, 396. +---- Lamb's letter to, 376, 444. +---- and Baron Maseres, 383. +Margate, Lamb at, 415. + Hoy, Lamb's essay on, 201, 415. +Marriage, Lamb on, 144. +Married people, Lamb's essay on, 144, 397. +Marshal, Godwin's friend, 329, 444. +Martin, John, 259, 434. +Marvell, Andrew, quoted, 96, 176. +Maseres, Baron, 103, 383. +Mathews, Charles, his pictures, 331, 445. +Mendicity, Society for Suppression of, 130, 392. +Merry, Robert, 304, 443. +Micawber, Wilkins, anticipated, 356, 417. +Middleton, Thomas Fanshaw, 23, 24, 354. +Milton, John, on education, 60, 369. +---- Lamb on, 107. +---- adapted by Lamb, 188. +---- on the _Arcadia_, 242. +---- and the civil war, 242. +---- his Latin sonnet, "Ad Leonoram," 243, 426. +---- Lamb's copy of, 412. +Mingay, James, 102, 383. +MODERN GALLANTRY, 90, 377. +Money, sayings concerning, 290. +Montagu, Basil, 12, 252, 348, 431. + Lady Mary Wortley, 381. +Montgomery, James, and Lamb, 390. +Moore, Thomas, his _Loves of the Angels_, 276, 437. +Moore's _Diary_ quoted, 411. +_Morning Chronicle_ and Lamb, 429, 431. +-- _Herald_, 413. +-- _Post_ and Lamb, 249, 429. +Mothers and daughters, Lamb on, 273. +"Mourning Bride," Mary Lamb's first play, 387. +Moxon, Lamb's letter to, 434. +Mozart, Lamb copes with, successfully, 364. +"Mr. H." and Elliston, 409. +MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST, 37, 361. +Munden, Joseph Shepherd, 168, 400. +Music, Lamb's difficulty with, 44, 363. +MY FIRST PLAY, 110, 385. +_My good friend, for favours to my son and wife_, 382. +MY RELATIONS, 80, 373. + + +N + +Names of poets, Lamb on, 198. +Negroes, Lamb on, 71. +_New Monthly Magazine_, 342. +------ Lamb's contributions to, 212, 226, 286-309. +New River, the, and G.D., 237, 424. +NEW YEAR'S EVE, 31, 358. +Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 30, 87, 131, 197, 357, 393, 412. +NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, 249, 428. +Newspaper stamps, 433. +Night-fears, Lamb on, 77. +_Nobleman, The Unfortunate Young_, 81. +Norris, Randal, 279, 416, 437. +North, Christopher (John Wilson), 371. +Novello, Vincent, 47, 363. +Nyren, John, 363. + + +O + +_Odes and Addresses_ quoted, 392. +OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG, 291, 440. +Ogilvie, his memories of G.D., 424. +OLD ACTORS, THE, 322, 444. +-- BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE, THE, 94, 379. +-- CHINA, 281, 438. +-- MARGATE HOY, THE, 201, 415. +OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER, THE, 56, 369. +"Olen," Sir C.A. Elton's pseudonym, 358. +_O melancholy Bird, a winter's day_, 427. +_One parent vet is left,--a wretched thing_, 382. +ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS, 150, 397. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN, 168, 400. _See_ also APPENDIX. +ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY, 161, 399. _See_ also + APPENDIX. +Orrery lectures, 60, 370. +OXFORD IN THE VACATION, 8, 345. +Oxford, Lamb at, 8, 345. + + +P + +Paice, Joseph, 92, 343, 378. +Palmer, John, 159, 399. +Paltock's _Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +Paracelsus, Lamb on, 196. +_Paradise Regained_, 107. +Patmore, P.G., on Lamb, 403. +---- Lamb's letter to, 436. +---- on Lamb's dress, 438. +Peirson, Peter, 101, 382. + Susannah, 99, 381. +Penn, William, and the judges, 73. +Perry, James, 250, 431. +_Peter Wilkins_, 21, 122, 353. +"Peter's Net," 428, 431. +Pianoforte, Lamb's solo, 44. +Pig, Lamb's essay upon, 137, 395. +Piombo, his "Raising of Lazarus," 262, 435. +Piquet and Mrs. Battle, 41. +_Pity the sorrows of a poor old man_, 394. +Playgoing, the Lambs, 283. +Plumer, Richard, 7, 344. +-- Walter, 7, 40, 345, 362. +-- William, 344, 389, 405. +_Poetical Pieces on Several Occasions_ by John Lamb, 381. +Polar expeditions, 58, 369. +Poor, Lamb on the, 288, 298. +POOR RELATIONS, 178, 408. +Pope, Alexander, _The Rape of the Lock_, 38. +-- Miss, 167, 400. +POPULAR FALLACIES, 212, 226, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 292, 294, 296, 298, + 302, 305, 308, 309, 439 _et seq_. +Pork, Lamb's essay on, 137. +Porphyry on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, 396. +Poverty and pleasure, 282. +Powell, Mrs., 151. +PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS, THE, 124, 390. +Presentation copies, Lamb on, 297, 441. +Presents, Lamb on, 296. +Procter, B.W. (Barry Cornwall), his dream, 79, 373. +---- quoted, 371, 377. +---- on Munden, 400. +Puckeridge and Lamb's property, 112. +Pulham, Brook, 363. +Punning, Lamb on, 122, 292, 441. +Puritans and Sunday, 418. + + +Q + +Quadrille and Mrs. Battle, 38. +Quakerism and Lamb, 368. +QUAKER'S MEETING, A, 51, 367. +Quarrels, Lamb on, 309. +Quick, John, 332. +Quixote, Don, 154, 265, 398, 435. + + +R + +Ramsay, London Librarian, 49, 367. +Raphael, his "Bible," 257. +Raymond, George, his _Memoirs of Elliston_, 410. +Reade, John, 102, 383. +Reading, Lamb's essay upon, 195, 411. +Red stockings, and Lamb's jokes, 251, 429. +_Reflector, The_, Lamb's contribution to, 144. +---- Moxon's paper, 434. +REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE, 266, 436. +Relations, poor, Lamb s essay on, 178, 408. +Restoration comedy, Lamb on, 160, 161. +Rickman, Mrs. John, Lamb's opinion of, 397. +Robinson, Crabb, quoted, 370. +---- Lamb's letters to, 374, 437. +---- on Lamb's books, 411. +Romano, Julio, 263. +Rover, in "Wild Oats," 188. +Roydon, Matthew, his elegy upon Sidney, 248, 428. +Rutter, Mr. J.A., his notes on Lamb, 343. + + +S + +St. Dunstan's giants, 192, 410. +Saloop, Lamb on, 125. +Salt, Samuel, 98, 352, 380. +Samuel and the Witch of Endor, 75, 372. +Sandwich, Lord, epigram on, 344. +SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS, 212, 416. +Sargus, Mr. Lamb's tenant, 386. +"School for Scandal," Lamb on, 164. +School-days, Lamb on his, 14. +Schoolmasters, Lamb's essay on, 56, 369. +Scotchmen, Lamb on, 67, 371. +Scott, John, editor of the _London_, 340. +Sea, the, Lamb on, 204. +Sedition, Lamb's exercises in, 255. +Selden, John, 104, 384. +Sensitiveness, Lamb on, 181. +Sewel, William, historian of Quakers, 369. +Shaftesbury, Lord, 226, 420. +Shakespeare, Lamb on, 197, 412. +-- his bust at Stratford-on-Avon, 198, 413. +Sharp, Granville, 50, 367. +Shenstone, William, 243, 426. +Sheridan, R.B., 26, 111, 167, 356, 385, 400. +Siddons, Mrs., in "Isabella," 114, 388. +Sidney, Sir Philip, his sonnets, 242, 426. +Sitting up late, Lamb on, 308. +Smith, the Scotchman, 69, 370. + John Thomas, 394. +Smollett, Tobias George, 70, 371. +Smuggling, Lamb on, 207. +SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 242, 426. +_So should it be, my gentle friend_, 426. +South Downs, Lamb on, 415. +SOUTH-SEA HOUSE, THE, 1, 342. +Southey at Westminster School, 235. +-- Robert, his criticism of _Elia_, 359. +-- Lamb's letters to, 384, 406, 419, 423, 436. +Spencer, Lord, epigram on, 344. +Spenser, Lamb's copy of the _Faerie Queene_, 413. +Stackhouse's _History of the Bible_, 75, 372. +STAGE ILLUSION, 185, 408. +Stanhope, Lord, 433. +Stocks, Lamb in the, 363. +_Stranger, to whom this monument is shown_, 413. +Stuart, Daniel, 250, 429. 430. +Suett, Dicky, 157, 399. +Sulkiness, its pleasures, 309. +Sun-dials in the Temple, 95. +SUPERANNUATED MAN, THE, 219, 417. +Superannuation, Lamb on, 219, 307. +Surface, Joseph and Charles, 166. +Swift's _Ars Punica_, 293, 441. + + +T + +Taylor, Bishop, on the sunrise, 309. +-- John, 337, 341, 358. +Teeth, Lamb's admiration of, 127. +Temple, The, and Lamb, 94, 113, 379, 387. +-- the winged horse, 97. +-- Sir William, 226, 420, +THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD, 286, 440. +-- A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST, 287, 440. +-- A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE, 309, 443. +-- ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST, 290, 440. +-- HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES, 294, 441. +-- HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY, 298, 442. +-- ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS, 287, 440. +-- SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC., 288, 440. +-- THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH, 288, 440. +-- THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST, 292, 440. +-- VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, ETC., 292, 440. +-- WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH. 296, 441. +-- WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAME, 308, 443. +-- WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK, 305, 443. +-- YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG, 302, 442. +_The chatt'ring Magpye undertook_, 437. +Thelwall, John, 376. +_They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke_, 359. +Thomson, James, 70. +_Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black_, 433. +Thurlow, Lord, his sonnet, 427. +Tipp, John, 5, 343. +Titian, his "Ariadne," 256, 434. +_To every one (so have ye faith) is given_, 426. +TO THE SHADE OK ELLISTON, 188, 409. +Tobin, James Webbe, 16, 352. +-- John, 199, 413. +TOMBS IN THE ABBEY, THE, 235, 423. +_Tristram Shandy_, a parallel to Lamb, 403. +Trollope, A.W., quoted, 351. +_Turkish Spy_ and Lamb's roast-pig essay, 395. +Turner, J.M.W., 258, 434. +"Twelfth Night," Lamb's remarks on, 150, 153, 284, 316. +Twelve Caesars, 405, 406. +_Two Lords whose names if I should quote_, 344. +TWO RACES OF MEN, THE, 26, 355. +Twopenny, Richard, 102, 383. +-- post in 1825, 370. + + +U + +Ugliness, Lamb on, 295. +Unitarianism, 81, 373. + + +V + +VALENTINE'S DAY, 63, 370. +Vallans, his "Tale of Two Swans," 375. +Virgil, his Latin pun, 294, 441. +Visitors, Lamb on, 301, 442. + + +W + +Wainewright, T.G., 395, 439. +Ward, Robert, afterwards Plumer-Ward, 405. +Watering-places, Lamb on, 201, 415. +Weathercock, Janus. _See_ Wainewright. +WEDDING, THE, 271, 436. +-- an interrupted, 305. +Westminster Abbey, the price for admission, 235, 423. +Westwood, Thomas, on Lamb, 441. +_We were two pretty babes, the youngest she_, 360. +Wharry, John, 102, 383. +_What can be hop'd from Priests who, 'gainst the Poor_, 424. +_What seem'd his tail the likeness of a kingly kick had on_, 409. +Whist, 37, 275, 361, 362, 437. +White, James, 123, 157, 390, 391. +---- and the chimney-sweepers, 128. +---- and Dodd, 157. +"Wild Oats," 188. +_Who first invented work--and bound the free_, 419. +Wilson, John. _See_ Christopher North. +Winstanley, Susan, and Joseph Paice, 92. +WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS, 74, 372. +Woolman, John, 54, 369. +Wordsworth, Mrs., Lamb's letter to, 442. +-- William, his "Yarrow Visited," 89, 377. +---- Lamb's letters to, 356, 388, 412, 417, 418, 434. +---- his theory of language, 394. +---- his "Anecdote for Fathers," 395. +---- his "Poet's Epitaph," 438. +"Work," Lamb's sonnet on, 419. +Worthing and the Lambs, 415. +Wrench, Benjamin, 191, 410. +Wycherley, Lamb on, 162. + + +Y + +_Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers_, 346. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB, +VOLUME 2*** + + +******* This file should be named 10343.txt or 10343.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/4/10343 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10343.zip b/old/10343.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ff0d42 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10343.zip |